Poems – Page 55 – The Kipling Society

In the Matter of One Compass

When, foot to wheel and back to wind,
   The helmsman dare not look behind,
But hears beyond his compass-light,
The blind bow thunder through the night,
And, like a harpstring ere it snaps,
The rigging sing beneath the caps;
  Above the shriek of storm in sail
     Or rattle of the blocks blown free,
   Set for the peace beyond the gale,
      This song the Needle sings the Sea:

Oh, drunken Wave! Oh, driving Cloud!
  Rage of the Deep and sterile Rain,
By Love upheld, by God allowed,
   We go, but we return again!

When leagued about the ’wildered boat
The rainbow jellies fill and float,
And, lilting where the layer lingers,
The Starfish trips on all her fingers;
Where, ’neath his myriad spines ashock,
The Sea-egg ripples down the rock,
An orange wonder dimly guessed
From darkness where the Cuttles rest,
Moored o’er the darker deeps that hide
The blind white Sea-snake and his bride,
Who, drowsing, nose the long-lost Ships
Let down through darkness to their lips—
Safe-swung above the glassy death,
Hear what the constant Needle saith:

Oh, lisping Reef! Oh, listless Cloud,
   In slumber on a pulseless main!
By Love upheld, by God allowed,
  We go, but we return again!

E'en so through Tropic and through Trade,
  Awed by the shadow of new skies,
As we shall watch old planets fade
  And mark the stranger stars arise,
So, surely, back through Sun and Cloud,
   So, surely, from the outward main
By Love recalled, by God allowed,
   Shall we return—return again!
  Yea, we return—return again!

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The Quest

 The Knight came home from the quest,
    Muddied and sore he came.
 Battered of shield and crest,
    Bannerless, bruised and lame.
    Fighting we take no shame,
    Better is man for a fall.
 Merrily borne, the bugle-horn
    Answered the warder’s call:—
 “Here is my lance to mend (Haro!),
    Here is my horse to be shot!
 Ay, they were strong, and the fight was long;
    But I paid as good as I got!” 

“Oh, dark and deep their van,
   That mocked my battle-cry.
I could not miss my man,
   But I could not carry by:
   Utterly whelmed was I,
   Flung under, horse and all.”
Merrily borne, the bugle-horn
   Answered the warder’s call! 

“My wounds are noised abroad;
   But theirs my foemen cloaked.
Ye see my broken sword—
   But never the blades she broke;
   Paying them stroke for stroke,
   Good handsel over all.”
Merrily borne, the bugle-horn
   Answered the warder’s call! 

“My shame ye count and know.
   Ye say the quest is vain.
Ye have not seen my foe.
   Ye have not told his slain.
   Surely he fights again, again;
   But when ye prove his line,
There shall come to your aid my broken blade
   In the last, lost fight of mine!
And here is my lance to mend (Haro!),
   And here is my horse to be shot!
Ay, they were strong, and the fight was long;
   But I paid as good as I got!”

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The Quest

In years long past we met a while and vowed 
   Light vows we scarcely knew of—she and I
Made compact sweetly, that if Life allowed,
   I, as true knight should bear her by and bye,
To some strong castle fairy guarded—there
   To be my Queen—and there live out the years.

Allotted in all love: but now I hear
  The burden of a thousand hopes and fears
Spring from those words—I knight am old and worn;
  'Tis long time since I saw my Lady's face,
And she perchance is dead, and I am sworn
  To seek her out in whatsoever place 
They laid her. Have thou pity on my woe, 
  And tell me if she be alive or no.

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Sir Galahad

CHORUS OF ADVENTURERS  

'Sharpened sword at saddle bow,
  Strength to wield it well,
Maiden's love where e'er we go—
  We, invincible.
Fighting lust and evil passion
In the old, grim hero fashion.'

'Who shall stop us as we go 
  Down the village road,
Faces, that we love and know, 
  In the paths we trod?
We that war with lust and passion 
Draw not back thus, woman fashion.'

