Songs from Books E-Book

Rudyard Kipling

• Herausgeber: Seltzer Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 160

Beschreibung

A collection of verse that originally appeared in Kipling's novels and short story collections. According to Wikipedia: "Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936) was an English author and poet. Born in Bombay, British India (now Mumbai), he is best known for his works The Jungle Book (1894) and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (1902), his novel, Kim (1901); his poems, including Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), If— (1910); and his many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King (1888). He is regarded as a major "innovator in the art of the short story"; his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature; and his best works speak to a versatile and luminous narrative gift. Kipling was one of the most popular writers in English, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[2] The author Henry James said of him: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known." In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English language writer to receive the prize, and to date he remains its youngest recipient. Among other honours, he was sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, all of which he declined.

Leseprobe

SONGS FROM BOOKS BY RUDYARD KIPLING

published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA

established in 1974, offering over 14,000  books

Books by Rudyard Kipling available from us:

Actions and Reactions

American Notes

Departmental Ditties and Ballads

Captains Courageous

The Day's Work

A Diversity of Creatures

France at War

Indian Tales

The Jungle Book

Just So Stories

Kim

Letters of Travel

Life's Handicap, Being Stories of Mine Own People

The Light that Failed

The Man Who Would Be King

Plain Tales from the Hills

Puck of Pook's Hill

Rewards and Fairies

Sea Warfare

The Second Jungle Book

Soldiers Three

Songs from Books

Stalky and Company

The Story of the Gadsby

Traffics and Discoveries

Under the Deodars

Verses

The Years Between

feedback welcome: [email protected]

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First published by:

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1914

COPYRIGHT

All rights reserved, including that oftranslation into foreign languages,including the Scandinavian

First Edition October, 1913

Reprinted October (twice), November, 1913, 1914

PREFACE

'CITIES AND THRONES AND POWERS'

THE RECALL

PUCK'S SONG

THE WAY THROUGH THE WOODS

A THREE-PART SONG

THE RUN OF THE DOWNS

BROOKLAND ROAD

THE SACK OF THE GODS

THE KINGDOM

TARRANT MOSS

SIR RICHARD'S SONG

A TREE SONG

CUCKOO SONG

A CHARM

THE PRAIRIE

PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS

COLD IRON

A SONG OF KABIR

A CAROL

'MY NEW-CUT ASHLAR'

EDDI'S SERVICE

SHIV AND THE GRASSHOPPER

THE FAIRIES' SIEGE

A SONG TO MITHRAS

THE NEW KNIGHTHOOD

OUTSONG IN THE JUNGLE

HARP SONG OF THE DANE WOMEN

THE THOUSANDTH MAN

THE WINNERS

A ST. HELENA LULLABY

CHIL'S SONG

THE CAPTIVE

THE PUZZLER

HADRAMAUTI

THE NAULAHKA

THE LIGHT THAT FAILED

GALLIO'S SONG

THE BEES AND THE FLIES

ROAD-SONG OF THE BANDAR-LOG

'OUR FATHERS ALSO'

A BRITISH-ROMAN SONG

A PICT SONG

THE STRANGER

'RIMINI'

'POOR HONEST MEN'

'WHEN THE GREAT ARK'

PROPHETS AT HOME

JUBAL AND TUBAL CAIN

THE VOORTREKKER

A SCHOOL SONG

THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE

'A SERVANT WHEN HE REIGNETH'

THE HERITAGE

'BEAST AND MAN IN INDIA'

LIFE'S HANDICAP

KIM

MANY INVENTIONS

SONG OF THE FIFTH RIVER

THE CHILDREN'S SONG

PARADE-SONG OF THE CAMP-ANIMALS

IF--

THE PRODIGAL SON

THE NECESSITARIAN

THE JESTER

A SONG OF TRAVEL

THE TWO-SIDED MAN

'LUKANNON'

AN ASTROLOGER'S SONG

'THE POWER OF THE DOG'

THE RABBI'S SONG

THE BEE BOY'S SONG

THE RETURN OF THE CHILDREN

MERROW DOWN

OLD MOTHER LAIDINWOOL

JUST-SO STORIES

THE LOOKING-GLASS

THE QUEEN'S MEN

THE CITY OF SLEEP

THE WIDOWER

THE PRAYER OF MIRIAM COHEN

THE SONG OF THE LITTLE HUNTER

GOW'S WATCH

THE WISHING CAPS

'BY THE HOOF OF THE WILD GOAT'

