Kipling: Poems Read online

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This selection by Peter Washington first published in

  Everyman’s Library, 2007

  Copyright © 2007 by Everyman’s Library

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York. Published in the United Kingdom by Everyman’s Library, Northburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street, London EC1V 0AT. Distributed by Random House (UK) Ltd.

  US website: www.randomhouse.com/everymans

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-80445-7

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-307-26711-5

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  v3.1

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  ‘When ’omer smote ’is bloomin’ lyre’

  General Summary

  The Undertaker’s Horse

  The Story of Uriah

  Public Waste

  The Lovers’ Litany

  Christmas in India

  The Betrothed

  The Winners

  Danny Deever

  Shillin’ a Day

  Tommy

  The Widow at Windsor

  Gentlemen-Rankers

  Gunga Din

  Mandalay

  The English Flag

  Arithmetic on the Frontier

  ‘Wilful-Missing’

  Giffen’s Debt

  Divided Destinies

  Cells

  The Exiles’ Line

  When Earth’s Last Picture is Painted

  The Law of the Jungle

  Road-Song of the Bandar-Log

  The Married Man

  ‘For to admire’

  Buddha at Kamakura

  From The Jungle Book

  The King

  The Ladies

  Recessional

  The White Man’s Burden

  A School Song

  The Two-Sided Man

  Bridge-Guard in the Karoo

  The Islanders

  The Broken Men

  Sussex

  Chant-Pagan

  Lichtenberg

  Harp Song of the Dane Women

  ‘Rimini’

  The Sons of Martha

  The Explanation

  The Answer

  A Song of Travel

  The Oldest Song

  The Power of the Dog

  The Puzzler

  Norman and Saxon

  Song of the Wise Children

  The Rabbi’s Song

  A Charm

  Cold Iron

  The Way Through the Woods

  Puck’s Song

  A Pict Song

  Merrow Down

  The Run of the Downs

  Just So Verses

  The Two Cousins

  ‘Cities and Thrones and Powers’

  If –

  ‘Our fathers of old’

  The Female of the Species

  The Roman Centurion’s Song

  Dane-Geld

  The Glory of the Garden

  ‘For all we have and are’

  ‘The Trade’

  The Question

  My Boy Jack

  Mesopotamia

  The Deep-Sea Cables

  The Holy War

  Jobson’s Amen

  The Fabulists

  Justice

  The Hyaenas

  Gehazi

  En-Dor

  Gethsemane

  The Craftsman

  The Benefactors

  Natural Theology

  A Death-Bed

  Epitaphs of the War

  The Gods of the Copybook Headings

  Doctors

  Lollius

  The Last Ode

  London Stone

  The Flight

  Chartres Windows

  A Legend of Truth

  We and They

  Untimely

  Gertrude’s Prayer

  The Threshold

  The Expert

  Four-Feet

  The Storm Cone

  The Appeal

  ‘WHEN ’OMER SMOTE ’IS BLOOMIN’ LYRE’

  When ’omer smote ’is bloomin’ lyre,

  He’d ’eard men sing by land an’ sea;

  An’ what he thought ’e might require,

  ’E went an’ took – the same as me.

  The market-girls an’ fishermen,

  The shepherds an’ the sailors, too,

  They ’eard old songs turn up again,

  But kep’ it quiet – same as you!

  They knew ’e stole; ’e knew they knowed.

  They didn’t tell, nor make a fuss,

  But winked at ’Omer down the road,

  An’ ’e winked back – the same as us!

  GENERAL SUMMARY

  We are very slightly changed

  From the semi-apes who ranged

  India’s prehistoric clay;

  He that drew the longest bow

  Ran his brother down, you know,

  As we run men down to-day.

  ‘Dowb’, the first of all his race,

  Met the Mammoth face to face

  On the lake or in the cave:

  Stole the steadiest canoe,

  Ate the quarry others slew,

  Died – and took the finest grave.

  When they scratched the reindeer-bone,

  Some one made the sketch his own,

  Filched it from the artist – then,

  Even in those early days,

  Won a simple Viceroy’s praise

  Through the toil of other men.

  Ere they hewed the Sphinx’s visage

  Favouritism governed kissage,

  Even as it does in this age.

  Who shall doubt the ‘secret hid’

  Under Cheops’ pyramid

  Was that the contractor did

  Cheops out of several millions?

  Or that Joseph’s sudden rise

  To Comptroller of Supplies

  Was a fraud of monstrous size

  On King Pharaoh’s swart Civilians?

  Thus, the artless songs I sing

  Do not deal with anything

  New or never said before.

