Songs from Books by Rudyard Kipling
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Rudyard Kipling >> Songs from Books
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Who lays on the sword?
'I,' said the Sun,
'Before he has done,
I'll lay on the sword.'
Who fastens his belt?
'I,' said Short-Rations,
'I know all the fashions
Of tightening a belt!'
Who gives him his spur?
'I,' said his Chief,
Exacting and brief,
'I'll give him the spur.'
Who'll shake his hand?
'I,' said the Fever,
'And I'm no deceiver,
I'll shake his hand.'
Who brings him the wine?
'I,' said Quinine,
'It's a habit of mine.
'_I_'ll come with the wine.'
Who'll put him to proof?
'I,' said All Earth,
'Whatever he's worth,
I'll put to the proof.'
Who'll choose him for Knight?
'I,' said his Mother,
'Before any other,
My very own Knight.'
And after this fashion, adventure to seek,
Was Sir Galahad made--as it might be last week!
OUTSONG IN THE JUNGLE
BALOO
FOR the sake of him who showed
One wise Frog the Jungle-Road,
Keep the Law the Man-Pack make
For thy blind old Baloo's sake!
Clean or tainted, hot or stale,
Hold it as it were the Trail,
Through the day and through the night,
Questing neither left nor right.
For the sake of him who loves
Thee beyond all else that moves,
When thy Pack would make thee pain,
Say: 'Tabaqui sings again.'
When thy Pack would work thee ill,
Say: 'Shere Khan is yet to kill.'
When the knife is drawn to slay,
Keep the Law and go thy way.
(Root and honey, palm and spathe,
Guard a cub from harm and scathe!)
_Wood and Water, Wind and Tree,
Jungle-Favour go with thee!_
KAA
Anger is the egg of Fear--
Only lidless eyes are clear.
Cobra-poison none may leech,
Even so with Cobra-speech.
Open talk shall call to thee
Strength, whose mate is Courtesy.
Send no lunge beyond thy length;
Lend no rotten bough thy strength.
Gauge thy gape with buck or goat,
Lest thine eye should choke thy throat
After gorging, wouldst thou sleep?
Look thy den be hid and deep,
Lest a wrong, by thee forgot,
Draw thy killer to the spot.
East and West and North and South,
Wash thy hide and close thy mouth.
(Pit and rift and blue pool-brim,
Middle-Jungle follow him!)
_Wood and Water, Wind and Tree,
Jungle-Favour go with thee!_
BAGHEERA
In the cage my life began;
Well I know the worth of Man.
By the Broken Lock that freed--
Man-cub, 'ware the Man-cub's breed!
Scenting-dew or starlight pale,
Choose no tangled tree-cat trail.
Pack or council, hunt or den,
Cry no truce with Jackal-Men.
Feed them silence when they say:
'Come with us an easy way.'
Feed them silence when they seek
Help of thine to hurt the weak.
Make no _bandar's_ boast of skill;
Hold thy peace above the kill.
Let nor call nor song nor sign
Turn thee from thy hunting-line.
(Morning mist or twilight clear,
Serve him, Wardens of the Deer!)
_Wood and Water, Wind and Tree,
Jungle-Favour go with thee!_
THE THREE
_On the trail that thou must tread
To the thresholds of our dread,
Where the Flower blossoms red;
Through the nights when thou shalt lie
Prisoned from our Mother-sky,
Hearing us, thy loves, go by;
In the dawns when thou shalt wake
To the toil thou canst not break,
Heartsick for the Jungle's sake:
Wood and Water, Wind and Tree,
Wisdom, Strength, and Courtesy,
Jungle-Favour go with thee!_
HARP SONG OF THE DANE WOMEN
What is a woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?
She has no house to lay a guest in--
But one chill bed for all to rest in,
That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.
She has no strong white arms to fold you,
But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you--
Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.
Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,
And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,
Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken--
Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters.
You steal away to the lapping waters,
And look at your ship in her winter quarters.
You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,
The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables--
To pitch her sides and go over her cables.
Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow,
And the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow.
Is all we have left through the months to follow.
Ah, what is Woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?
THE THOUSANDTH MAN
One man in a thousand, Solomon says,
Will stick more close than a brother.
And it's worth while seeking him half your days
If you find him before the other.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend
On what the world sees in you,
But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend
With the whole round world agin you.
'Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show
Will settle the finding for 'ee.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em go
By your looks or your acts or your glory.
But if he finds you and you find him,
The rest of the world don't matter;
For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim
With you in any water.
