Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1051 page)

She rides with half a dozen men,
  (She calls them “boys” and “mashers”)
I trot along the Mall alone;
  My prettiest frocks and sashes
Don’t help to fill my programme-card,
  And vainly I repine
From ten to two A.M. Ah me!
  Would I were forty-nine!

She calls me “darling,” “pet,” and “dear,”
  And “sweet retiring maid.”
I’m always at the back, I know,
  She puts me in the shade.
She introduces me to men,
  “Cast” lovers, I opine,
For sixty takes to seventeen,
  Nineteen to foty-nine.

But even She must older grow
  And end Her dancing days,
She can’t go on forever so
  At concerts, balls and plays.
One ray of priceless hope I see
  Before my footsteps shine;
Just think, that She’ll be eighty-one
  When I am forty-nine.

The Native-Born

1894
We’ve drunk to the Queen — God bless her! —
  We’ve drunk to our mothers’ land;
We’ve drunk to our English brother,
  (But he does not understand);
We’ve drunk to the wide creation,
  And the Cross swings low for the mom,
Last toast, and of Obligation,
  A health to the Native-born!

They change their skies above them,
 But not their hearts that roam!
We learned from our wistful mothers
 To call old England “home”;
We read of the English skylark,
  Of the spring in the English lanes,
But we screamed with the painted lories
  As we rode on the dusty plains!

They passed with their old-world legends —
  Their tales of wrong and dearth  —
Our fathers held by purchase,
  But we by the right of birth;
Our heart’s where they rocked our cradle,
  Our love where we spent our toil,
And our faith and our hope and our honour
  We pledge to our native soil!

I charge you charge your glasses —
  I charge you drink with me
To the men of the Four New Nations,
  And the Islands of the Sea —
To the last least lump of coral
  That none may stand outside,
And our own good pride shall teach us
  To praise our comrade’s pride,

To the hush of the breathless morning
  On the thin, tin, crackling roofs,
To the haze of the burned back-ranges
  And the dust of the shoeless hoofs —
To the risk of a death by drowning,
  To the risk of a death by drouth —
To the men ef a million acres,
  To the Sons of the Golden South!

To the Sons of the Golden South (Stand up!),
  And the life we live and know,
Let a felow sing o’ the little things he cares about,
If a fellow fights for the little things he cares about
  With the weight o a single blow!

To the smoke of a hundred coasters,
  To the sheep on a thousand hills,
To the sun that never blisters,
  To the rain that never chills —
To the land of the waiting springtime,
  To our five-meal, meat-fed men,
To the tall, deep-bosomed women,
  And the children nine and ten!

And the children nine and ten (Stand up!),
  And the life we live and know,
Let a fellow sing o’ the little things he cares about,
If a fellow fights for the little things he cares about
  With the weight of a two-fold blow!

To the far-flung, fenceless prairie
  Where the quick cloud-shadows trail,
To our neighbours’ barn in the offing
  And the line of the new-cut rail;
To the plough in her league-long furrow
  With the grey Lake’ gulls behind —
To the weight of a half-year’s winter
  And the warm wet western wind!

To the home of the floods and thunder,
  To her pale dry healing blue —
To the lift of the great Cape combers,
  And the smell of the baked Karroo.
To the growl of the sluicing stamp-head —
  To the reef and the water-gold,
To the last and the largest Empire,
  To the map that is half unrolled!

To our dear dark foster-mothers,
  To the heathen songs they sung —
To the heathen speech we babbled
  Ere we came to the white man’s tongue.
To the cool of our deep verandah —
  To the blaze of our jewelled main,
To the night, to the palms in the moonlight,
  And the fire-fly in the cane!

To the hearth of Our People’s People —
   To her well-ploughed windy sea,
To the hush of our dread high-altar
  Where The Abbey makes us We.
To the grist of the slow-ground ages,
  To the gain that is yours and mine —
To the Bank of the Open Credit,
  To the Power-house of the Line!

We’ve drunk to the Queen — God bless her!
  We’ve drunk to our mothers’land;
We’ve drunk to our English brother
  (And we hope he’ll understand).
We’ve drunk as much as we’re able,
  And the Cross swings low for the morn;
Last toast-and your foot on the table! —
  A health to the Native-born!

A health to the Nativeborn (Stand up!),
  We’re six white men arow,
All bound to sing o’ the Little things we care about,
All bound to fight for the Little things we care about
  With the weight of a six-fold blow!
By the might of our Cable-tow (Take hands!),
  From the Orkneys to the Horn
All round the world (and a Little loop to pull it by),
All round the world (and a Little strap to buckle it).
  A health to the Native-born!

A Nativity

               1914-18

The Babe was laid in the Manger
  Between the gentle kine —
All safe from cold and danger —
  “But it was not so with mine,
                  (With mine!  With mine!)
  “Is it well with the child, is it well?”
    The waiting mother prayed.
  “For I know not how he fell,
    And I know not where he is laid.”

A Star stood forth in Heaven;
  The Watchers ran to see
The Sign of the Promise given —
  “But there comes no sign to me.
                   (To me! To me!)
  “My child died in the dark.
    Is it well with the child, is it well?
  There was none to tend him or mark,
    And I know not how he fell.”

The Cross was raised on high;
  The Mother grieved beside —
“But the Mother saw Him die
  And took Him when He died.
                   (He died! He died!)
  “Seemly and undefiled
    His burial-place was made —
  Is it well, is it well with the child?
    For I know not where he is laid.”

