Rudyard Kipling – Harp Song of the Dane Women

“The Knights of the Joyous Venture” — Puck of Pook’s Hill

What is a woman that you forsake her,

And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,

To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

She has no house to lay a guest in —

But one chill bed for all to rest in,

That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.

She has no strong white arms to fold you,

But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you—

Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.

Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,

And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,

Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken—

Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters.

You steal away to the lapping waters,

And look at your ship in her winter-quarters.

You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,

The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables—

To pitch her sides and go over her cables.

Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow,

And the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow,

Is all we have left through the months to follow.

Ah, what is Woman that you forsake her,

And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,

To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

Kahlil Gibran – Song of the Soul XXII

In the depth of my soul there is

A wordless song - a song that lives

In the seed of my heart.

It refuses to melt with ink on

Parchment; it engulfs my affection

In a transparent cloak and flows,

But not upon my lips.

How can I sigh it? I fear it may

Mingle with earthly ether;

To whom shall I sing it? It dwells

In the house of my soul, in fear of

Harsh ears.

When I look into my inner eyes

I see the shadow of its shadow;

When I touch my fingertips

I feel its vibrations.

The deeds of my hands heed its

Presence as a lake must reflect

The glittering stars; my tears

Reveal it, as bright drops of dew

Reveal the secret of a withering rose.

It is a song composed by contemplation,

And published by silence,

And shunned by clamor,

And folded by truth,

And repeated by dreams,

And understood by love,

And hidden by awakening,

And sung by the soul.

It is the song of love;

What Cain or Esau could sing it?

It is more fragrant than jasmine;

What voice could enslave it?

It is heartbound, as a virgin's secret;

What string could quiver it?

Who dares unite the roar of the sea

And the singing of the nightingale?

Who dares compare the shrieking tempest

To the sigh of an infant?

Who dares speak aloud the words

Intended for the heart to speak?

What human dares sing in voice

The song of God?

Rudyard Kipling – The Children

("The Honours of War"—A Diversity of Creatures)

1914-18

These were our children who died for our lands: they were dear in our sight.

    We have only the memory left of their home-treasured sayings and laughter.

    The price of our loss shall be paid to our hands, not another’s hereafter.

Neither the Alien nor Priest shall decide on it.    That is our right.

        But who shall return us the children?

At the hour the Barbarian chose to disclose his pretences,

    And raged against Man, they engaged, on the breasts that they bared for us,

    The first felon-stroke of the sword he had long-time prepared for us—

Their bodies were all our defence while we wrought our defences.

They bought us anew with their blood, forbearing to blame us,

Those hours which we had not made good when the Judgment o’ercame us.

They believed us and perished for it.    Our statecraft, our learning

Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning

Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour—

Nor since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed upon her.

Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them.

    The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemption:

    Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our redemption,

Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marveling, closed on them.

That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was given

To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven—

By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled in the wires—

To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes— to be cindered by fires—

To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale mutilation

From crater to crater.    For that we shall take expiation.

        But who shall return us our children?

Sara Teasdale – Song At Capri

When beauty grows too great to bear

How shall I ease me of its ache,

For beauty more than bitterness

Makes the heart break.

Now while I watch the dreaming sea

With isles like flowers against her breast,

Only one voice in all the world

Could give me rest.

Sara Teasdale – There Will Come Soft Rain

There will come soft rain and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,

And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,

If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn

Would scarcely know that we were gone.