Poems – Page 41 – The Kipling Society

The Dawn Wind

At two o'clock in the morning, if you open your window and listen,
  You will hear the feet of the Wind that is going to call the sun.
And the trees in the shadow rustle and the trees in the moonlight glisten,
  And though it is deep, dark night, you feel that the night is done.  

So do the cows in the field. They graze for an hour and lie down,
  Dozing and chewing the cud; or a bird in the ivy wakes, 
Chirrups one note and is still, and the restless Wind strays on,
  Fidgeting far down the road, till, softly, the darkness breaks.

Back comes the Wind full strength with a blow like an angel's wing,
 Gentle but waking the world, as he shouts: "The Sun! The Sun!"
And the light floods over the fields and the birds begin to sing,
 And the Wind dies down in the grass. It is day and his work is done.          

So when the world is asleep, and there seems no hope of her waking
  Out of some long, bad dream that makes her mutter and moan,
Suddenly, all men arise to the noise of fetters breaking,
  And every one smiles at his neighbour and tells him his soul is his own!

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The Cursing of Stephen

I turned the pages of the baby's book,
I hung with children on the rocking-horse, 
And shook the rattle till it rang again;
And, while I gambolled 'mid these buds of youth, 
I shaped the nursery legend into this:

King Stephen, o'er the castled battlement
That frowned above the fir-copse and the lake, 
Looked downward on his people and beheld 
The many-mouthèd nation call on him
Who was a worthy peer. The pine-woods rang, 
In slumb'rous thunder to the girdling sea,
With 'Worthy peer'; and, down the long white street, 
Green-shuttered cots re-echoed; 'Worthy peer.'
But in the great king's bosom pain was lord, 
And 'neath his brows the royal eyeball burnt, 
As dying brands burn on the wasted hearth
When those that tend them slumber. Slowly first 
The hot words brake beneath the bearded lips, 
And the mailed hand slid backward to the throne 
Whereon the king was seated. As some dam
In spring bursts down the wall and whelms the vale,
So broke the king's 'Damn' o'er the silent Court, 
And stilled the Jester into utter peace,
And all the courtiers wondered where they sate
'What ails King Stephen!' Then the great king spoke,
As Saul had spoken in the shrouded tent,
Before the Son of Jesse soothed his soul 
With sackbut and with psaltery: 'Woe is me! 
Sin creeps upon our servants at the board, 
And in my royal palace find we sin—
At first among the lowest; being low, 
They sin as brutes, in brutal, bestial wise. 
But ever upward curls the flame of sin, 
Infecting e'en the highest. Lust of gain, 
That spareth not the person of the king, 
Hath fallen upon us, and behold I go
To fight corruption, though I lose my life; 
Not loving life, but rather fearing death 
With life's corruption on my parting soul.
Pray for me, O my courtiers!' And they wailed, 
Those bearded rulers of the fosse and field, 
Great princes of the Plough-tail, for the king; 
And sorrow hung about the sobbing Court, 
And that great charger squealed like any she. 
So, in the twilight, passed the king away
Adown the long white street, all armed and mailed, 
Past dune and wind-swept hedgerow, till he reached 
A low-built cottage by the roaring sea,
Wherein one sat for ever at a board,
Cross-legged, and drave the needle to and fro, 
Through silk and samite, minever and lawn, 
As swine in autumn pierce the fallen mast
For forage with their keen, white, curved tusks; 
And evermore the singer sang his song,
And through the windows Stephen heard the strain:

'A Devil and a Tailor, fiend and man,
That were at strife since first the world began—
Read me my riddle's reading an you can.

A Tailor and a Devil-man and sprite.
Black as black thread was one—the other white
As cloth that clothes the great king's limbs at night.
The Devil and the Tailor. Silk and thread, 
O primrose minever! O samite red,
That drapes the curtains of the great king's bed!
For men must clothe their nakedness, and I, 
For credit or for cash, give swift supply
Of woven gauds and broidered bravery.'

