Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1054 page)

So long as Death ‘twixt dance and dance
  Chills best and bravest blood,
And drops the reckless rider down
  The rotten, rain-soaked
khud,
So long as rumours from the North
  Make loving wives afraid,
So long as Burma takes the boy
  Or typhoid kills the maid,
   
If you love me as I love you
    What knife can cut our love in two?

By all that lights our daily life
  Or works our lifelong woe,
From Boileaugunge to Simla Downs
  And those grim glades below,
Where, heedless of the flying hoof
  And clamour overhead,
Sleep, with the grey langur for guard
  Our very scornful Dead,
   
If you love me as I love you
    All Earth is servant to us two!

By Docket, Billetdoux, and File,
  By Mountain, Cliff, and Fir,
By Fan and Sword and Office-box,
  By Corset, Plume, and Spur
By Riot, Revel, Waltz, and War,
  By Women, Work, and Bills,
By all the life that fizzes in
  The everlasting Hills,
   
If you love me as I love you
    What pair so happy as we two?

The Oldest Song

For before Eve was Lilith. —
Old Tale.
“These were never your true love’s eyes.
  Why do you feign that you love them?
You that broke from their constancies,
  And the wide calm brows above them!

This was never your true love’s speech.
  Why do you thrill when you hear it?
You that have ridden out of its reach
  The width of the world or near it!

This was never your true love’s hair, —
  You that chafed when it bound you
Screened from knowledge or shame or care,
  In the night that it made around you!”

“All these things I know, I know.
  And that’s why my heart is breaking!”
“Then what do you gain by pretending so?”
“The joy of an old wound waking.”

One Viceroy Resigns

(Lord Dufferin to Lord Lansdowne)
So here’s your Empire. No more wine, then?
Good.
We’ll clear the Aides and
khitmatgars
away.
(You’ll know that fat old fellow with the knife —
He keeps the Name Book, talks in English too,
And almost thinks himself the Government.)
O Youth, Youth, Youth! Forgive me, you’re so young.
Forty from sixty — twenty years of work
And power to back the working.
Ay def mi!
You want to know, you want to see, to touch,
And, by your lights, to act. It’s natural.
I wonder can I help you. Let me try.
You saw — what did you see from Bombay east?
Enough to frighten any one but me?
Neat that! It frightened Me in Eighty-Four!
You shouldn’t take a man from Canada
And bid him smoke in powder-magazines;
Nor with a Reputation such as — Bah!
That ghost has haunted me for twenty years,
My Reputation now full blown — Your fault —
Yours, with your stories of the strife at Home,
Who’s up, who’s down, who leads and who is led —
One reads so much, one hears so little here.
Well, now’s your turn of exile. I go back
To Rome and leisure. All roads lead to Rome,

