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

It is well. Was there ever a loser content with the loss of the game?

       XV.

      If She have spoken a word, remember thy lips are sealed,

       And the Brand of the Dog is upon him by whom is the secret revealed.

      If She have written a letter, delay not an instant, but burn it.

       Tear it to pieces, O Fool, and the wind to her mate shall return it!

      If there be trouble to Herward, and a lie of the blackest can clear,

       Lie, while thy lips can move or a man is alive to hear.

       XVI.

      My Son, if a maiden deny thee and scufflingly bid thee give o'er,

       Yet lip meets with lip at the last word—get out!

       She has been there before.

       They are pecked on the ear and the chin and the nose who are lacking in lore.

       XVII.

      If we fall in the race, though we win, the hoof-slide is scarred on the

       course.

       Though Allah and Earth pardon Sin, remaineth forever Remorse.

       XVIII.

      "By all I am misunderstood!" if the Matron shall say, or the Maid:

       "Alas! I do not understand," my son, be thou nowise afraid.

      In vain in the sight of the Bird is the net of the Fowler displayed.

       XIX.

      My son, if I, Hafiz, the father, take hold of thy knees in my pain,

       Demanding thy name on stamped paper, one day or one hour—refrain.

      Are the links of thy fetters so light that thou cravest another man's chain?

The Grave of the Hundred Head

       Table of Contents

      There's a widow in sleepy Chester

       Who weeps for her only son;

       There's a grave on the Pabeng River,

       A grave that the Burmans shun,

       And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri

       Who tells how the work was done.

      A Snider squibbed in the jungle,

       Somebody laughed and fled,

       And the men of the First Shikaris

       Picked up their Subaltern dead,

       With a big blue mark in his forehead

       And the back blown out of his head.

      Subadar Prag Tewarri,

       Jemadar Hira Lal,

       Took command of the party,

       Twenty rifles in all,

       Marched them down to the river

       As the day was beginning to fall.

      They buried the boy by the river,

       A blanket over his face—

       They wept for their dead Lieutenant,

       The men of an alien race—

       They made a samadh in his honor,

       A mark for his resting-place.

      For they swore by the Holy Water,

       They swore by the salt they ate,

       That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib

       Should go to his God in state;

       With fifty file of Burman

       To open him Heaven's gate.

      The men of the First Shikaris

       Marched till the break of day,

       Till they came to the rebel village,

       The village of Pabengmay—

       A jingal covered the clearing,

       Calthrops hampered the way.

      Subadar Prag Tewarri,

       Bidding them load with ball,

       Halted a dozen rifles

       Under the village wall;

       Sent out a flanking-party

       With Jemadar Hira Lal.

      The men of the First Shikaris

       Shouted and smote and slew,

       Turning the grinning jingal

       On to the howling crew.

       The Jemadar's flanking-party

       Butchered the folk who flew.

      Long was the morn of slaughter,

       Long was the list of slain,

       Five score heads were taken,

       Five score heads and twain;

       And the men of the First Shikaris

       Went back to their grave again,

      Each man bearing a basket

       Red as his palms that day,

       Red as the blazing village—

       The village of Pabengmay,

       And the "drip-drip-drip" from the baskets

       Reddened the grass by the way.

      They made a pile of their trophies

       High as a tall man's chin,

       Head upon head distorted,

       Set in a sightless grin,

       Anger and pain and terror

       Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.

      Subadar Prag Tewarri

       Put the head of the Boh

       On the top of the mound of triumph,

       The head of his son below,

       With the sword and the peacock-banner

       That the world might behold and know.

      Thus the samadh was perfect,

       Thus was the lesson plain

       Of the wrath of the First Shikaris—

       The price of a white man slain;

       And the men of the First Shikaris

       Went back into camp again.

      Then a silence came to the river,

       A hush fell over the shore,

       And Bohs that were brave departed,

       And Sniders squibbed no more;

       For the Burmans said

       That a kullah's head

       Must be paid for with heads five score.

      There's a widow in sleepy Chester

       Who weeps for her only son;

       There's a grave on the Pabeng River,

       A grave that the Burmans shun,

       And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri

       Who tells how the work was done.

The Moon of Other Days

       Table of Contents

      Beneath the deep