Rudyard Kipling – Justice

Across a world where all men grieve

   And grieving strive the more,

The great days range like tides and leave

    Our dead on every shore.

Heavy the load we undergo,

    And our own hands prepare,

If we have parley with the foe,

    The load our sons must bear.

Before we loose the word

    That bids new worlds to birth,

Needs must we loosen first the sword

    Of Justice upon earth;

Or else all else is vain

    Since life on earth began,

And the spent world sinks back again

    Hopeless of God and Man.

A People and their King

    Through ancient sin grown strong,

Because they feared no reckoning

    Would set no bound to wrong;

But now their hour is past,

    And we who bore it find

Evil Incarnate held at last

    To answer to mankind.

For agony and spoil

    Of nations beat to dust,

For poisoned air and tortured soil

    And cold, commanded lust,

And every secret woe

    The shuddering waters saw—

Willed and fulfilled by high and low—

    Let them relearn the Law:

That when the dooms are read,

    Not high nor low shall say:—

"My haughty or my humble head

    Has saved me in this day."

That, till the end of time,

    Their remnant shall recall

Their fathers' old, confederate crime

    Availed them not at all:

That neither schools nor priests,

    Nor Kings may build again

A people with the heart of beasts

    Made wise concerning men.

Whereby our dead shall sleep

    In honour, unbetrayed,

And we in faith and honour keep

    That peace for which they paid.

October, 1918

Anne Brontë – The Narrow Way

Believe not those who say

The upward path is smooth,

Lest thou shouldst stumble in the way,

And faint before the truth.

It is the only road

Unto the realms of joy;

But he who seeks that blest abode

Must all his powers employ.

Bright hopes and pure delight

Upon his course may beam,

And there, amid the sternest heights,

The sweetest flowerets gleam.

On all her breezes borne,

Earth yields no scents like those;

But he that dares not gasp the thorn

Should never crave the rose.

Arm--arm thee for the fight!

Cast useless loads away;

Watch through the darkest hours of night;

Toil through the hottest day.

Crush pride into the dust,

Or thou must needs be slack;

And trample down rebellious lust,

Or it will hold thee back.

Seek not thy honour here;

Waive pleasure and renown;

The world's dread scoff undaunted bear,

And face its deadliest frown.

To labour and to love,

To pardon and endure,

To lift thy heart to God above,

And keep thy conscience pure;

Be this thy constant aim,

Thy hope, thy chief delight;

What matter who should whisper blame

Or who should scorn or slight?

What matter, if thy God approve,

And if, within thy breast,

Thou feel the comfort of His love,

The earnest of His rest?

Sylvia Plath – A Sorcerer Bids Farewell To Seem

I'm through with this grand looking-glass hotel

where adjectives play croquet with flamingo nouns;

methinks I shall absent me for a while

from rhetoric of these rococo queens.

Item : chuck out royal rigmarole of props

and auction off each rare white-rabbit verb;

send my muse Alice packing with gaudy scraps

of mushroom simile and gryphon garb.

My native sleight-of-hand is wearing out :

mad hatter's hat yields no new metaphor,

and jabberwock will not translate his songs :

it's time to vanish like the cheshire cat

alone to that authentic island where

cabbages are cabbages; kings : kings.

Rabindranath Tagore – Freedom

Freedom from fear is the freedom

I claim for you my motherland!

Freedom from the burden of the ages, bending your head,

breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoning

call of the future;

Freedom from the shackles of slumber wherewith

you fasten yourself in night's stillness,

mistrusting the star that speaks of truth's adventurous paths;

freedom from the anarchy of destiny

whole sails are weakly yielded to the blind uncertain winds,

and the helm to a hand ever rigid and cold as death.

Freedom from the insult of dwelling in a puppet's world,

where movements are started through brainless wires,

repeated through mindless habits,

where figures wait with patience and obedience for the

master of show,

to be stirred into a mimicry of life.

Rabindranath Tagore – Friend

Art thou abroad on this stormy night

on thy journey of love, my friend?

The sky groans like one in despair.

I have no sleep tonight.

Ever and again I open my door and look out on

the darkness, my friend!

I can see nothing before me.

I wonder where lies thy path!

By what dim shore of the ink-black river,

by what far edge of the frowning forest,

through what mazy depth of gloom art thou threading

thy course to come to me, my friend?