'We are rich in hope and blessing, 
  Love of all our friends—
Let there be no weak caressing 
  Till the journey ends—
Till we vanquish lust and passion
And return in victor fashion.'

CHORUS OF MATERNAL RELATIVES AT THE HALL

'Who shall tell us where they go!
  Keep them safe O God 
(Little evil do they know)
  In the paths untrod!
Victors over lust and passion.
Bring them back in glorious fashion'.

CHORUS OF ADVENTURERS IN THE DISTANCE

'Who shall tell us where to go 
  In the crowded city?
Houses make a royal show 
  Sure it were a pity
In this home of Lust and passion
Thus to flee it coward fashion.'

CHORUS OF SURVIVORS SUBSEQUENTLY

'Lo! our swords are bent and rusted.
  Girths are laced with string,
Breastplates scarcely to be trusted 
  Casque a ruined thing—
Yielded all to lust and passion 
In the very oldest fashion!'

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The Attainment

Peace for a season—in the heart of me,
The peace which springs from very weariness.
As one wave-rescued looketh on the sea, 
  So look I on the time of my distress,
A powerless power stretching forth weak hands 
  To seize me who am fled from out its reach—
An angry breaker beating on the beach,
  To die in spume streaks on the level sands—
Yea, peace is come to me, and I am free,— 
  And all the past is dead & will not rise—
And that which shall be stretcheth fair, untrod—
  As one wave-rescued turneth from the sea, 
  Landward to rest him—so I turn my eyes
From past things to the future, thanking God.

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In Springtime

My garden blazes brightly with the rose-bush and the peach,
  And the köil sings above it, in the siris by the well,
From the creeper-covered trellis comes the squirrel’s chattering speech,
  And the blue jay screams and flutters where the cheery sat-bhai dwell.
But the rose has lost its fragrance, and the köil’s note is strange;
  I am sick of endless sunshine, sick of blossom-burdened bough.
Give me back the leafless woodlands where the winds of Springtime range—
  Give me back one day in England, for it’s Spring in England now! 

Through the pines the gusts are booming, o’er the brown fields blowing chill,
  From the furrow of the ploughshare streams the fragrance of the loam,
And the hawk nests on the cliffside and the jackdaw in the hill,
  And my heart is back in England ’mid the sights and sounds of Home.
But the garland of the sacrifice this wealth of rose and peach is,
  Ah! köil, little köil, singing on the siris bough,
In my ears the knell of exile your ceaseless bell like speech is—
  Can you tell me aught of England or of Spring in England now?

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I Sit in the Midst

1 
I sit in the midst of my study
   With cake crumbs adorning my hair 
My boots are confoundedly muddy
   And are leaving wet marks on the chair
That supports the fair feet of your Ruddy 
   As he rests with stale cake in his hair. 
2 
I am full of a sense of importance,  
   Of lobster, cream, pilchards and cake
And I feel in my—bosom grim portents 
   That herald the course of an ache
I remark I am racked with grim portents
   That usher abdominal ache.
3 
Yet I write you this letter fraternal 
   I indite you this brotherly note
Tho' my tortures are waxing internal
   I write as I ever have wrote 
Observe that my tone is fraternal
   And I write as I ever have wrote.
4 
Be it known to you fairest of females 
   That dulness is dominant here
And there's little to interest we males 
   Whose smallness is lesser than beer
I complain that in spite of our three mails 
   Per diem there comes nothing here.
5 
Moreover the weather is wondrous
   And skies that should rain only shine
We have dry chalk and gravel roads under us
   And the sun is at work before nine
I may state as a fact still more wondrous
   I too am at work before nine.
6 
And further to tell you, the Kingsley
   Memorial College is built
And throughout it strange carpenters' things lie
   And paint-pots are lavishly spilt
Id est they are fitting the Kingsley
   With hoardings & carvings and gilt.
7 
By a special train chartered at Bristol
   The guilt comes, some two hundred strong
The sons of land-owners who missed all
   Their rents when the Green Isle went wrong 
To be plain, all the boys come from Bristol 
   By the packets of Vermouth and Long. 
8 
We have purchased some tea-pots of delft ware
   We found in a Bideford shop
That crammed on the back of a shelf were
   (Mrs Morten's–she takes things to pop)
In a shop where a friend & myself were
   Knocking round as we do in a shop.
9 
 I have got three most quaintest of glasses 
   For Miss Winnard, (I'll send 'em along)
Whose shape all description surpasses
   And I purchased them all for a song 
Which means that the price of those glasses
   Was entirely other than long.
10 
And now since the sun is descending 
   I must finish my brotherly note
I must make of beginning an ending 
   I must finish this versified note
Take a picture I've drawn as an ending
   Most fit for a metrical note.