And then the voice ceased suddenly within, 
Because the charger whinnied through the dusk, 
And shook the windows of the crazy cot.
Whereon, with eyelids shaded, and huge shears 
Slung swordwise at his side, the churl advanced, 
And saw the great king's shadow on the door, 
But made no reverence, as befit a churl
In royal presence, only, from his breast,
Dragged forth a store of papers, tape, and thread, 
And murmured: 'Credit is the thief of time!
My gold, King Stephen, for the doublet gay,
For hose and baldric, now some three months old, 
And for the broidered cloak upon thy back—
My gold, King Stephen!' But the blameless king 
Drew swiftly from his scabbard that which pays 
All debts in one; and at the great blade's light 
The churl fled backward to the cottage door, 
And Stephen spake in this wise to the churl:
'I, being king, an I had cleft thy form
From chin to chine, had sullied my good sword 
With useless slaughter of a ninth-part man; 
And I am come in sorrow, not in wrath,
To judge thee for thy treason 'gainst the king; 
Our noble order ha no thought of guile
To me or mine-my menials know no sin, 
And all my people are a sinless folk, 
Content with little save the gifts of God 
And my exceeding glory. Only thou, 
Misled by lust of gold, hast fallen in sin— 
The deadlier, being self-conceived: for sin
Caught by contagion (as the dove's red foot 
I soiled by mire) is a lesser fault
Than crime self-centred in a single breast
And bred in isolation. I, thy king,
Have worn the garments of a spotless life,
And also (since the world desires more
For human limbs) some garments made by thee; 
And these were hose and doublet, as thou sayest, 
And also breeches for my lower limbs,
And in these breeches lieth all thy sin:
Rapine and greed, and interest sought on bills, 
And monthly increment of silver coin
Charged for the lapse of time-which is God's act, 
Nor any handiwork of thine, O churl;
And thou, being void of shame, hast written down 
The cost of these same breeches that I wear
At usury and interest, sinful churl,
 And I adjudge the cost exorbitant
By six round pence. Behold!' and here his hand 
Slid backward to the cantle of his selle,
And grasped the spacious garment that he wore 
In kingly wrath. 'Behold the size of it!
The airy effluence of fold on fold, 
And mazy complications of the seat,
Between the saddle and my royal flesh, 
Chafed to a gall thereby. This is thy work—
Large and ill-fitting as the wrinkled buds 
That hide the larches' children in the spring.
Thank, therefore, such vile stars as saw thy birth 
That silver and not steel discharge the debt. . . 
Yet Lancelot falls to his own love again,
And tailors reel into the ninth-part beast 
And wholly vermin—and my speech, I fear, 
Falls deadly on dull ears that can but catch
The clink of shears and silver. Wherefore, churl, 
I am resolved to curse thee—not in wrath,
For wrath is alien to the minds of kings, 
But for remembrance' sake, and, ere I go, 
I call thee—out of sorrow, not in wrath— 
I, Stephen, call thee Lown.' And all the weald 
Shuddered at Stephen's curse, and far at sea 
The fishes shivered, though they knew not why; 
And homeward-flying crows forgot to call
At sound of the king's curse. And he, the churl, 
Shrank as the beetle shrinks beneath the pin 
When village children stab him in their sport, 
And, log-wise, rolled before the charger's feet; 
And Stephen came to his own Court again.

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The Curé

Long years ago, ere R—lls or R—ce 
   Trebled the mileage man could cover; 
When Sh—nks’s Mare was H—bs—n’s Choice, 
   And Bl—r—ot had not flown to Dover 
When good hoteliers looked askance 
   If any power save horse-flesh drew vans— 
’Time was in easy, hand-made France, 
   I met the Curé of Saint Juvans.  

He was no babbler, but, at last, 
    One learned from things he left unspoken 
How in some fiery, far-off past, 
   His, and a woman’s, heart were broken. 
He sought for death, but found it not, 
   Yet, seeking, found his true vocation, 
And fifty years, by all forgot, 
   Toiled at a simple folks’ salvation.   

His pay was lower than our Dole; 
   The piteous little church he tended 
Had neither roof nor vestments whole 
   Save what his own hard fingers mended. 
While, any hour, at every need 
   (As Conscience or La Grippe assailed ’em), 
His parish bade him come with speed, 
   And, foot or cart, he never failed ’em.   

His speech—to suit his hearers—ran 
    From pure Parisian to gross peasant, 
With interludes North African 
   If any Légionnaire were present: 
And when some wine-ripe atheist mocked 
   His office or the Faith he knelt in, 
He left the sinner dumb and shocked 
   By oaths his old Battalion dealt in ...   

And he was learned in Death and Life; 
   And he was Logic’s self (as France is). 
He knew his folk—man, maid, and wife— 
   Their forebears, failings, and finances. 
Spite, Avarice, Devotion, Lies— 
   Passion ablaze or sick Obsession— 
He dealt with each physician-wise; 
   Stern or most tender, at Confession.    

                     *  *  *  *  *  *  

To-day? God knows where he may lie— 
    His Cross of weathered beads above him 
But one not worthy to untie 
    His shoe-string, prays you read—and love him!