Or books — the refuge of the destitute.
When you ... that brings me back to India. See!
  Start clear. I couldn’t. Egypt served my turn.
You’ll never plumb the Oriental mind,
And if you did it isn’t worth the toil.
Think of a sleek French priest in Canada;
Divide by twenty half-breeds. Multiply
By twice the Sphinx’s silence. There’s your East,
And you’re as wise as ever. So am I.
  Accept on trust and work in darkness, strike
At venture, stumble forward, make your mark,
(It’s chalk on granite), then thank God no flame
Leaps from the rock to shrivel mark and man.
I’m clear — my mark is made. Three months of drought
Had ruined much. It rained and washed away
The specks that might have gathered on my Name.
I took a country twice the size of France,
And shuttered up one doorway in the North.
I stand by those. You’ll find that both will pay,
I pledged my Name on both — they’re yours to-night.
Hold to them — they hold fame enough for two.
I’m old, but I shall live till Burma pays.
Men there —
not
German traders — Crsthw-te knows —
You’ll find it in my papers. For the North
Guns always — quietly — but always guns.
You’ve seen your Council? Yes, they’ll try to rule,
And prize their Reputations. Have you met
A grim lay-reader with a taste for coins,
And faith in Sin most men withhold from God?
He’s gone to England. R-p-n knew his grip
And kicked. A Council always has its H-pes.
They look for nothing from the West but Death
Or Bath or Bournemouth. Here’s their ground.
               They fight
Until the middle classes take them back,
One of ten millions plus a C.S.I.
Or drop in harness. Legion of the Lost?
Not altogether — earnest, narrow men,
But chiefly earnest, and they’ll do your work,
And end by writing letters to the
Times,
(Shall
I
write letters, answering H-nt-r — fawn
With R-p-n on the Yorkshire grocers? Ugh!)
They have their Reputations. Look to one —
I work with him — the smallest of them all,
White-haired, red-faced, who sat the plunging horse
Out in the garden. He’s your right-hand man,
And dreams of tilting W-ls-y from the throne,
But while he dreams gives work we cannot buy;
He has his Reputation — wants the Lords
By way of Frontier Roads. Meantime, I think,
He values very much the hand that falls
Upon his shoulder at the Council table —
Hates cats and knows his business;
which is yours.
  Your business! twice a hundered million souls.
Your business! I could tell you what I did
Some nights of Eighty-Five, at Simla, worth
A Kingdom’s ransom. When a big ship drives,
God knows to what new reef the man at the whee!
Prays with the passengers. They lose their lives,
Or rescued go their way; but he’s no man
To take his trick at the wheel again — that’s worse
Than drowning. Well, a galled Mashobra mule
(You’ll see Mashobra) passed me on the Mall,
And I was — some fool’s wife and ducked and bowed
To show the others I would stop and speak.
Then the mule fell — three galls, a hund-breadth each,
Behind the withers. Mrs. Whatsisname
Leers at the mule and me by turns, thweet thoul!
“How could they make him carry such a load!”
I saw — it isn’t often I dream dreams —
More than the mule that minute — smoke and flame
From Simla to the haze below. That’s weak.
You’re younger. You’ll dream dreams before you’ve done.
You’ve youth, that’s one — good workmen — that means two
Fair chances in your favor. Fate’s the third.
I know what
I
did. Do you ask me, “Preach”?
I answer by my past or else go back
To platitudes of rule — or take you thus
In confidence and say: “You know the trick:
You’ve governed Canada. You know.
You
know!”
And all the while commend you to Fate’s hand
(Here at the top on loses sight o’ God),
Commend you, then, to something more than you —
The Other People’s blunders and
  . . . that’s all.
I’d agonize to serve you if I could.
It’s incommunicable, like the cast
That drops the tackle with the gut adry.
Too much — too little — there’s your salmon lost!
And so I tell you nothing — with you luck,
And wonder — how I wonder! — for your sake
And triumph for my own. You’re young, you’re young,
You hold to half a hundred Shibboleths.
I’m old. I followed Power to the last,
Gave her my best, and Power followed Me.
It’s worth it — on my sould I’m speaking plain,
Here by the claret glasses! — worth it all.
I gave — no matter what I gave — I win.
I
know
I win. Mine’s work, good work that lives!
A country twice the size of France — the North
Safeguarded. That’s my record: sink the rest
And better if you can. The Rains may serve,
Rupees may rise — three pence will give you Fame —
It’s rash to hope for sixpence — If they rise
Get guns, more guns, and lift the salt-tax.
          Oh!
I told you what the Congress meant or thought?
I’ll answer nothing. Half a year will prove
The full extent of time and thought you’ll spare
To Congress. Ask a Lady Doctor
once
How little Begums see the light — deduce
Thence how the True Reformer’s child is born.
It’s interesting, curious . . . and vile.
I told the Turk he was a gentlman.
I told the Russian that his Tartar veins
Bled pure Parisian ichor; and he purred.
The Congress doesn’t purr. I think it swears.
You’re young — you’ll swear to ere you’ve reached the end.
The End! God help you, if there be a God.
(There must be one to startle Gl-dst-ne’s soul
In that new land where all the wires are cut.
And Cr-ss snores anthems on the asphodel.)
God help you! And I’d help you if I could,
But that’s beyond me. Yes, your speech was crude.
Sound claret after olives — yours and mine;
But Medoc slips into vin ordinaire.
(I’ll drink my first at Genoa to your health.)
Raise it to Hock. You’ll never catch my style.
And, after all, the middle-classes grip
The middle-class — for Brompton talk Earl’s Court.
Perhaps you’re right. I’ll see you in the
Times
—
A quarter-column of eye-searing print,
A leader once a quarter — then a war;
The Strand abellow through the fog: “Defeat!”
“‘Orrible slaughter!” While you lie awake
And wonder. Oh, you’ll wonder ere you’re free!
I wonder now. The four years slide away
So fast, so fast, and leave me here alone.
R-y, C-lv-n, L-l, R-b-rts, B-ck, the rest,
Princes and Powers of Darkness troops and trains,
  (I
cannot
sleep in trains), land piled on land,
Whitewash and weariness, red rockets, dust,
White snows that mocked me, palaces — with draughts,
And W-stl-nd with the drafts he couldn’t pay,
Poor W-ls-n reading his obituary.
Before he died, and H-pe, the man with bones,
And A-tch-s-n a dripping mackintosh
At Council in the Rains, his grating “Sirrr”
Half drowned by H-nt-r’s silky: “Bat my lahnd.”
Hunterian always: M-rsh-l spinning plates
Or standing on his head; the Rent Bill’s roar,
A hundred thousand speeches, must red cloth,
And Smiths thrice happy if I call them Jones,
(I can’t remember half their names) or reined
My pony on the Mall to greet their wives.
More trains, more troops, more dust, and then all’s done.
Four years, and I forget. If I forget
How will
they
bear me in their minds? The North
Safeguarded — nearly (R-b-rts knows the rest),
A country twice the size of France annexed.
That stays at least. The rest may pass — may pass —
Your heritage — and I can teach you nought.
“High trust,” “vast honor,” “interests twice as vast,”
“Due reverence to your Council” — keep to those.
I envy you the twenty years you’ve gained,
But not the five to follow. What’s that? One?
Two! — Surely not so late. Good-night.
Don’t
dream.