You can use his purse with no more talk
Than he uses yours for his spendings,
And laugh and meet in your daily walk
As though there had been no lendings.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em call
For silver and gold in their dealings;
But the Thousandth Man he's worth 'em all.
Because you can show him your feelings.
His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right,
In season or out of season.
Stand up and back it in all men's sight--
With _that_ for your only reason!
Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide
The shame or mocking or laughter,
But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side
To the gallows-foot--and after!
THE WINNERS
What is the moral? Who rides may read.
When the night is thick and the tracks are blind
A friend at a pinch is a friend indeed,
But a fool to wait for the laggard behind.
Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,
He travels the fastest who travels alone.
White hands cling to the tightened rein,
Slipping the spur from the booted heel,
Tenderest voices cry 'Turn again,'
Red lips tarnish the scabbarded steel,
High hopes faint on a warm hearth stone--
He travels the fastest who travels alone.
One may fall but he falls by himself--
Falls by himself with himself to blame,
One may attain and to him is pelf,
Loot of the city in Gold or Fame.
Plunder of earth shall be all his own
Who travels the fastest and travels alone.
Wherefore the more ye be holpen and stayed,
Stayed by a friend in the hour of toil,
Sing the heretical song I have made--
His be the labour and yours be the spoil,
Win by his aid and the aid disown--
He travels the fastest who travels alone!
A ST. HELENA LULLABY
'How far is St. Helena from a little child at play?'
What makes you want to wander there with all the world between?
Oh, Mother, call your son again or else he'll run away.
(_No one thinks of winter when the grass is green!_)
'How far is St. Helena from a fight in Paris street?'
I haven't time to answer now--the men are falling fast.
The guns begin to thunder, and the drums begin to beat.
(_If you take the first step you will take the last!_)
'How far is St. Helena from the field of Austerlitz?'
You couldn't hear me if I told--so loud the cannons roar.
But not so far for people who are living by their wits.
(_'Gay go up' means 'Gay go down' the wide world o'er!_)
'How far is St. Helena from an Emperor of France?'
I cannot see--I cannot tell--the crowns they dazzle so.
The Kings sit down to dinner, and the Queens stand up to dance.
(_After open weather you may look for snow!_)
'How far is St. Helena from the Capes of Trafalgar?'
A longish way--a longish way--with ten year more to run.
It's South across the water underneath a setting star.
(_What you cannot finish you must leave undone!_)
'How far is St. Helena from the Beresina ice?'
An ill way--a chill way--the ice begins to crack.
But not so far for gentlemen who never took advice.
(_When you can't go forward you must e'en come back!_)
'How far is St. Helena from the field of Waterloo?'
A near way--a clear way--the ship will take you soon.
A pleasant place for gentlemen with little left to do,
(_Morning never tries you till the afternoon!_)
'How far from St. Helena to the Gate of Heaven's Grace?'
That no one knows--that no one knows--and no one ever will.
But fold your hands across your heart and cover up your face,
And after all your trapesings, child, lie still!
CHIL'S SONG
These were my companions going forth by night--
_(For Chil! Look you, for Chil!)_
Now come I to whistle them the ending of the fight.
_(Chil! Vanguards of Chil!)_
Word they gave me overhead of quarry newly slain,
Word I gave them underfoot of buck upon the plain.
Here's an end of every trail--they shall not speak again!
They that called the hunting-cry--they that followed fast--
_(For Chil! Look you, for Chil!)_
They that bade the sambhur wheel, or pinned him as he passed--
_(Chil! Vanguards of Chil!)_
They that lagged behind the scent--they that ran before,
They that shunned the level horn--they that overbore,
Here's an end of every trail--they shall not follow more.
These were my companions. Pity 'twas they died!
(_For Chil! Look you, for Chil!_')
Now come I to comfort them that knew them in their pride.
(_Chil! Vanguards of Chil!_)
Tattered flank and sunken eye, open mouth and red,
Locked and lank and lone they lie, the dead upon their dead.
Here's an end of every trail--and here my hosts are fed!
THE CAPTIVE
Not with an outcry to Allah nor any complaining
He answered his name at the muster and stood to the chaining.
When the twin anklets were nipped on the leg-bars that held them,
He brotherly greeted the armourers stooping to weld them.
Ere the sad dust of the marshalled feet of the chain-gang swallowed him,
Observing him nobly at ease, I alighted and followed him.
