Divided Destinies by Rudyard Kipling
It was an artless Bandar, and he danced upon a pine, And much I wondered how he lived, and where the beast might dine, And many, many other things, till, o’er my morning smoke, I slept the sleep of idleness and dreamt that Bandar spoke. He said: “O man of many clothes! Sad crawler on […]
Delilah by Rudyard Kipling
We have another viceroy now, — those days are dead and done Of Delilah Aberyswith and depraved Ulysses Gunne. Delilah Aberyswith was a lady — not too young — With a perfect taste in dresses and a badly-bitted tongue, With a thirst for information, and a greater thirst for praise, And a little house in […]
Dedication by Rudyard Kipling
To the City of Bombay The Cities are full of pride, Challenging each to each — This from her mountain-side, That from her burthened beach. They count their ships full tale — Their corn and oil and wine, Derrick and loom and bale, And rampart’s gun-flecked line; City by City they hail: “Hast aught to […]
Dane-Geld by Rudyard Kipling
A.D. 980-1016 It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation To call upon a neighbour and to say: — “We invaded you last night — we are quite prepared to fight, Unless you pay us cash to go away.” And that is called asking for Dane-geld, And the people who ask ti […]
Cuckoo Song by Rudyard Kipling
(Spring begins in southern England on the 14th April, on which date the Old Woman lets the Cuckoo out of her basket at Heathfield Fair — locally known as Heffle Cuckoo Fair.) Tell it to the locked-up trees, Cuckoo, bring your song here! Warrant, Act and Summons, please, For Spring to pass along here! Tell […]
Cruisers by Rudyard Kipling
As our mother the Frigate, bepainted and fine, Made play for her bully the Ship of the Line; So we, her bold daughters by iron and fire, Accost and decoy to our masters’ desire. Now, pray you, consider what toils we endure, Night-walking wet sea-lanes, a guard and a lure; Since half of our trade […]
Covenent by Rudyard Kipling
1914 We thought we ranked above the chance of ill. Others might fall, not we, for we were wise– Merchants in freedom. So, of our free-will We let our servants drug our strength with lies. The pleasure and the poison had its way On us as on the meanest, till we learned That he who […]
Columns by Rudyard Kipling
(Mobile Columns of the Boer War) Out o’ the wilderness, dusty an’ dry (Time, an’ ‘igh time to be trekkin’ again!) Oo is it ‘eads to the Detail Supply? A sectioin, a pompom, an’ six ‘undred men. ‘Ere comes the clerk with ‘is lantern an’ keys (Time, an ‘igh time to be trekkin ‘again!) ” […]
Cold Iron by Rudyard Kipling
Cold is for the mistress — silver for the maid — Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.” “Good!” said the Baron, sitting in his hall, “But Iron — Cold Iron — is master of them all.” So he made rebellion ‘gainst the King his liege, Camped before his citadel and summoned it to […]
Cleared by Rudyard Kipling
Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt, Help for an honourable clan sore trampled in the dirt! From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, O listen to my song, The honourable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong. Their noble names were mentioned — O the burning black disgrace! — By a brutal Saxon paper in an […]
Cities and Thrones and Powers by Rudyard Kipling
Cities and Thrones and Powers, Stand in Time’s eye, Almost as long as flowers, Which daily die: But, as new buds put forth To glad new men, Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth, The Cities rise again. This season’s Daffodil, She never hears, What change, what chance, what chill, Cut down last year’s; But […]
Christmas in India by Rudyard Kipling
Dim dawn behind the tamerisks — the sky is saffron-yellow — As the women in the village grind the corn, And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow That the Day, the staring Easter Day is born. Oh the white dust on the highway! Oh the stenches in the byway! Oh the […]
Cholera Camp by Rudyard Kipling
We’ve got the cholerer in camp — it’s worse than forty fights; We’re dyin’ in the wilderness the same as Isrulites; It’s before us, an’ be’ind us, an’ we cannot get away, An’ the doctor’s just reported we’ve ten more to-day! Oh, strike your camp an’ go, the Bugle’s callin’, The Rains are fallin’ — […]
Chapter Headings by Rudyard Kipling