The Only Son

Enlarged from “Many Inventions”

   She dropped the bar, she shot the bolt, she fed the fire anew
   For she heard  a whimper under the  sill  and  a  great grey paw came through.
   The fresh flame comforted the hut and shone on the roof-beam,
   And the Only Son lay down again and dreamed that he dreamed a dream.
   The last ash fell from the withered log with the click of a falling spark,
   And the Only Son woke up again, and called across the dark: —
   “Now was I born of womankind and laid in a mother’s breast?
   For I have dreamed of a shaggy hide whereon I went to rest.
   And was I born of womankind and laid on a father’s arm?
   For I have dreamed of clashing teeth that guarded me from harm.

   And was I born an Only Son and did I play alone?
   For I have dreamed of comrades twain that bit me to the bone.
   And did I break the barley-cake and steep it in the tyre?
   For I have dreamed of a youngling kid new-riven from the byre:
   For I  have  dreamed  of a midnight sky  and  a  midnight call to blood
   And red-mouthed shadows racing by, that thrust me from my food.
   ‘Tis an hour yet and an hour yet to the rising of the moon,
   But I can see the black roof-tree as plain as it were noon.
   ‘Tis a league and a league to the Lena Falls where the trooping blackbuck go;
   But I can hear the little fawn that bleats behind the doe.

   ‘Tis a league and a league to the Lena Falls where the crop and the upland meet,
   But I Can smell the  wet dawn-wind  that wakes  the sprouting wheat.
   Unbar the door. I may not bide, but I must out and see
   If those are wolves that wait outside or my own kin to me!”
         .                 .                    .                .             .
   She loosed the bar,  she slid the bolt, she opened the door anon,
   And a grey bitch-wolf came out of the dark and fawned on the Only Son!

Oonts

(Northern India Transport Train)

Wot makes the soldier’s ‘eart to penk, wot makes ‘im to perspire?
It isn’t standin’ up to charge nor lyin’ down to fire;
But it’s everlastin’ waitin’ on a everlastin’ road
For the commissariat camel an’ ‘is commissariat load.
    O the oont*, O the oont, O the commissariat oont!
     With ‘is silly neck a-bobbin’ like a basket full o’ snakes;
    We packs ‘im like an idol, an’ you ought to ‘ear ‘im grunt,
     An’ when we gets ‘im loaded up ‘is blessed girth-rope breaks.

Wot makes the rear-guard swear so ‘ard when night is drorin’ in,
An’ every native follower is shiverin’ for ‘is skin?
It ain’t the chanst o’ being rushed by Paythans from the ‘ills,
It’s the commissariat camel puttin’ on ‘is bloomin’ frills!
    O the oont, O the oont, O the hairy scary oont!
     A-trippin’ over tent-ropes when we’ve got the night alarm!
    We socks ‘im with a stretcher-pole an’ ‘eads ‘im off in front,
     An’ when we’ve saved ‘is bloomin’ life ‘e chaws our bloomin’ arm.