Thus we had speech by the way, but not touching his sorrow--
Rather his red Yesterday and his regal To-morrow,
Wherein he statelily moved to the clink of his chains unregarded,
Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded.
Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made swift with his story,
And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory
Embroidered with names of the Djinns--a miraculous weaving--
But the cool and perspicuous eye overbore unbelieving.
So I submitted myself to the limits of rapture--
Bound by this man we had bound, amid captives his capture--
Till he returned me to earth and the visions departed.
But on him be the Peace and the Blessing; for he was great-hearted!
THE PUZZLER
The Celt in all his variants from Builth to Ballyhoo,
His mental processes are plain--one knows what he will do,
And can logically predicate his finish by his start;
But the English--ah, the English--they are quite a race apart.
Their psychology is bovine, their outlook crude and raw.
They abandon vital matters to be tickled with a straw,
But the straw that they were tickled with--the chaff that they were fed with--
They convert into a weaver's beam to break their foeman's head with.
For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State,
They arrive at their conclusions--largely inarticulate.
Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none;
But sometimes in a smoking-room, one learns why things were done.
Yes, sometimes in a smoking-room, through clouds of 'Ers' and 'Ums,'
Obliquely and by inference illumination comes,
On some step that they have taken, or some action they approve--
Embellished with the _argot_ of the Upper Fourth Remove.
In telegraphic sentences, half nodded to their friends,
They hint a matter's inwardness--and there the matter ends.
And while the Celt is talking from Valencia to Kirkwall,
The English--ah, the English!--don't say anything at all!
HADRAMAUTI
Who knows the heart of the Christian? How does he reason?
What are his measures and balances? Which is his season
For laughter, forbearance or bloodshed, and what devils move him
When he arises to smite us? _I_ do not love him.
He invites the derision of strangers--he enters all places.
Booted, bareheaded he enters. With shouts and embraces
He asks of us news of the household whom we reckon nameless.
Certainly Allah created him forty-fold shameless.
So it is not in the Desert. One came to me weeping--
The Avenger of Blood on his track--I took him in keeping.
Demanding not whom he had slain, I refreshed him, I fed him
As he were even a brother. But Eblis had bred him.
He was the son of an ape, ill at ease in his clothing,
He talked with his head, hands and feet. I endured him with loathing.
Whatever his spirit conceived his countenance showed it
As a frog shows in a mud-puddle. Yet I abode it!
I fingered my beard and was dumb, in silence confronting him.
_His_ soul was too shallow for silence, e'en with Death hunting him.
I said: 'Tis his weariness speaks,' but, when he had rested,
He chirped in my face like some sparrow, and, presently, jested!
Wherefore slew I that stranger? He brought me dishonour.
I saddled my mare, Bijli, I set him upon her.
I gave him rice and goat's flesh. He bared me to laughter.
When he was gone from my tent, swift I followed after,
Taking my sword in my hand. The hot wine had filled him.
Under the stars he mocked me--therefore I killed him!
CHAPTER HEADINGS
THE NAULAHKA
We meet in an evil land
That is near to the gates of hell.
I wait for thy command
To serve, to speed or withstand.
And thou sayest, I do not well?
Oh Love, the flowers so red
Are only tongues of flame,
The earth is full of the dead,
The new-killed, restless dead.
There is danger beneath and o'erhead,
And I guard thy gates in fear
Of peril and jeopardy,
Of words thou canst not hear,
Of signs thou canst not see--
And thou sayest 'tis ill that I came?
This I saw when the rites were done,
And the lamps were dead and the Gods alone,
And the grey snake coiled on the altar stone--
Ere I fled from a Fear that I could not see,
And the Gods of the East made mouths at me.
* * * * *
Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the Christian down;
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear: 'A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.'
* * * * *
Beat off in our last fight were we?
The greater need to seek the sea.
For Fortune changeth as the moon
To caravel and picaroon.
Then Eastward Ho! or Westward Ho!
Whichever wind may meetest blow.
Our quarry sails on either sea,
Fat prey for such bold lads as we.
And every sun-dried buccaneer
Must hand and reef and watch and steer.
And bear great wrath of sea and sky
Before the plate-ships wallow by.
Now, as our tall bows take the foam,
Let no man turn his heart to home,
Save to desire treasure more,
And larger warehouse for his store,
When treasure won from Santos Bay
Shall make our sea-washed village gay.
* * * * *
Because I sought it far from men,
In deserts and alone,
I found it burning overhead,
The jewel of a Throne.
Because I sought--I sought it so
And spent my days to find--
It blazed one moment ere it left
The blacker night behind.