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Rather than this

Rather than this should happen I would see  
The red sun shaken like an autumn leaf,
Spin whirling thro' the void without a word 
Of fear or wonder, for the gods are not, 
And we thro' our impiety are lost.
The complex forms that people outer spaces,
Rulers of naked worlds are paramount  
In these our scarrèd hearts. There is no head 
To rule, and have high power. Each is king 
And wallows in his sin, all Hell is here,
And there is nothing that may turn our fate.

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Hymn to Physical Pain

1 
Dread Mother of forgetfulness
Who, when Thy reign begins,
Wipest away the soul's distress
And memory of her sins.
2 
The trusty Worm that diest not–
The steadfast Fire also, 
By thy contrivance are forgot
In a completer woe. 
3 
Thine are the lidless eyes of night
That stare upon our tears,
Through certain hours which in our sight
Exceed a thousand years.
4 
Thine is the thickness of the Dark 
That presses in our pain,
As Thine the Dawn that bids us mark 
Life's grinning face again. 
5 
Thine is the weariness outworn
No promise shall relieve,
That says at eve, "Would God 'twere morn!"
At morn, "Would God 'twere eve!"
6
And when thy tender mercies cease 
And life unvexed is due,
Instant upon the false release
The Worm and Fire renew. 
7 
Wherefore we praise Thee in the deep,
And on our beds we pray
For Thy return, that Thou may'st keep
The Pains of Hell at bay!

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Hymn of the Triumphant Airman

1 
Oh, long had we paltered
    With bridle and girth
Ere those horses were haltered
   That gave us the Earth— 
2 
Ere the Flame and the Fountain,
    The Spark and the Wheel,
Sank Ocean and Mountain
    Alike ’neath our keel. 
3 
But the Wind in her blowing,
    The bird on the wind,
Made naught of our going,
    And left us behind. 
4 
Till the gale was outdriven,
    The gull overflown,
And there matched us in Heaven
    The Sun-God alone. 
5 
He only the master
    We leagued to o’erthrow,
He only the faster
    And, therefore, our foe! 
   
   
        *  *  *  *  *  *  
    
6 
Light steals to uncurtain
    The dim-shaping skies
That arch and make certain
    Where he shall arise. 
7 
We lift to the onset.
    We challenge anew.
From sunrise to sunset,
    Apollo, pursue! 
  

        *  *  *  *  *  * 

8 
What ails thee, O Golden?
    Thy Chariot is still?
What Power has withholden
    The Way from the Will? 
9 
Lo, Hesper hath paled not,
    Nor darkness withdrawn.
The Hours have availed not
     To lead forth the Dawn! 
10 
Do they flinch from full trial,
    The Coursers of Day?
The shade on our dial
     Moves swifter than they! 
11 
We fleet, but thou stayest
     A God unreleased;
And still thou delayest
    Low down in the East— 
12 
A beacon faint-burning,
    A glare that decays
As the blasts of our spurning
    Blow backward its blaze. 
13 
The mid-noon grows colder,
     Night rushes to meet,
And the curve of Earth’s shoulder
    Heaves up thy defeat. 
14 
Storm on at that portal,
    We have thee in prison!
Apollo, immortal,
    Thou hast not arisen!

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