Poems – Page 8 – The Kipling Society

Saint Valentine His Day

1 
Shall I sing you a festive and flippant lay? 
  Send you a sonnet across the sea?
Chaunt you a ditty of Valentine's day? 
Write you a rollicking roundelay
  Of  'Loves' and 'Doves' and 'Eternity'?
2 
Verily, rhymes be hard to write, 
  Verily hearts be not seldom sad— 
After the sunshine cometh the night—
After Pleasure, is Pleasure's flight
  After the good, look out for the bad.
3 
Moral Sentiments these I wis,
  Highly improper the ones below 
After torment expect we bliss, 
Videlicet—after the quarrel the kiss
  And an arm to embrace that gave the blow.
4 
Faithfullest friend of all my friends
  Dearest of Evelyns, doleful am I,
For the Lord he knows when my waiting ends
While the hot winds blow, or the palm tree bends, 
  Or the little white cloud scuds over the sky.
5 
Nevertheless, from over the sea,
  I wish good wishes to you and yours 
(Tho' you haven't written for weeks. N.B. 
This is a hint.) and am faithfullee
  Yours to command while life endures.
6 
Wishes for happiness, wealth and peace
  (While the hot wind blows or the palm tree sighs) 
Length of living and infinite ease,
So long as the leaf shall bud on the trees, 
  So long as the sun looks out of the skies.
7 
'By Moonlight or Starlight—by water or wold'
  (The old curse runs—which  I alter to bless) 
So long as the lamb shall bleat in the fold, 
While summer is hot, or winter is cold
  So long may the Gods send happiness.
8 
So long as a woman shall lean to a lie,
  So long as a man shall weary and wait, 
So long as the wild geese northward fly, 
So long as the flitting swallows cry,
  So long as the wrack comes down with the spate.
9 
And if ever you send a thought this way, 
  (Vagrant fancies across the sea)
Think of a youngster whose lavish pay
Leaves him as wretched a whelp today 
  As ever a body might hope to be.

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The Runners

1 
      News!
What is the word that they tell now-now–now!
The little drums beating in the bazaars?
They beat (among the buyers and the sellers)
     "Nimrud–ah, Nimrud! 
     God sends a gnat against Nimrud!"
Watchers, O Watchers a thousand!

2 
      News!
At the edge of the crops-now-now-where the well-wheels are halted,
One prepares to loose the bullocks and one scrapes his hoe,
They beat (among the sowers and the reapers)
     "Nimrud-ah, Nimrud!
     God prepares an ill day for Nimrud!"
Watchers, O Watchers ten thousand.

3 
      News!
By the fires of the camps-now-now-where the travellers meet,
Where the camels come in and the horses, their men conferring,
They beat (among the packmen and the drivers) 
     "Nimrud-ah, Nimrud!
     Thus it befell last noon to Nimrud!" 
Watchers, O Watchers an hundred thousand! 

4 
      News!
Under the shadow of the border-peels-now-now-now! 
In the rocks of the passes where the expectant shoe their horses,
They beat (among the rifles and the riders) 
     "Nimrud-ah, Nimrud!
     Shall we go up against Nimrud?"
Watchers, O Watchers a thousand thousand! 

5 
      News! 
Bring out the heaps of grain–open the account-books again! 
Drive forward the well-bullocks against the taxable harvest! 
Eat and lie under the trees–pitch the police-guarded fairgrounds, O dancers!
Hide away the rifles and let down the ladders from the watch towers!
They beat (among all the peoples)
     "Now-now-now!
     God has reserved the Sword for Nimrud!
     God has given Victory to Nimrud!
     Let us abide under Nimrud!"
O Well-disposed and Heedful, an hundred thousand thousand!

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The Rowers

1 
The banked oars fell an hundred strong,
  And backed and threshed and ground,
But bitter was the rowers' song
  As they brought the war-boat round. 
2 
They had no heart for the rally and roar
  That makes the whale-bath smoke– 
When the great blades cleave and hold and leave 
   As one on the racing stroke. 
3 
They sang:–"What reckoning do you keep,
  And steer by what star,
If we come unscathed from the Southern deep 
  To be wrecked on a Baltic bar?  
4 
"Last night you swore our voyage was done,
   But seaward still we go.
And you tell us now of a secret vow 
  You have made with an open foe!  
5 
"That we must lie off a lightless coast
    And haul and back and veer
 At the will of the breed that have wrought us most
    For a year and a year and a year!
6 
"There was never a shame in Christendie
    They laid not to our door–
And you say we must take the winter sea 
  And sail with them once more?  
7 
"Look South! The gale is scarce o'erpast
   That stripped and laid us down,
When we stood forth but they stood fast 
  And prayed to see us drown. 
8 
"Our dead they mocked are scarcely cold,
   Our wounds are bleeding yet–
And you tell us now that our strength is sold 
  To help them press for a debt! 
9 
"'Neath all the flags of all mankind 
  That use upon the seas,
Was there no other fleet to find 
  That you strike bands with these?  
10 
"Of evil times that men can choose
  On evil fate to fall,
 What brooding Judgment let you loose 
   To pick the worst of all? 
11 
"In sight of peace–from the Narrow Seas 
    O'er half the world to run–
With a cheated crew, to league anew 
    With the Goth and the shameless Hun!"