Plane Tales From the Hills Look, you have cast out Love! What Gods are these You bid me please? The Three in One, the One in Three ? Not so! To my own Gods I go. It may be they shall give me greater ease Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities. Lispeth. When the […]
Chant-Pagan by Rudyard Kipling
Me that ‘ave been what I’ve been — Me that ‘ave gone where I’ve gone — Me that ‘ave seen what I’ve seen — ‘Ow can I ever take on With awful old England again, An’ ‘ouses both sides of the street, And ‘edges two sides of the lane, And the parson an’ gentry between, […]
Certain Maxims Of Hafiz by Rudyard Kipling
I. If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai, Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy? If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say? “Lo! She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me to-day!” II. Yea, though a […]
Cells by Rudyard Kipling
I’ve a head like a concertina: I’ve a tongue like a button-stick: I’ve a mouth like an old potato, and I’m more than a little sick, But I’ve had my fun o’ the Corp’ral’s Guard: I’ve made the cinders fly, And I’m here in the Clink for a thundering drink and blacking the Corporal’s eye. […]
Cain and Abel by Rudyard Kipling
Cain and Abel were brothers born. (Koop-la! Come along, cows!) One raised cattle and one raised corn. (Koop-la! Come along! Co-hoe!) And Cain he farmed by the river-side, So he did not care how much it dried. For he banked, and he sluiced, and he ditched and he led (And the Corn don’t care for […]
By the Hoof of the Wild Goat by Rudyard Kipling
By the Hoof of the Wild Goat uptossed From the cliff where she lay in the Sun Fell the Stone To the Tarn where the daylight is lost, So she fell from the light of the Sun And alone! Now the fall was ordained from the first With the Goat and the Cliff and the […]
Butterflies by Rudyard Kipling
Eyes aloft, over dangerous places, The children follow the butterflies, And, in the sweat of their upturned faces, Slash with a net at the empty skies. So it goes they fall amid brambles, And sting their toes on the nettle-tops, Till, after a thousand scratches and scrambles, They wipe their brows and the hunting stops. […]
Brookland Road by Rudyard Kipling
I was very well pleased with what I knowed, I reckoned myself no fool– Till I met with a maid on the Brookland Road, That turned me back to school. Low down-low down! Where the liddle green lanterns shine– O maids, I’ve done with ‘ee all but one, And she can never’ be mine! ‘Twas […]
Bridge-Guard in the Karroo by Rudyard Kipling
1901 “. . . and will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge.” District Orders-Lines of Communication, South African War. Sudden the desert changes, The raw glare softens and clings, Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges Stand up like the thrones of Kings — Ramparts of slaughter and peril — Blazing, amazing, aglow — ‘Twixt […]
Boots by Rudyard Kipling
We’re foot–slog–slog–slog–sloggin’ over Africa — Foot–foot–foot–foot–sloggin’ over Africa — (Boots–boots–boots–boots–movin’ up an’ down again!) There’s no discharge in the war! Seven–six–eleven–five–nine-an’-twenty mile to-day — Four–eleven–seventeen–thirty-two the day before — (Boots–boots–boots–boots–movin’ up an’ down again!) There’s no discharge in the war! Don’t–don’t–don’t–don’t–look at what’s in front of you. (Boots–boots–boots–boots–movin’ up an’ down again); Men–men–men–men–men go mad […]
Blue Roses by Rudyard Kipling
Roses red and roses white Plucked I for my love’s delight. She would none of all my posies– Bade me gather her blue roses. Half the world I wandered through, Seeking where such flowers grew. Half the world unto my quest Answered me with laugh and jest. Home I came at wintertide, But my silly […]
Bill ‘Awkins by Rudyard Kipling
“‘As anybody seen Bill ‘Awkins?” “Now ‘ow in the devil would I know?” “‘E’s taken my girl out walkin’, An’ I’ve got to tell ‘im so — Gawd — bless ‘im! I’ve got to tell ‘im so.” “D’yer know what ‘e’s like, Bill ‘Awkins?” “Now what in the devil would I care?” “‘E’s the livin’, […]
Belts by Rudyard Kipling
There was a row in Silver Street that’s near to Dublin Quay, Between an Irish regiment an’ English cavalree; It started at Revelly an’ it lasted on till dark: The first man dropped at Harrison’s, the last forninst the Park. For it was: — “Belts, belts, belts, an’ that’s one for you!” An’ it was […]
Before a Midnight Breaks in Storm by Rudyard Kipling
