Kipling: Poems

  Troubles them not a whit.

  They snout the bushes and stones aside

  And dig till they come to it.

  They are only resolute they shall eat

  That they and their mates may thrive,

  And they know that the dead are safer meat

  Than the weakest thing alive.

  (For a goat may butt, and a worm may sting,

  And a child will sometimes stand;

  But a poor dead soldier of the King

  Can never lift a hand.)

  They whoop and halloo and scatter the dirt

  Until their tushes white

  Take good hold in the Army shirt,

  And tug the corpse to light.

  And the pitiful face is shewn again

  For an instant ere they close;

  But it is not discovered to living men –

  Only to God and to those

  Who, being soulless, are free from shame,

  Whatever meat they may find.

  Nor do they defile the dead man’s name –

  That is reserved for his kind.

  GEHAZI

  Whence comest thou, Gehazi,

  So reverend to behold,

  In scarlet and in ermines

  And chain of England’s gold?

  ‘From following after Naaman

  To tell him all is well,

  Whereby my zeal hath made me

  A Judge in Israel.’

  Well done, well done, Gehazi!

  Stretch forth thy ready hand.

  Thou barely ’scaped from judgment,

  Take oath to judge the land,

  Unswayed by gift of money

  Or privy bribe, more base,

  Of knowledge which is profit

  In any market-place.

  Search out and probe, Gehazi,

  As thou of all canst try,

  The truthful, well-weighed answer

  That tells the blacker lie –

  The loud, uneasy virtue,

  The anger feigned at will,

  To overbear a witness

  And make the Court keep still.

  Take order now, Gehazi,

  That no man talk aside

  In secret with his judges

  The while his case is tried.

  Lest he should show them – reason

  To keep a matter hid,

  And subtly lead the questions

  Away from what he did.

  Thou minor of uprightness,

  What ails thee at thy vows?

  What means the risen whiteness

  Of the skin between thy brows?

  The boils that shine and burrow,

  The sores that slough and bleed –

  The leprosy of Naaman

  On thee and all thy seed?

  Stand up, stand up, Gehazi,

  Draw close thy robe and go,

  Gehazi, Judge in Israel,

  A leper white as snow!

  EN-DOR

  ‘Behold there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at En-dor.’ – I ISAMUEL xxviii.7

  The road to En-dor is easy to tread

  For Mother or yearning Wife.

  There, it is sure, we shall meet our Dead

  As they were even in life.

  Earth has not dreamed of the blessing in store

  For desolate hearts on the road to En-dor.

  Whispers shall comfort us out of the dark –

  Hands – ah, God! – that we knew!

  Visions and voices – look and heark! –

  Shall prove that our tale is true,

  And that those who have passed to the further shore

  May be hailed – at a price – on the road to En-dor.

  But they are so deep in their new eclipse

  Nothing they can say can reach,

  Unless it be uttered by alien lips

  And framed in a stranger’s speech.

  The son must send word to the mother that bore,

  Through an hireling’s mouth. ’Tis the rule of En-dor.

  And not for nothing these gifts are shown

  By such as delight our dead.

  They must twitch and stiffen and slaver and groan

  Ere the eyes are set in the head,

  And the voice from the belly begins. Therefore,

  We pay them a wage where they ply at En-dor.

  Even so, we have need of faith

  And patience to follow the clue.

  Often, at first, what the dear one saith

  Is babble, or jest, or untrue.

  (Lying spirits perplex us sore

  Till our loves – and their lives – are well known

  at En-dor) …

  Oh the road to En-dor is the oldest road

  And the craziest road of all!

  Straight it runs to the Witch’s abode,

  As it did in the days of Saul,

  And nothing has changed of the sorrow in store

  For such as go down on the road to En-dor!

  GETHSEMANE

  The Garden called Gethsemane

  In Picardy it was,

  And there the people came to see

  The English soldiers pass.

  We used to pass – we used to pass

  Or halt, as it might be,

  And ship our masks in case of gas

  Beyond Gethsemane.

  The Garden called Gethsemane

  It held a pretty lass,

  But all the time she talked to me

  I prayed my cup might pass.

  The officer sat on the chair,

  The men lay on the grass,

  And all the time we halted there

  I prayed my cup might pass.

  It didn’t pass –

  it didn’t pass –

  It didn’t pass from me.

  I drank it when we met the gas

  Beyond Gethsemane!

  THE CRAFTSMAN

  Once, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid,

  He to the overbearing Boanerges

  Jonson, uttered (if half of it were liquor,

  Blessed be the vintage!)

  Saying how, at an alehouse under Cotswold,

  He had made sure of his very Cleopatra

  Drunk with enormous, salvation-contemning

  Love for a tinker.

  How, while he hid from Sir Thomas’s keepers,

  Crouched in a ditch and drenched by the midnight

  Dews, he had listened to gipsy Juliet

  Rail at the dawning.

  How at Bankside, a boy drowning kittens

  Winced at the business; whereupon his sister –

  Lady Macbeth aged seven – thrust ’em under,

  Sombrely scornful.

  How on a Sabbath, hushed and compassionate –

  She being known since her birth to the townsfolk –

  Stratford dredged and delivered from Avon

  Dripping Ophelia.

  So, with a thin third finger marrying

  Drop to wine-drop domed on the table,

  Shakespeare opened his heart till sunrise

  Entered to hear him.

  London waked and he, imperturbable,

  Passed from waking to hurry after shadows …

  Busied upon shows of no earthly importance?

  Yes, but he knew it!