  As it was in the beginning

  Is to-day official sinning,

  And shall be for evermore.

  THE UNDERTAKER’S HORSE

  ‘To-tschin-shu is condemned to death. How can he drink tea with the Executioner?’ – Japanese Proverb

  The eldest son bestrides him,

  And the pretty daughter rides him,

  And I meet him oft o’ mornings on the Course;

  And there kindles in my bosom

  An emotion chill and gruesome

  As I canter past the Undertaker’s Horse.

  Neither shies he nor is restive,

  But a hideously suggestive

  Trot, professional and placid, he affects;

  And the cadence of his hoof-beats

  To my mind the grim reproof beats: –

  ‘Mend your pace, my friend. I’m coming –

  Who’s the next?’

  Ah! stud-bred of ill-omen,

  I have watched the strongest go – men

  Of pith and might and muscle – at your heels,

  Down the plaintain-bordered highway,

  (Heaven send it ne’er be my way!)

  In a lacquered box and jetty upon wheels.

  Answer, sombre beast and dreary,

  Where is Brown, the young, the cheery?


  Smith, the pride of all his friends and half the Force?

  You were at that last dread dak

  We must cover at a walk,

  Bring them back to me, O Undertaker’s Horse!

  With your mane unhogged and flowing,

  And your curious way of going,

  And that businesslike black crimping of your tail,

  E’en with Beauty on your back, Sir,

  Pacing as a lady’s hack, Sir,

  What wonder when I meet you I turn pale?

  It may be you wait your time, Beast,

  Till I write my last bad rhyme, Beast –

  Quit the sunlight, cut the rhyming, drop the glass –

  Follow after with the others,

  Where some dusky heathen smothers

  Us with marigolds in lieu of English grass.

  Or, perchance, in years to follow,

  I shall watch your plump sides hollow,

  See Carnifex (gone lame) became a corse –

  See old age at last o’erpower you,

  And the Station Pack devour you,

  I shall chuckle then, O Undertaker’s Horse!

  But to insult, jibe, and quest, I’ve

  Still the hideously suggestive

  Trot that hammers out the grim and warning text,

  And I hear it hard behind me

  In what place soe’er I find me: –

  ‘ ’Sure to catch you soon or later. Who’s the next?’

  THE STORY OF URIAH

  ‘Now there were two men in one city;

  the one rich, and the other poor.’

  Jack Barrett went to Quetta

  Because they told him to.

  He left his wife at Simla

  On three-fourths his monthly screw.

  Jack Barrett died at Quetta

  Ere the next month’s pay he drew.

  Jack Barrett went to Quetta.

  He didn’t understand

  The reason of his transfer

  From the pleasant mountain-land.

  The reason was September,

  And it killed him out of hand.

  Jack Barrett went to Quetta

  And there gave up the ghost,

  Attempting two men’s duty

  In that very healthy post;

  And Mrs Barrett mourned for him

  Five lively months at most.

  Jack Barrett’s bones at Quetta

  Enjoy profound repose;

  But I shouldn’t be astonished

  If now his spirit knows

  The reason for his transfer

  From the Himalayan snows.

  And, when the Last Great Bugle Call

  Adown the Hurnai throbs,

  And the last grim joke is entered

  In the big black Book of Jobs,

  And Quetta graveyards give again

  Their victims to the air,

  I shouldn’t like to be the man

  Who sent Jack Barrett there.

  PUBLIC WASTE

  Walpole talks of ‘a man and his price’.

  List to a ditty queer –

  The sale of a Deputy-Acting-Vice-

  Resident-Engineer,

  Bought like a bullock, hoof and hide

  By the Little Tin Gods on the Mountain Side.

  By the Laws of the Family Circle ’tis written in letters

  of brass

  That only a Colonel from Chatham can manage the

  Railways of State,

  Because of the gold on his breeks, and the subjects

  wherein he must pass;

  Because in all matters that deal not with Railways his

  knowledge is great.

  Now Exeter Battleby Tring had laboured from

  boyhood to eld

  On the Lines of the East and the West, eke of the

  North and South;

  Many lines had he built and surveyed – important the

  posts which he held;

  And the Lords of the Iron Horse were dumb when he

  opened his mouth.

  Black as the raven his garb, and his heresies jettier still –

  Hinting that Railways required lifetimes of study and

  knowledge –

  Never clanked sword by his side – Vauban he knew

  not nor drill –

  Nor was his name on the list of the men who had

  passed through the ‘College’.

