1891 There were thirty million English who talked of England’s might, There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night. They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor

For a season there must be pain For a little, little space I shall lose the sight of her face, Take back the old life again While She is at rest in her place.

I know not in Whose hands are laid To empty upon earth From unsuspected ambuscade The very Urns of Mirth; Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise And cheer our solemn round The Jest beheld

The God of Fair Beginnings Hath prospered here my hand The cargoes of my lading, And the keels of my command. For out of many ventures That sailed with hope as high, My own

Try as he will, no man breaks wholly loose From his first love, no matter who she be. Oh, was there ever sailor free to choose, That didn’t settle somewhere near the sea? Myself,

A Rose, in tatters on the garden path, Cried out to God and murmured ‘gainst His Wrath, Because a sudden wind at twilight’s hush Had snapped her stem alone of all the bush. And

1903 After Boer War Duly with knees that feign to quake Bent head and shaded brow, Yet once again, for my father’s sake, In Rimmon’s House I bow. The curtains part, the trumpet blares,

Ah! What avails the classic bent And what the cultured word, Against the undoctored incident That actually occurred? And what is Art whereto we press Through paint and prose and rhyme When Nature in

Smells are surer than sounds or sights To make your heart-strings crack They start those awful voices o’ nights That whisper, ” Old man, come back! “ That must be why the big things

1918 This is the State above the Law. The State exists for the State alone.” [This is a gland at the back of the jaw, And an answering lump by the collar-bone.], Some die

Valour and Innocence Have latterly gone hence To certain death by certain shame attended. Envy ah! even to tears! The fortune of their years Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended. Scarce had

When I was a King and a Mason a Master proven and skilled I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build. I decreed and dug down to my levels.

Where run your colts at pasture? Where hide your mares to breed? ‘Mid bergs about the Ice-cap Or wove Sargasso weed; By chartless reef and channel, Or crafty coastwise bars, But most the ocean-meadows

So here’s your Empire. No more wine, then? Good. We’ll clear the Aides and khitmatgars away. (You’ll know that fat old fellow with the knife He keeps the Name Book, talks in English too,

We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine, We were melted in the furnace and the pit We were cast and wrought and hammered to design, We were cut and filed and tooled

I’ve paid for your sickest fancies; I’ve humoured your crackedest whim Dick, it’s your daddy, dying; you’ve got to listen to him! Good for a fortnight, am I? The doctor told you? He lied.

Oh gallant was our galley from her caren steering-wheel To her figurehead of silver and her beak of hammered steel; The leg-bar chafed the ankle and we gasped for cooler air, But no galley

When, foot to wheel and back to wind, The helmsman dare not look behind, But hears beyond his compass-light, The blind bow thunder through the night, And, like a harpstring ere it snaps, The

Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, of him is the story told. His mercy fills the Khyber hills his grace is manifold; He has taken toll of the North and the South his glory reacheth

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

Kabul town’s by Kabul river Blow the bugle, draw the sword There I lef’ my mate for ever, Wet an’ drippin’ by the ford. Ford, ford, ford o’ Kabul river, Ford o’ Kabul river

“THE WOMAN IN HIS LIFE” I have done mostly what most men do, And pushed it out of my mind; But I can’t forget, if I wanted to, Four-Feet trotting behind. Day after day,

“They” Traffics and Discoveries Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs’ dove-winged races Holding hands forlornly the Children wandered beneath the Dome, Plucking the splendid robes of the passers-by, and with

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

1892 The freed dove flew to the Rajah’s tower Fled from the slaughter of Moslem kings And the thorns have covered the city of Guar. Dove dove oh, homing dove! Little white traitor, with

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.

Much I owe to the Lands that grew More to the Lives that fed But most to Allah Who gave me two Separate sides to my head. Much I reflect on the Good and

If any God should say, “I will restore The world her yesterday Whole as before My Judgment blasted it” who would not lift Heart, eye, and hand in passion o’er the gift? If any

Shove off from the wharf-edge! Steady! Watch for a smooth! Give way! If she feels the lop already She’ll stand on her head in the bay. It’s ebb it’s dusk it’s blowing The shoals

Peace is declared, and I return To ‘Ackneystadt, but not the same; Things ‘ave transpired which made me learn The size and meanin’ of the game. I did no more than others did, I

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

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet, Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street. Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie. Watch the wall, my

What 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

1895 There’s a Legion that never was listed, That carries no colours or crest, But, split in a thousand detachments, Is breaking the road for the rest. Our fathers they left us their blessing

I see the grass shake in the sun for leagues on either hand, I see a river loop and run about a treeless land An empty plain, a steely pond, a distance diamond-clear, And

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet, Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat; But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor

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

Marching Song of a Roman Legion of the Later Empire Enlarged From “Puck of Pook’s Hill” When I left Rome for Lalage’s sake, By the Legions’ Road to Rimini, She vowed her heart was

Here is nothing new nor aught unproven,” say the Trumpets, “Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed. “It is the King the King we schooled aforetime! “ (Trumpets in the

1903 Lived a woman wonderful, (May the Lord amend her!) Neither simple, kind, nor true, But her Pagan beauty drew Christian gentlemen a few Hotly to attend her. Christian gentlemen a few From Berwick

The Liner she’s a lady, an’ she never looks nor ‘eeds The Man-o’-War’s ‘er ‘usband, an’ ‘e gives ‘er all she needs; But, oh, the little cargo-boats, that sail the wet seas roun’, They’re

1917 They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young, The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave: But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung, Shall they come

The bachelor ‘e fights for one As joyful as can be; But the married man don’t call it fun, Because ‘e fights for three For ‘Im an’ ‘Er an’ It (An’ Two an’ One

At times when under cover I ‘ave said, To keep my spirits up an’ raise a laugh, ‘Earin ‘im pass so busy over-‘ead Old Nickel-Neck, ‘oo is n’t on the Staff “There’s one above

The Song of Mowgli I, Mowgli, am singing. Let the jungle listen to the things I have done. Shere Khan said he would kill would kill! At the gates in the twilight he would

The earth is full of anger, The seas are dark with wrath, The Nations in their harness Go up against our path: Ere yet we draw the blade, Jehovah of the Thunders, Lord God

‘E was warned agin’ ‘er That’s what made ‘im look; She was warned agin’ ‘im That is why she took. ‘Wouldn’t ‘ear no reason, ‘Went an’ done it blind; We know all about ’em,

The Four Archangels, so the legends tell, Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, Azrael, Being first of those to whom the Power was shown Stood first of all the Host before The Throne, And, when the Charges

This fell when dinner-time was done ‘Twixt the first an’ the second rub That oor mon Jock cam’ hame again To his rooms ahist the Club. An’ syne he laughed, an’ syne he sang,

Yearly, with tent and rifle, our careless white men go By the Pass called Muttianee, to shoot in the vale below. Yearly by Muttianee he follows our white men in Matun, the old blind