1903 Before a midnight breaks in storm, Or herded sea in wrath, Ye know what wavering gusts inform The greater tempest’s path? Till the loosed wind Drive all from mind, Except Distress, which, so will prophets cry, O’ercame them, houseless, from the unhinting sky. Ere rivers league against the land In piratry of flood, Ye […]
Beast and Man in India by Rudyard Kipling
Written for John Lockwood Kipling’s They killed a Child to please the Gods In Earth’s young penitence, And I have bled in that Babe’s stead Because of innocence. I bear the sins of sinful men That have no sin of my own, They drive me forth to Heaven’s wrath Unpastured and alone. I am the […]
As the Bell Clinks by Rudyard Kipling
As I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of a comely Maid last season worshipped dumbly, watched with fervor from afar; And I wondered idly, blindly, if the maid would greet me kindly. That was all — the rest was settled by the clinking tonga-bar. Yea, my life and hers were coupled by […]
Army Headquarters by Rudyard Kipling
Ahasuerus Jenkins of the “Operatic Own,” Was dowered with a tenor voice of super-Santley tone. His views on equitation were, perhaps, a trifle queer. He had no seat worth mentioning, but oh! he had an ear. He clubbed his wretched company a dozen times a day; He used to quit his charger in a parabolic […]
Arithmetic on the Frontier by Rudyard Kipling
A great and glorious thing it is To learn, for seven years or so, The Lord knows what of that and this, Ere reckoned fit to face the foe — The flying bullet down the Pass, That whistles clear: “All flesh is grass.” Three hundred pounds per annum spent On making brain and body meeter […]
Anchor Song by Rudyard Kipling
Heh! Walk her round. Heave, ah heave her short again! Over, snatch her over, there, and hold her on the pawl. Loose all sail, and brace your yards back and full — Ready jib to pay her off and heave short all! Well, ah fare you well; we can stay no more with you, my […]
An Old Song by Rudyard Kipling
So long as ‘neath the Kalka hills The tonga-horn shall ring, So long as down the Solon dip The hard-held ponies swing, So long as Tara Devi sees The lights of Simla town, So long as Pleasure calls us up, Or Duty drivese us down, If you love me as I love you What pair […]
An Imperial Rescript by Rudyard Kipling
Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser decreed, To ease the strong of their burden, to help the weak in their need, He sent a word to the peoples, who struggle, and pant, and sweat, That the straw might be counted fairly and the tally of bricks be set. The Lords […]
An Astrologer’s Song by Rudyard Kipling
To the Heavens above us O look and behold The Planets that love us All harnessed in gold! What chariots, what horses Against us shall bide While the Stars in their courses Do fight on our side? All thought, all desires, That are under the sun, Are one with their fires, As we also are […]
An American by Rudyard Kipling
If the Led Striker call it a strike, Or the papers call it a war, They know not much what I am like, Nor what he is, My Avatar. Throuh many roads, by me possessed, He shambles forth in cosmic guise; He is the Jester and the Jest, And he the Text himself applies. The […]
A Truthful Song by Rudyard Kipling
THE BRICKLAYER: I tell this tale, which is strictly true, Just by way of convincing you How very little, since things were made, Things have altered in building trade. A year ago, come the middle of March, We was building flats near the Marble Arch, When a thin young man with coal-black hair Came up […]
A Tree Song by Rudyard Kipling
(A. D. 1200) Of all the trees that grow so fair, Old England to adorn, Greater are none beneath the Sun, Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn. Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs, (All of a Midsummer morn!) Surely we sing no little thing, In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! Oak of the […]
A Three-Part Song by Rudyard Kipling
I’m just in love with all these three, The Weald and the Marsh and the Down country. Nor I don’t know which I love the most, The Weald or the Marsh or the white Chalk coast! I’ve buried my heart in a ferny hill, Twix’ a liddle low shaw an’ a great high gill. Oh […]
A Tale of Two Cities by Rudyard Kipling
Where the sober-colored cultivator smiles On his byles; Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow Come and go; Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea, Hides and ghi; Where the Babu drops inflammatory hints In his prints; Stands a City — Charnock chose it — packed away Near a Bay — By the […]