* * * * *
When a lover hies abroad.
Looking for his love,
Azrael smiling sheathes his sword,
Heaven smiles above.
Earth and sea
His servants be,
And to lesser compass round,
That his love be sooner found.
* * * * *
There was a strife 'twixt man and maid--
Oh that was at the birth of time!
But what befell 'twixt man and maid,
Oh that's beyond the grip of rhyme.
'Twas, 'Sweet, I must not bide with you,'
And 'Love, I cannot bide alone';
For both were young and both were true,
And both were hard as the nether stone.
* * * * *
There is pleasure in the wet, wet clay,
When the artist's hand is potting it;
There is pleasure in the wet, wet lay,
When the poet's pad is blotting it;
There is pleasure in the shine of your picture on the line
At the Royal Acade-my;
But the pleasure felt in these is as chalk to Cheddar cheese
When it comes to a well-made Lie:
To a quite unwreckable Lie,
To a most impeccable Lie!
To a water-tight, fire-proof, angle-iron, sunk-hinge, time-lock, steel-face Lie!
Not a private hansom Lie,
But a pair-and-brougham Lie,
Not a little-place-at-Tooting, but a country-house-with-shooting
And a ring-fence-deer-park Lie.
* * * * *
We be the Gods of the East--
Older than all--
Masters of Mourning and Feast
How shall we fall?
Will they gape for the husks that ye proffer
Or yearn to your song?
And we--have we nothing to offer
Who ruled them so long--
In the fume of the incense, the clash of the cymbal, the blare of the conch and the gong?
Over the strife of the schools
Low the day burns--
Back with the kine from the pools
Each one returns
To the life that he knows where the altar-flame glows and the _tulsi_ is trimmed in the urns.
* * * * *
THE LIGHT THAT FAILED
So we settled it all when the storm was done
As comfy as comfy could be;
And I was to wait in the barn, my dears,
Because I was only three,
And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot
Because he was five and a man;
And that's how it all began, my dears,
And that's how it all began.
* * * * *
'If I have taken the common clay
And wrought it cunningly
In the shape of a God that was digged a clod,
The greater honour to me.'
'If thou hast taken the common clay,
And thy hands be not free
From the taint of the soil, thou hast made thy spoil
The greater shame to thee.'
* * * * *
The wolf-cub at even lay hid in the corn,
Where the smoke of the cooking hung grey:
He knew where the doe made a couch for her fawn,
And he looked to his strength for his prey.
But the moon swept the smoke-wreaths away,
And he turned from his meal in the villager's close,
And he bayed to the moon as she rose.
* * * * *
The lark will make her hymn to God,
The partridge call her brood,
While I forget the heath I trod,
The fields wherein I stood.
Tis dule to know not night from morn,
But greater dule to know
I can but hear the hunter's horn
That once I used to blow.
* * * * *
There were three friends that buried the fourth,
The mould in his mouth and the dust in his eyes,
And they went south and east and north--
The strong man fights but the sick man dies.
There were three friends that spoke of the dead--
The strong man fights but the sick man dies--
'And would he were here with us now,' they said,
'The sun in our face and the wind in our eyes.'
* * * * *
Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He spoke of the Faith as a master to slave.
Yet at the last, though the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the reiver,
Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him,
He called upon Allah, and died a Believer!
GALLIO'S SONG
(And Gallio cared for none of these things.--ACTS xviii. 17)
All day long to the judgment-seat
The crazed Provincials drew--
All day long at their ruler's feet
Howled for the blood of the Jew.
Insurrection with one accord
Banded itself and woke,
And Paul was about to open his mouth
When Achaia's Deputy spoke--
'Whether the God descend from above
Or the Man ascend upon high,
Whether this maker of tents be Jove
Or a younger deity--
I will be no judge between your gods
And your godless bickerings.
Lictor, drive them hence with rods--
I care for none of these things!
'Were it a question of lawful due
Or Caesar's rule denied,
Reason would I should bear with you
And order it well to be tried;
But this is a question of words and names.
I know the strife it brings.
I will not pass upon any your claims.
I care for none of these things.
'One thing only I see most clear,
As I pray you also see.
Claudius Caesar hath set me here
Rome's Deputy to be.
It is Her peace that ye go to break--
Not mine, nor any king's.
But, touching your clamour of "Conscience sake,"
I care for none of these things.
