Archives: Poems

As tho’ again—yea, even once again,
  We should rewelcome to our stewardship
The rider with the loose-flung bridle-rein
  And chance-plucked twig for whip,

The down-turned hat-brim, and the eyes beneath
  Alert, devouring—and the imperious hand
Ordaining matters swiftly to bequeath
   Perfect the work he planned.

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1 
Two lovers to one maid. Aye! It was so.
    O aye! Aye O! Two knights to one ladye. 
Two lovers—for the world is managed so
    On principles of curst economy:
And sometimes it is two and sometimes three,
four, five, six, seven, as the case may be.
2 
Number ONE ne'er told his passion, 
    But it simmered in his breast:
Number Two (whom she most favoured)
    Both with brass and brass was blessed;
And they bukhed in friendly fashion 
as the sun sank down to rest.
3 
For they talked of station scandal,
    And they touched on woman's guile,
And they puffed the acrid Burma,
    And they sipped a 'peg' meanwhile;
And they beamed on one another 
with a Damon-Pythias smile.
4 
Rose the Second from his chair then, 
    As they raved of Lola Hawke,
Of her merits and her beauties,
    Cutting short the friendly talk:—
'By the way I think her house lies hence 
a scant ten minutes walk.
5 
I propose ek dum, or sooner—
    Thanks, no, not another weed.'
Came a sudden inspiration
    To the First One in his need:
'Seek her hand in dusty highlows! Never! 
    Mount my bounding steed!'
6 
Now there stood an old grey stallion 
    That had come from Krab Bokhar
(Five miles off) within ONE's compound, 
    'Neath the Colonel Sahib's sowar;
And ONE knew the old grey stallion 
was a beast of wrath and war.
7 
Ah me! my pen to sully 
    With breach of faith so black; 
But ONE slipped an English saddle
    On the gallant grey his back,
And murmured, 'Dear old chappie, 
take this most superior hack.
8 
Scarce two minutes easy amble
    Lies her threshold from this door, 
And the gallant grey will bear you
    As you ne'er were borne before,
You have raised my bluff (I loved her) 
and the hand is yours therefore.'
9 
Full five miles off the stables 
    Where lived the gallant grey;
What wonder for those stables 
    The hungry beast made play,
As sweeps the gale cyclonic 
across Bengala's bay?
10 
Oh! 'tis rattle o'er the pukka, 
    And 'tis lope along the plain,
With a double-actioned buck-jump,
    When the Rider pulled the rein...
ONE went forth, proposed, 
and won her, with a conscience free from stain.
                    
           *      *      *      *      * 
11 
Men say that in the evening
    They heard the stallion neigh;
They heard the troopers snigger 
    As the Rider drove away
From the Krab Bokhar Cantonments 
in a sober ticca 'shay'.
12 
Love came down that night in glory 
    To the City of Minars;
While the Rider cursed the Rival 
    Underneath the silent stars,
And patched his tattered raiment, 
and coldly creamed his scars.

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1 
               A new-made grave, for the damp earth stood 
                  Yellow and miry there at the lips
               Of the pit, where one in her widowhood 
                  Waited to witness the coffin's eclipse
               Under the clods, that tumbled and rolled, 
               Rattled and thundered o'er clay as cold.
2                
               The mother facing the wife—they wept 
                  As never I yet saw women weep.
               Standing behind them, the watch I kept 
                  Was a watch that never did mortal keep,
               For the thing below that had ceased to be, 
               With human utterance spoke to me.
3 
“There is knocking at my door, there!—Aspirations long since fled,
High endeavours of my springtime that have lived and perishèd.
Why disquiet me, O phantoms? Wherefore strive to stir the dead?
4 
               Striking on dumb chords, O passion! 
                  Music comes not. Here below,
               I am of another fashion
                  Than the "I" six days ago.
5 
There is knocking at my door, there!–Hopes that fired younger blood:
Lust of power, lust of knowledge, fierce desire for the good,
For some truth that might uphold me 'gainst the clamour of Doubt's brood.
6 
               Mark ye my closèd mouth well;
                  Lines where the strong speech would sit 
               Shadowed ere words;—now all Hell
                  Stirs not these wrinkles one whit.
7 
There is knocking at my door, there!—as of one that would not wait, 
As of one that wished to tear me from my quiet, kingly state.
'Tis some Love that might have saved me, come, alas! too late, too late.
8 
               Six days since, around my bed, 
                  People spake in accents low;
               As a dream half vanished
                  Were their words six days ago—
               Spake of something that might save, 
                  Some great power from above,
               Power to open up my grave,
                  And I think they called it Love. 
               Canst thou lift the heavy weight?
                  Canst thou help me from the gloom? 
               Human love is less than Fate,
                  Failing ere it reach the tomb.
9 
There is knocking at my door, there!—Pity calling friends to mind,
Telling loud of those that mourned me, certain ones I left behind.
Surely they may break their shacklings, snap the fleshly chains that bind.
10 
               Seest thou this hand that would close
                  Warm o'er the clasp of a friend?
               Tell me the tale of his woes—
                  It shall lie still to the end.
11 
There is silence, and I slumber in the narrow, narrow room, 
Waiting, waiting, ever waiting, for the judgment and the doom.
Sweet to wearied limbs this resting, sweet to strainèd eyes this gloom.
12 
               Cool, and no life to arouse 
                  Passions that slay and destroy.
               Love, and its numberless vows, 
                  Life, and its manifold joy–
               I have quitted them all and for ever: 
                  Sweep as the tempests at will,
               Sure, 'tis an idle endeavour 
                  Seeking to waken the still.
               Beat at my door, O sad mother! 
                  Wife! rain thy tears on my breast.
               I, that was thine, am made other,
                  Alien in all; and I rest.”