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The Craftsman

1 
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!) 
2 
Saying how, at an alehouse under Cotswold, 
He had made sure of his very Cleopatra, 
Drunk with enormous, salvation-contemning
            Love for a tinker. 
3 
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. 
4 
How at Bankside, a boy drowning kittens 
Winced at the business; whereupon his sister
Lady Macbeth aged seven - thrust 'em under,
            Sombrely scornful. 
5 
How on a Sabbath, hushed and compassionate
She being known since her birth to the townsfolk
Stratford dredged and delivered from Avon
            Dripping Ophelia. 
6 
So, with a thin third finger marrying 
Drop to wine-drop domed on the table, 
Shakespeare opened his heart till the sunrise
            Entered to hear him. 
7 
London waked and he, imperturbable, 
Passed from waking to hurry after shadows...
Busied upon shows of no earthly importance?
            Yes, but he knew it!

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listen to the poem

The Covenant

We thought we ranked above the chance of ill.
   Others might fall, not we, for we were wise—
Merchants in freedom. So, of our free-will
  We let our servants drug our strength with lies.
The pleasure and the poison had its way
  On us as on the meanest, till we learned
That he who lies will steal, who steals will slay.
  Neither God’s judgment nor man's heart was turned. 

Yet there remains His Mercy—to be sought
Through wrath and peril till we cleanse the wrong
By that last right which our forefathers claimed
When their Law failed them and its stewards were bought.
This is our cause. God help us, and make strong
Our will to meet Him later, unashamed!

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The Conundrum of the Workshops

1 
When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold, 
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould; 
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it Art?"  
2
Wherefore he called to his wife, and fled to fashion his work anew– 
The first of his race who cared a fig for the first, most dread review;
And he left his lore to the use of his sons–and that was a glorious gain 
When the Devil chuckled "Is it Art?" in the ear of the branded Cain.  
3
They fought and they talked in the North and the South, they talked and they fought in the West, 
Till the waters rose on the pitiful land, and the poor Red Clay had rest– 
Had rest till that dank blank-canvas dawn when the dove was preened to start,
And the Devil bubbled below the keel: "It's human, but is it Art?"  
4
They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart,
Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art?" 
The stone was dropped at the quarry-side and the idle derrick swung,
While each man talked of the aims of Art, and each in an alien tongue.  
5
The tale is as old as the Eden Tree–and new as the new-cut tooth– 
For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth;
And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart,
The Devil drum on the darkened pane: "You did it, but was it Art?"  
6
We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg, 
We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yolk of an addled egg,
We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart;
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art?"  
7
When the flicker of London sun falls faint on the Club-room's green and gold, 
The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mould– 
They scratch with their pens in the mould of their graves, and the ink and the anguish start,
For the Devil mutters behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art?"  
8
Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the Four Great Rivers flow,
And the Wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago,
And if we could come when the sentry slept and softly scurry through,
By the favour of God we might know as much–as our father Adam knew!

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The Landau

 
There was a landau deep and wide,
    Cushioned for Sleep’s own self to sit on—
The glory of the country-side
    From Tanner’s End to Marlow Ditton.
John of the broad and brandied cheek
    (Well I recall its eau-de-vie hues! )
Drove staid Sir Ralph five days a week
    At speeds which we considered Jehu’s. . .

But now poor John sleeps very sound,
    And neither hears nor smells the fuss
Of the young Squire’s nine-hundred-pound—
    Er—Mors communis omnibus.
And I who in my daily stroll
    Observe the reckless chauffeur crowd her,
Laudator temporis, extol
    The times before the Act allowed her.

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The Consolations of Memory

Blessed was our first age and morning-time. Then were no waies tarren,
 ne no cars numberen, but each followed his owne playinge-busyness to go 
about singly or by large interspaces, for to leden his viage after his luste and 
layen under clene hedge. Jangling there was not, nor the overtaking wheele, 
and all those now cruel clarions were full-hushed and full-still. Then nobile 
horses, lest they should make the chariots moveable to run by cause of this 
new feare, we did not press, and were apayed by sweete thankes of him that 
drave. There was not cursings ne adventure of death blinded bankes betweene, 
but good-fellowship of yoke-mates at ignorance equal, and a one pillar of 
dust covered all exodus . . . . But, see now how the blacke road hath strippen 
herself of hearte and beauty where the dumbe lampe of Tartarus winketh red, etc.



It helped me to read this verse by setting it out as below. 
I include it in case it is useful (Ed. 2024)

Blessed was our first age and morning-time. 