  Wherefore the Little Tin Gods harried their little

  tin souls,

  Seeing he came not from Chatham, jingled no spurs at

  his heels,

  Knowing that, nevertheless, was he first on the

  Government rolls

  For the billet of ‘Railway Instructor to little Tin Gods

  on Wheels’.

  Letters not seldom they wrote him, ‘having the

  honour to state’,

  It would be better for all men if he were laid on

  the shelf.

  Much would accrue to his bank-book, an he consented

  to wait

  Until the Little Tin Gods built him a berth for himself,

  ‘Special, well paid, and exempt from the Law of the

  Fifty and Five,

  Even to Ninety and Nine’ – these were the terms of

  the pact:

  Thus did the Little Tin Gods (long may Their

  Highness thrive!)

  Silence his mouth with rupees, keeping their

  Circle intact;

  Appointing a Colonel from Chatham who managed

  the Bhamo State Line

  (The one which was one mile and one furlong –

  a guaranteed twenty-inch gauge),

  So Exeter Battleby Tring consented his claims

  to resign,

  And died, on four thousand a month, in the ninetieth

  year of his age!

  THE LOVERS’ LITANY

  Eyes of grey – a sodden quay,

  Driving rain and falling tears,

  As the steamer wears to sea

  In a parting storm of cheers.

  Sing, for Faith and Hope are high –

  None so true as you and I –

  Sing the Lovers’ Litany: –

  ‘Love like ours can never die!’

  Eyes of black – a throbbing keel,

  Milky foam to left and right;

  Whispered converse near the wheel

  In the brilliant tropic night.

  Cross that rules the southern Sky!

  Stars that sweep, and wheel and fly

  Hear the Lovers’ Litany: –

  ‘Love like ours can never die!’

  Eyes of brown – a dusty plain

  Split and parched with heat of June.

  Flying hoof and tightened rein,

  Hearts that beat the old old tune.

  Side by side the horses fly,

  Frame we now the old reply

  Of the Lovers’ Litany: –

  ‘Love like ours can never die!’

  Eyes of blue – the Simla Hills

  Silvered with the moonlight hoar;

  Pleading of the waltz that thrills,

  Dies and echoes round Benmore.

  ‘Mabel’, ‘Officers’, ‘Good-bye’,

  Glamour, wine and witchery –

  On my soul’s sincerity,

  ‘Love like ours can never die!’

  Maidens, of your charity,

  Pity my most luckless state.

  Four times Cupid’s debtor I –

  Bankrupt in quadruplicate.

  Yet, despite this evil case,

  An a maiden showed me grace,

  Four-and-forty times would I

  Sing the Lovers’ Litany: –

  ‘Love like ours can never die!’

  CHRISTMAS IN INDIA

  Dim dawn behind the tamarisks – the sky is

  saffron-yellow –

  As the women in the village grind the corn,

  And the parrots seek the river-side, each calling
to

  his fellow

  That the Day, the staring Eastern Day, is born.

  O the white dust on the highway! O the stenches

  in the byway!

  O the clammy fog that hovers over earth!

  And at Home they’re making merry ’neath the white

  and scarlet berry –

  What part have India’s exiles in their mirth?

  Full day behind the tamarisks – the sky is blue

  and staring –

  As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke,

  And they bear One o’er the field-path, who is past all

  hope or caring,

  To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke.

  Call on Rama, going slowly, as ye bear a

  brother lowly –

  Call on Rama – he may hear, perhaps, your voice!

  With our hymn-books and our psalters we appeal

  to other altars,

  And to-day we bid ‘good Christian men rejoice!’

  High noon behind the tamarisks – the sun is hot

  above us –

  As at Home the Christmas Day is breaking wan.

  They will drink our healths at dinner – those who tell

  us how they love us,

  And forget us till another year be gone!

  O the toil that knows no breaking! O the

  Heimweh, ceaseless, aching!

  O the black dividing Sea and alien Plain!

  Youth was cheap – wherefore we sold it. Gold

  was good – we hoped to hold it.

  And to-day we know the fulness of our gain!

  Grey dusk behind the tamarisks – the parrots fly

  together –

  As the Sun is sinking slowly over Home;

  And his last ray seems to mock us shackled in a

  lifelong tether

  That drags us back howe’er so far we roam.

  Hard her service, poor her payment – she in

  ancient, tattered raiment –

  India, she the grim Stepmother of our kind.

  If a year of life be lent her, if her temple’s shrine

  we enter,

  The door is shut – we may not look behind.

  Black night behind the tamarisks – the owls begin

  their chorus –

  As the conches from the temple scream and bray,

  With the fruitless years behind us and the hopeless

  years before us,