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••RAHERE

1 
Rahere, King Henry's jester, feared by all the Norman Lords 
For his eye that pierced their bosoms, for his tongue that shamed their swords;
Fed and flattered by the Churchmen - well they knew how deep he stood
In dark Henry's crooked counsels - fell upon an evil mood. 
2 
Suddenly, his days before him and behind him seemed to stand 
Stripped and barren, fixed and fruitless as those leagues of naked sand 
When St. Michael's ebb slinks outward to the bleak horizon-bound,
And the trampling wide-mouthed waters are withdrawn from sight and sound.
3 
Then a Horror of Great Darkness sunk his spirit and anon,
(Who had seen him wince and whiten as he turned to walk alone) 
Followed Gilbert the Physician, and muttered in his ear, 
"Thou hast it, O my brother?" "Yea, I have it," said Rahere.
4 
"So it comes," said Gilbert smoothly, "man's most immanent distress.
'Tis a humour of the Spirit which abhorreth all excess;
And, whatever breed the surfeit - Wealth, or Wit, or Power, or Fame 
(And thou hast each) the Spirit laboureth to expel the same.
5 
"Hence the dulled eye's deep self-loathing - hence the loaded leaden brow;
Hence the burden of Wanhope that aches thy soul and body now.
Ay, the merriest fool must face it, and the wisest Doctor learn;
For it comes - it comes," said Gilbert, "as it passes - to return."
6 
But Rahere was in his torment, and he wandered, dumb and far,
Till he came to reeking Smithfield where the crowded gallows are...
(Followed Gilbert the Physician) and beneath the wrynecked dead,
Sat a leper and his woman, very merry, breaking bread.
7 
He was cloaked from chin to ankle - faceless, fingerless, obscene
Mere corruption swaddled man-wise, but the woman whole and clean;
And she waited on him crooning, and Rahere beheld the twain,
Each delighting in the other, and he checked and groaned again.
8 
"So it comes, - it comes," said Gilbert, "as it came when Life began.
'Tis a motion of the Spirit that revealeth God to man.
In the shape of Love exceeding, which regards not taint or fall,
Since in perfect Love, saith Scripture, can be no excess at all.
9 
"Hence the eye that sees no blemish - hence the hour that holds no shame.
Hence the Soul assured the Essence and the Substance are the same.
Nay, the meanest need not miss it, though the mightier pass it by;
For it comes - it comes," said Gilbert, "and, thou seest, it does not die!"

Kipling Anytime Anywhere – Rahere

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1 
See you the ferny ride that steals 
Into the oak-woods far? 
O that was whence they hewed the keels 
That rolled to Trafalgar. 
2
And mark you where the ivy clings 
To Bayham's mouldering walls? 
O there we cast the stout railings 
That stand around St. Paul's. 
3
See you the dimpled track that runs 
All hollow through the wheat? 
O that was where they hauled the guns 
That smote King Philip's fleet. 
4
(Out of the Weald, the secret Weald, 
Men sent in ancient years, 
The horse-shoes red at Flodden Field, 
The arrows at Poitiers!) 
5
See you our little mill that clacks, 
So busy by the brook? 
She has ground her corn and paid her tax 
Ever since Domesday Book. 
6
See you our stilly woods of oak, 
And the dread ditch beside? 
O that was where the Saxons broke 
On the day that Harold died. 
7
See you the windy levels spread 
About the gates of Rye? 
O that was where the Northmen fled, 
When Alfred's ships came by. 
8
See you our pastures wide and lone, 
Where the red oxen browse? 
O there was a City thronged and known, 
Ere London boasted a house. 
9
And see you, after rain, the trace 
Of mound and ditch and wall? 
O that was a Legion's camping-place, 
When Caesar sailed from Gaul. 
10
And see you marks that show and fade, 
Like shadows on the Downs? 
O they are the lines the Flint Men made, 
To guard their wondrous towns. 
11
Trackway and Camp and City lost, 
Salt Marsh where now is corn-
Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease, 
And so was England born.
12
She is not any common Earth, 
Water or wood or air, 
But Merlin's Isle of Gramarye, 
Where you and I will fare. 

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                    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.

1
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.
2
Now Exeter Battleby Tring had laboured from boyhood to eld
On the Lines of the East and the West, and 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.
3
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."
4
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."
5
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,
6
"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 Highnesses thrive!)
Silence his mouth with rupees, keeping their Circle intact;
7
Appointing a Colonel from Chatham who managed the Bhamo State Line
(The 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!

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