Then were no waies tarren, ne no cars numberen, 
but each followed his owne playinge-busyness 
to go about singly or by large interspaces, 
for to leden his viage after his luste and layen under clene hedge. 

Jangling there was not, nor the overtaking wheele, 
and all those now cruel clarions were full-hushed and full-still. 

Then nobile horses, lest they should make the chariots moveable to run 
by cause of this new feare, we did not press, 
and were apayed by sweete thankes of him that drave. 

There was not cursings ne adventure of death blinded bankes betweene, 
but good-fellowship of yoke-mates at ignorance equal, 
and a one pillar of dust covered all exodus . . . . 

But, see now how the blacke road 
hath strippen herself of hearte and beauty 
where the dumbe lampe of Tartarus winketh red, etc.

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The Coastwise Lights

1 
Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees;
 Our loins are battered ’neath us by the swinging, smoking seas.
 From reef and rock and skerry—over headland, ness, and voe—
 The Coastwise Lights of England watch the ships of England go! 
2 
Through the endless summer evenings, on the lineless, level floors;
 Through the yelling Channel tempest when the siren hoots and roars—
 By day the dipping house-flag and by night the rocket’s trail—
 As the sheep that graze behind us so we know them where they hail. 
3 
We bridge across the dark and bid the helmsman have a care,
 The flash that wheeling inland wakes his sleeping wife to prayer;
 From our vexed eyries, head to gale, we bind in burning chains
 The lover from the sea-rim drawn—his love in English lanes. 
4 
We greet the clippers wing-and-wing that race the Southern wool;
 We warn the crawling cargo-tanks of Bremen, Leith, and Hull;
 To each and all our equal lamp at peril of the sea—
 The white wall-sided war-ships or the whalers of Dundee! 
5 
Come up, come in from Eastward, from the guardports of the Morn!
 Beat up, beat in from Southerly, O gipsies of the Horn!
 Swift shuttles of an Empire’s loom that weave us, main to main,
 The Coastwise Lights of England give you welcome back again! 
6 
Go, get you gone up-Channel with the sea-crust on your plates;
 Go, get you into London with the burden of your freights!
 Haste, for they talk of Empire there, and say, if any seek,
 The Lights of England sent you and by silence shall ye speak!

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The Clerks and the Bells

1 
The merry clerks of Oxenford they stretch themselves at ease
 Unhelmeted on unbleached sward beneath unshrivelled trees.
 For the leaves, the leaves, are on the bough, the bark is on the bole,
 And East and West men’s housen stand all even-roofed and whole.
 (Men’s housen doored and glazed and floored and whole at every turn!)
 And so the Bells of Oxenford ring:—“Time it is to learn!” 
2 
The merry clerks of Oxenford they read and they are told
 Of famous men who drew the sword in furious fights of old.
 They heark and mark it faithfully, but never clerk will write
 What vision rides ’twixt book and eye from any nearer fight.
 (Whose supplication rends the soul? Whose night-long cries repeat?)
 And so the Bells of Oxenford ring:—“Time it is to eat!” 
3 
The merry clerks of Oxenford they sit them down anon
 At tables fair with silver-ware and naperies thereon,
 Free to refuse or dainty choose what dish shall seem them good;
 For they have done with single meats, and waters streaked with blood . . .
 (That three days’ fast is overpast when all those guns said “Nay”!)
And so the Bells of Oxenford ring:—“Time it is to play!” 
4 
The merry clerks of Oxenford they hasten one by one
 Or band in companies abroad to ride, or row, or run
 By waters level with fair meads all goldenly bespread,
 Where flash June’s clashing dragon-flies—but no man bows his head,
 (Though bullet-wise June’s dragon-flies deride the fearless air!)
 And so the Bells of Oxenford ring:—“Time it is for prayer!” 
5 
The pious clerks of Oxenford they kneel at twilight-tide
 For to receive and well believe the Word of Him Who died
 And, though no present wings of Death hawk hungry round that place,
 Their brows are bent upon their hands that none may see their face—
(Who set aside the world and died? What life shall please Him best?)
 And so the Bells of Oxenford ring:—“Time it is to rest!” 
6 
The merry clerks of Oxenford lie under bolt and bar
 Lest they should rake the midnight clouds or chase a sliding star.
 In fear of fine and dread rebuke, they round their full-night sleep,
 And leave that world which once they took for older men to keep.
 (Who walks by dreams what ghostly wood in search of play-mate slain?)
 Until the Bells of Oxenford ring in the light again.
 Unburdened breeze, unstricken trees, and all God’s works restored—
In this way live the merry clerks,—the clerks of Oxenford.

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