'Whether ye rise for the sake of a creed,
Or riot in hope of spoil,
Equally will I punish the deed,
Equally check the broil;
Nowise permitting injustice at all
From whatever doctrine it springs--
But--whether ye follow Priapus or Paul,
I care for none of these things.'
THE BEES AND THE FLIES
A farmer of the Augustan Age
Perused in Virgil's golden page,
The story of the secret won
From Proteus by Cyrene's son--
How the dank sea-god showed the swain
Means to restore his hives again.
More briefly, how a slaughtered bull
Breeds honey by the bellyful.
The egregious rustic put to death
A bull by stopping of its breath,
Disposed the carcass in a shed
With fragrant herbs and branches spread,
And, having thus performed the charm,
Sat down to wait the promised swarm.
Nor waited long. The God of Day
Impartial, quickening with his ray
Evil and good alike, beheld
The carcass--and the carcass swelled.
Big with new birth the belly heaves
Beneath its screen of scented leaves.
Past any doubt, the bull conceives!
The farmer bids men bring more hives
To house the profit that arrives;
Prepares on pan, and key and kettle,
Sweet music that shall make 'em settle;
But when to crown the work he goes,
Gods! what a stink salutes his nose!
Where are the honest toilers? Where
The gravid mistress of their care?
A busy scene, indeed, he sees,
But not a sign or sound of bees.
Worms of the riper grave unhid
By any kindly coffin lid,
Obscene and shameless to the light,
Seethe in insatiate appetite,
Through putrid offal, while above
The hissing blow-fly seeks his love,
Whose offspring, supping where they supt,
Consume corruption twice corrupt.
ROAD-SONG OF THE _BANDAR-LOG_
Here we go in a flung festoon,
Half-way up to the jealous moon!
Don't you envy our pranceful bands?
Don't you wish you had extra hands?
Wouldn't you like if your tails were--_so_--
Curved in the shape of a Cupid's bow?
Now you're angry, but--never mind,
_Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!_
Here we sit in a branchy row,
Thinking of beautiful things we know;
Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,
All complete, in a minute or two--
Something noble and grand and good,
Won by merely wishing we could.
Now we're going to--never mind,
_Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!_
All the talk we ever have heard
Uttered by bat or beast or bird--
Hide or fin or scale or feather--
Jabber it quickly and all together!
Excellent! Wonderful! Once again!
Now we are talking just like men.
Let's pretend we are ... never mind,
_Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!_
This is the way of the Monkey-kind!
_Then join our leaping lines that scumfish through the pines,
That rocket by where, light and high, the wild-grape swings.
By the rubbish in our wake, and the noble noise we make,
Be sure, be sure, we're going to do some splendid things._
'OUR FATHERS ALSO'
Thrones, Powers, Dominions, Peoples, Kings,
Are changing 'neath our hand;
Our fathers also see these things
But they do not understand.
By--they are by with mirth and tears,
Wit or the works of Desire--
Cushioned about on the kindly years
Between the wall and the fire.
The grapes are pressed, the corn is shocked--
Standeth no more to glean;
For the Gates of Love and Learning locked
When they went out between.
All lore our Lady Venus bares,
Signalled it was or told
By the dear lips long given to theirs
And longer to the mould.
All Profit, all Device, all Truth
Written it was or said
By the mighty men of their mighty youth,
Which is mighty being dead.
The film that floats before their eyes
The Temple's Veil they call;
And the dust that on the Shewbread lies
Is holy over all.
Warn them of seas that slip our yoke
Of slow-conspiring stars--
The ancient Front of Things unbroke
But heavy with new wars?
By--they are by with mirth and tears,
Wit or the waste of Desire--
Cushioned about on the kindly years
Between the wall and the fire.
A BRITISH-ROMAN SONG
(A.D. 406)
My father's father saw it not,
And I, belike, shall never come,
To look on that so-holy spot--
The very Rome--
Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might,
The equal work of Gods and Man,
City beneath whose oldest height--
The Race began!
Soon to send forth again a brood,
Unshakeable, we pray, that clings,
To Rome's thrice-hammered hardihood--
In arduous things.
Strong heart with triple armour bound,
Beat strongly, for thy life-blood runs,
Age after Age, the Empire round--
In us thy Sons.
Who, distant from the Seven Hills,
Loving and serving much, require
Thee--_thee_ to guard 'gainst home-born ills,
The Imperial Fire!
A PICT SONG
Rome never looks where she treads.
Always her heavy hooves fall,
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
Her sentries pass on--that is all,
And we gather behind them in hordes,
And plot to reconquer the Wall,
With only our tongues for our swords.
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