On the dawning of Easter Day
  Comes Mary Magdalene;
But the Stone was rolled away,
  And the Body was not within —
                   (Within! Within!)
  “Ah, who will answer my word?
    The broken mother prayed.
  “They have taken away my Lord,
    And I know not where He is laid.”

      .    .    .    .    .

“The Star stands forth in Heaven.
  The watchers watch in vain
For Sign of the Promise given
  Of peace on Earth again —

                   (Again! Again!)
  “But I know for Whom he fell” —
    The steadfast mother smiled,
  “Is it well with the child — is it well?
    It is well — it is well with the child!”

Natural Theology

               Primitive

I ate  my fill of a whale that died
    And stranded after a month at sea.   .   .   .
There is a pain in my inside.
  Why have the Gods afflicted me?
Ow!   I am purged till I am a wraith!
 Wow!   I am sick till I cannot see!
What is the sense of Religion and Faith :
  Look how the Gods have afflicted me!

                 Pagan

How can the skin of rat or mouse hold
  Anything more than a harmless flea?.   .   .
The burning plague has taken my household.
  Why have my Gods afflicted me?
All my kith and kin are deceased,
  Though they were as good as good could be,
I will out and batter the family priest,
  Because my Gods have afflicted me!

              Medi/Eval

My privy and well drain into each other
  After the custom of Christendie.   .   .   .
Fevers and fluxes are wasting my mother.
  Why has the Lord afflicted me?
The Saints are helpless for all I offer —
  So are the clergy I used to fee.
Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer,
  Because the Lord has afflicted me.

              Material

I run eight hundred hens to the acre
  They die by dozens mysteriously.   .   .   .
I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker,
  Why has the Lord afflicted me?
What a return for all my endeavour —
  Not to mention the L. S. D!
I am an atheist now and for ever,
  Because this God has afflicted me!

              Progressive

Money spent on an Army or Fleet
  Is homicidal lunacy.   .   .   .
My son has been killed in the Mons retreat,
  Why is the Lord afflicting me?
Why are murder, pillage and arson
  And rape allowed by the Deity?
I will write to the Times, deriding our parson
  Because my God has afflicted me.

                 Chorus

We had a kettle: we let it leak:
  Our not repairing it made it worse.
We haven’t had any tea for a week.   .   .
  The bottom is out of the Universe!

                Conclusion

This was none of the good Lord’s pleasure,
   For the Spirit He breathed in Man is free;
But what comes after is measure for measure,
   And not a God that afflicteth thee.
As was the sowing so the reaping
  Is now and evermore shall be.
Thou art delivered to thine own keeping.
  Only  Thyself hath afflicted thee!

The Naulahka

There was a strife ‘twixt man and maid —
Oh, that was at the birth of time!
But what befell ‘twixt man and maid,
Oh, that’s beyond the grip of rhyme.
‘Twas “Sweet, I must not bide with you,”
And, “Love, I cannot bide alone”;
For both were young and both were true.
And both were hard as the nether stone.

Beware the man who’s crossed in love;
  For pent-up steam must find its vent.
Stand back when he is on the move,
  And lend him all the Continent.

Your patience, Sirs. The Devil took me up
To the burned mountain over Sicily
(Fit place for me) and thence I saw my Earth —
(Not all Earth’s splendour, ‘twas beyond my need — )
And that one spot I love — all Earth to me,
And her I love, my Heaven. What said I?
My love was safe from all the powers of Hell-
For you — e’en you — acquit her of my guilt —
But Sula, nestling by our sail — specked sea,
My city, child of mine, my heart, my home —
Mine and my pride — evil might visit there!
It was for Sula and her naked port,
Prey to the galleys of the Algerine,
Our city Sula, that I drove my price —
For love of Sula and for love of her.
The twain were woven — gold on sackcloth — twined
Past any sundering till God shall judge
The evil and the good.
Now it is not good for the Christian’s health to hustle the Aryan
     brown,
For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the
     Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of
      the  late  deceased,
And the epitaph drear:  “A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the
       East.”

There is pleasure in the wet, wet clay
When the artist’s hand is  potting it.
There is pleasure in the wet, wet lay —
When the poet’s pad is blotting it.
There is pleasure in the shine of your picture on the line
At the Royal Acade-my;
But the pleasure felt in these is as chalk to Cheddar cheese
When it comes to a well-made Lie —

 To a quite unwreckable Lie,
 To a most impeccable Lie!
 To  a water-right,  fire-proof,  angle-iron,  sunk-hinge,  time-lock,
         steel-faced Lie!
 Not a private handsome Lie,
 But a pair-and-brougham Lie,
 Not a little-place-at-Tooting, but a country-house-with-shooting
 And a ring-fence-deer-park Lie.

               When a lover hies abroad
               Looking for his love,
               Azrael smiling sheathes his sword,
               Heaven smiles above.
               Earth and sea
               His servants be,
               And to lesser compass round,
               That his love be sooner found!

                 We meet in an evil land
                 That is near to the gates of Hell.
                 I wait for thy command
                 To serve, to speed or withstand.
                 And thou sayest I do not well?

            Oh Love, the flowers so red
             Are only tongues of flame,
            The earth is full of the dead,
            The new-killed, restless dead.
            There is danger beneath and o’erhead,
             And I guard thy gates in fear
             Of words thou canst not hear,
             Of peril and jeopardy,
             Of signs thou canst not see —
.            And thou sayest ‘tis ill that I came?