The Complete Poetical Works of Rudyard Kipling (570+ Poems in One Edition). Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг

westward—bears the blue no brown cloud-bank?

       Nay, it is written—wherefore should we fly?

       On our own field and by our cattle's flank

       Lie down, lie down to die!

      Semi-Chorus

      By the plumed heads of Kings

       Waving high,

       Where the tall corn springs

       O'er the dead.

      If they rust or rot we die,

       If they ripen we are fed.

      Very mighty is the power of our Kings!

      Triumphal return to Simla of the Investigators, attired after

       the manner of Dionysus, leading a pet tiger-cub in wreaths

       of rhubarb-leaves, symbolical of India under medical treatment.

      They sing:—

      We have seen, we have written—behold it, the proof of our manifold toil!

       In their hosts they assembled and told it—the tale of the Sons of the Soil.

      We have said of the Sickness—"Where is it?"—and of Death—"It is far from

       our ken,"—

       We have paid a particular visit to the affluent children of men.

      We have trodden the mart and the well-curb—we have stooped to the field and

       the byre;

       And the King may the forces of Hell curb for the People have all they desire!

      Castanets and step-dance:—

      Oh, the dom and the mag and the thakur and the thag,

       And the nat and the brinjaree,

       And the bunnia and the ryot are as happy and as quiet

       And as plump as they can be!

      Yes, the jain and the jat in his stucco-fronted hut,

       And the bounding bazugar,

       By the favour of the King, are as fat as anything,

       They are—they are—they are!

      Recitative, Government of India, with white satin wings and electro-plated

       harp:—

      How beautiful upon the Mountains—in peace reclining,

       Thus to be assured that our people are unanimously dining.

      And though there are places not so blessed as others in natural advantages,

       which, after all, was only to be expected,

       Proud and glad are we to congratulate you upon the work you have thus ably

       effected.

      (Cres.) How be-ewtiful upon the Mountains!

      Hired Band, brasses only, full chorus:—

      God bless the Squire

       And all his rich relations

       Who teach us poor people

       We eat our proper rations—

       We eat our proper rations,

       In spite of inundations,

       Malarial exhalations,

       And casual starvations,

       We have, we have, they say we have—

       We have our proper rations!

      Chorus of the Crystallised Facts

      Before the beginning of years

       There came to the rule of the State

       Men with a pair of shears,

       Men with an Estimate—

       Strachey with Muir for leaven,

       Lytton with locks that fell,

       Ripon fooling with Heaven,

       And Temple riding like H—ll!

       And the bigots took in hand

       Cess and the falling of rain,

       And the measure of sifted sand

       The dealer puts in the grain—

       Imports by land and sea,

       To uttermost decimal worth,

       And registration—free—

       In the houses of death and of birth.

      And fashioned with pens and paper,

       And fashioned in black and white,

       With Life for a flickering taper

       And Death for a blazing light—

       With the Armed and the Civil Power,

       That his strength might endure for a span—

       From Adam's Bridge to Peshawur,

       The Much Administered Man.

      In the towns of the North and the East,

       They gathered as unto rule,

       They bade him starve his priest

       And send his children to school.

      Railways and roads they wrought,

       For the needs of the soil within;

       A time to squabble in court,

       A time to bear and to grin.

      And gave him peace in his ways,

       Jails—and Police to fight,

       Justice—at length of days,

       And Right—and Might in the Right.

      His speech is of mortgaged bedding,

       On his kine he borrows yet,

       At his heart is his daughter's wedding,

       In his eye foreknowledge of debt.

      He eats and hath indigestion,

       He toils and he may not stop;

       His life is a long-drawn question

       Between a crop and a crop.

      The Mare's Nest

       Table of Contents

      Jane Austen Beecher Stowe de Rouse

       Was good beyond all earthly need;

       But, on the other hand, her spouse

       Was very, very bad indeed.

      He smoked cigars, called churches slow,

       And raced—but this she did not know.

      For Belial Machiavelli kept

       The little fact a secret, and,

       Though o'er his minor sins she wept,

       Jane Austen did not understand

       That Lilly—thirteen-two and bay

       Absorbed one-half her husband's pay.

      She was so good, she made him worse;

       (Some women are like this, I think;)

       He taught her parrot how to curse,

       Her Assam monkey how to drink.

      He vexed her righteous soul until

       She went up, and he went down hill.

      Then came the crisis, strange to say,

       Which turned a good wife to a better.

      A telegraphic peon, one day,