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Roses

Roses by babies' rosier fingers pressed 
In wondering amazement. Later, youth,
Attired in knickerbockers, flings them by 
Contemptuously. Lovers' offerings then,
Much kissed and withered. Staid and sober age 
In snug, suburban villas rears them last:
The world at large is dowered with their thorns!

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Romance and Reality

1 
Was it water in the woodlands,
  Hidden brooks that sweetly chime
With the music of the woodlands,
  Through the golden summer time?
2 
Was it mystic moan of breaker
  Coming faintly from afar,
Where the blind sea heaves its shoulder 
  Lazily against the Bar?
3 
Was it sound of loving ringdove,
  Or innumerable bees,
Or the great heart of the forest
  Throbbing through a thousand trees?
4 
It was not what I had fancied,
  'Twas no Dryad's half-heard note—
For the Gods are dead and done with, 
  And we learn their names by rote.
5 
It was neither bee or ringdove, 
  Sea, or wood, or brooklet—but
The voice of Grubbins quartus, 
  Chanting softly in his hut.
6 
And I thought my spirit knew it,
  That plaintive madrigal
Of a Lover and his Lady, 
  Of a Garden and its wall.

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Resolve

I said to myself— 'I will dream 
   As the summer days go by, 
   What  is my  Destiny—'
And I lay and dreamt my dream 
   And I woke from it with a cry—

And I said in fear—'I will go,
   Ere the rose's bud be red,
   I will labour for my bread'—
   But I knew not whither to go,
And summer passed over my head.

And I said to myself 'I will rise
   Ere the green leaf change to brown,
I will win me great renown 
   Ere Autumn chill the skies,
And the laden bough bend down.'

But Winter came and I cried 
   From under the sodden trees,
   'Now is the time for Ease'— 	
And I filled my heart with pride.

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Reckoning

Count we the Cost—the sun is setting fast, 
And Love is fading even as the day—
Ere in the silence of a bitter past 
Eternally our Passion pass away.

Count we the cost—What, when this thing was new 
Gave we for one another? Honour, Truth,
Hope, and the glory of a Maiden's youth, 
Worship of all men, was my price for you.
 
Count we the cost—And was it worth the sin 
Oh Dearest! now some halfword lightly spoken, 
Breaks that we gave our very souls to win
And all the old sweet intercourse is broken? 

The Sun is set—Your face is hid from me, 
And darkness comes upon us as a Sea—

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The Reaping

Hush—What appeal
  From inexorable Fate?
The gods can feel
  Nor Love nor hate.
They strike blindly for our evil and as blindly for our good—
Caring not if Honour follow on the sword blow or our blood.

What good to rave?
  They are stronger e'en than Jove—
If we can save
  Our store of Love,
From this world's wrack and chaos, ere we wander lone to Hell—
Bear the precious burden with us where the weary shadows dwell—
Life has not been wholly barren tho' for aye we say 'farewell'—

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Reading the Will

Here we have it, scratched and scored
  By the tides of an impotent human soul; 
He that wrote it died abhorred,
  And scarcely the bell had ceased to toll 
Ere they crowded together over the cake,
  Ferret-eyed women and keen-faced men, 
In the putrid well of his life to slake
  Their viperous throats, and wonder when
The lawyer was coming to give their share—
  Waiting like beasts behind the bars
For the meat apportioned—and all the air 
  Thick with the hissing whisper that mars 
Fame of the living and fame of the dead.
  See that woman, her yellow teeth
Pressing the lip's thin line of red;
  Mark the struggle that lies beneath
The outer surface of weepers and veils!
  She was his housekeeper, people muttered
Hints, half-hinting, and half-heard tales, 
  Poison tipping each syllable uttered.
Charity, this! And the dead man lies
  Still? Impossible! He must stir,
Slip the bandages, turn and rise, 
  Speak, refuting the blot on her!
There is no sign. Does he hear them say 
  She has it all, and 'We know how
She wiled it from him, but let us stay
  To hear the reading—it's coming now'?  
Slowly, slowly, the red seals break.
  Watch them, marking his ev'ry word—
How in life he had willed to make
  This one wretched, and that preferred.
'I will and I choose that such an one 
  Should have my all!' O woe, O woe!
Human potency, what has it done
  To help men's souls in the shades below? 
Does he remember his power past,
  How that he made men smile or weep,—
Helpless to hold his riches fast,
  Fighting with blows men strike in sleep?

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The Rabbi’s Song

If Thought can reach to Heaven,
  On Heaven let it dwell,
For fear the Thought be given 
  Like power to reach to Hell.
For fear the desolation 
  And darkness of thy mind
Perplex an habitation 
  Which thou hast left behind.

Let nothing linger after–
  No whimpering ghost remain,
In wall, or beam, or rafter,
  Of any hate or pain.
Cleans and call home thy spirit,
  Deny her leave to cast,
On aught thy heirs inherit,
  The shadow of her past.

For think, in all thy sadness,
  What road our griefs may take;
Whose brain reflect our madness,
  Or whom our terrors shake:
For think, lest any languish
  By cause of thy distress–
The arrows of our anguish 
  Fly farther than we guess.

Our lives, our tears, as water,
  Are spilled upon the ground;
God giveth no man quarter,
  Yet God a means hath found,
Though Faith and Hope have vanished, 
  And even Love grows dim–
A means whereby His banished 
  Be not expelled from Him!

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