  THE BENEFACTORS

  Ah! What avails the classic bent

  And what the chosen word,

  Against the undoctored incident

  That actually occurred?

  And what is Art whereto we press

  Through paint and prose and rhyme –

  When Nature in her nakedness

  Defeats us every time?

  It is not learning, grace nor gear,

  Nor easy meat and drink,

  But bitter pinch of pain and fear

  That makes creation think.

  When in this world’s unpleasing youth

  Our godlike race began,

  The longest arm, the sharpe
st tooth,

  Gave man control of man;

  Till, bruised and bitten to the bone

  And taught by pain and fear,

  He learned to deal the far-off stone,

  And poke the long, safe spear.

  So tooth and nail were obsolete

  As means against a foe,

  Till, bored by uniform defeat,

  Some genius built the bow.

  Then stone and javelin proved as vain

  As old-time tooth and nail;

  Till, spurred anew by fear and pain,

  Man fashioned coats of mail.

  Then there was safety for the rich

  And danger for the poor,

  Till someone mixed a powder which

  Redressed the scale once more.

  Helmet and armour disappeared

  With sword and bow and pike,

  And, when the smoke of battle cleared,

  All men were armed alike …

  And when ten million such were slain

  To please one crazy king,

  Man, schooled in bulk by fear and pain,

  Grew weary of the thing;

  And, at the very hour designed

  To enslave him past recall,

  His tooth-stone-arrow-gun-shy-mind

  Turned and abolished all.

  All Power, each Tyrant, every Mob

  Whose head has grown too large,

  Ends by destroying its own job

  And works its own discharge;

  And Man, whose mere necessities

  Move all things from his path,

  Trembles meanwhile at their decrees,

  And deprecates their wrath!

  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 a 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!

  MEDIAEVAL

  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 £ 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 thy own keeping.

  Only thyself hath afflicted thee!

  A DEATH-BED

  ‘This is the State above the Law

  The State exists for the State alone.’

  [This is a gland at the back of the jaw,

  And an answering lump by the collar-bone.]

  Some die shouting in gas or fire;

  Some die silent, by shell and shot.

  Some die desperate, caught on the wire;

  Some die suddenly. This will not.

  ‘Regis suprema voluntas Lex’

  [It will follow the regular course of – throats.]

  Some die pinned by the broken decks,

  Some die sobbing beneath the boats.

  Some die eloquent, pressed to death

  By the sliding trench, as their friends can hear.

  Some die wholly in half a breath.

  Some – give trouble for half a year.

  ‘There is neither Evil nor Good in life,

  Except as the needs of the State ordain.’

  [Since it is rather too late for the knife,

  All we can do is to mask the pain.]

  Some die saintly in faith and hope –

  One died thus in a prison-yard –

  Some die broken by rape or the rope;

  Some die easily. This dies hard.

  ‘I will dash to pieces who bar my way,

  Woe to the traitor! Woe to the weak!’

  [Let him write what he wishes to say.

  It tires him out if he tries to speak.]

  Some die quietly. Some abound

  In loud self-pity. Others spread

  Bad morale through the cots around …

  This is a type that is better dead.

  ‘The war was forced on me by my foes.

  All that I sought was the right to live.’

  [Don’t be afraid of a triple dose;

  The pain will neutralize half we give.]

  Here are the needles. See that he dies

  While the effects of the drug endure …

  What is the question he asks with his eyes?

  Yes, All-Highest, to God, be sure.]

  EPITAPHS OF THE WAR

  ‘EQUALITY OF SACRIFICE’

  A. ‘I was a “have”.’ B. ‘I was a “have-not”.’

  (Together). ‘What hast thou given which I gave not?’

  A SERVANT

  We were together since the War began.

  He was my servant – and the better man.

  A SON

  My son was killed while laughing at some jest.

  I would I knew

  What it was, and it might serve me in a time when

  jests are few.

  AN ONLY SON

  I have slain none except my Mother. She

  (Blessing her slayer) died of grief for me.

  EX-CLERK

  Pity not! The Army gave

  Freedom to a timid slave:

  In which Freedom did he find

  Strength of body, will, and mind:

  By which strength he came to prove

  Mirth, Companionship, and Love:

  For which Love to Death he went:

  In which Death he lies content.

  THE WONDER

  Body and Spirit I surrendered whole

  To harsh Instructors – and received a soul …

  If mortal man could change me through and through

  From all I was – what may the God not do?

  HINDU SEPOY IN FRANCE

  This man in his own country prayed we know not to

  what Powers.

  We pray Them to rewa
rd him for his bravery in ours.

  THE COWARD

  I could not look on Death, which being known,

  Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.

  SHOCK

  My name, my speech, my self I had forgot.

  My wife and children came – I knew them not.

  I died. My Mother followed. At her call

  And on her bosom I remembered all.

  A GRAVE NEAR CAIRO

  Gods of the Nile, should this stout fellow here

  Get out – get out! He knows not shame nor fear.

  PELICANS IN THE WILDERNESS

  A Grave Near Halfa

  The blown sand heaps on me, that none may learn

  Where I am laid for whom my children grieve …

  O wings that beat at dawning, ye return

  Out of the desert to your young at eve!

  TWO CANADIAN MEMORIALS

  I

  We giving all gained all.

  Neither lament us nor praise.

  Only in all things recall,

  It is Fear, not Death that slays.

  II

  From little towns in a far land we came,

  To save our honour and a world aflame.

  By little towns in a far land we sleep;

  And trust that world we won for you to keep!

  THE FAVOUR

  Death favoured me from the first, well knowing

  I could not endure

  To wait on him day by day. He quitted my betters