SONG OF THE RED WAR-BOAT

MORNING SONG IN THE JUNGLE

BLUE ROSES

A RIPPLE SONG

BUTTERFLIES

MY LADY'S LAW

THE NURSING SISTER

THE LOVE SONG OF HAR DYAL

A DEDICATION

MOTHER O' MINE

THE ONLY SON

MOWGLI'S SONG AGAINST PEOPLE

ROMULUS AND REMUS

THE JUNGLE BOOKS

THE EGG-SHELL

THE KING'S TASK

POSEIDON'S LAW

A TRUTHFUL SONG

A SMUGGLER'S SONG

KING HENRY VII. AND THE SHIPWRIGHTS

THE WET LITANY

THE BALLAD OF MINEPIT SHAW

HERIOT'S FORD

FRANKIE'S TRADE

THE JUGGLER'S SONG

THORKILD'S SONG

'ANGUTIVAUN TAINA'

HUNTING-SONG OF THE SEEONEE PACK

SONG OF THE MEN'S SIDE

DARZEE'S CHAUNT

THE FOUR ANGELS

THE PRAYER

PREFACE

I have collected in this volume practically all theverses and chapter-headings scattered through my books.In several cases where only a few lines of verse wereoriginally used, I have given in full the song, etc., fromwhich they were taken.

RUDYARD KIPLING.

'CITIES AND THRONES AND POWERS'

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 with bold countenance,

  And knowledge small,

Esteems her seven days' continuance

  To be perpetual.

So Time that is o'er-kind,

  To all that be,

Ordains us e'en as blind,

  As bold as she:

That in our very death,

  And burial sure,

Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,

  'See how our works endure!'

THE RECALL

I am the land of their fathers.

In me the virtue stays.

I will bring back my children,

After certain days.

Under their feet in the grasses

My clinging magic runs.

They shall return as strangers,

They shall remain as sons.

Over their heads in the branches

Of their new-bought, ancient trees,

I weave an incantation

And draw them to my knees.

Scent of smoke in the evening.

Smell of rain in the night,

The hours, the days and the seasons,

Order their souls aright;

Till I make plain the meaning

Of all my thousand years--

Till I fill their hearts with knowledge.

While I fill their eyes with tears.

PUCK'S SONG

See you the ferny ride that steals

Into the oak-woods far?

O that was whence they hewed the keels

That rolled to Trafalgar.

And mark you where the ivy clings

To Bayham's mouldering walls?

O there we cast the stout railings

That stand around St. Paul's.

See you the dimpled track that runs

All hollow through the wheat?

O that was where they hauled the guns

That smote King Philip's fleet.

Out of the Weald, the secret Weald,

Men sent in ancient years,

The horse-shoes red at Flodden Field,

The arrows at Poitiers.

See you our little mill that clacks,

So busy by the brook?

She has ground her corn and paid her tax

Ever since Domesday Book.

See you our stilly woods of oak?

And the dread ditch beside?

O that was where the Saxons broke

On the day that Harold died.

See you the windy levels spread

About the gates of Rye?

O that was where the Northmen fled,

When Alfred's ships came by.

See you our pastures wide and lone,

Where the red oxen browse?

O there was a City thronged and known.

Ere London boasted a house.

And see you, after rain, the trace

Of mound and ditch and wall?

O that was a Legion's camping-place,

When Caesar sailed from Gaul.

And see you marks that show and fade,

Like shadows on the Downs?

O they are the lines the Flint Men made,

To guard their wondrous towns.

Trackway and Camp and City lost,

Salt Marsh where now is corn;

Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease,

And so was England born!

She is not any common Earth,

Water or wood or air,

But Merlin's Isle of Gramarye,

Where you and I will fare.

THE WAY THROUGH THE WOODS

They shut the road through the woods

Seventy years ago.

Weather and rain have undone it again,

And now you would never know

There was once a road through the woods

Before they planted the trees.

It is underneath the coppice and heath,

And the thin anemones.

Only the keeper sees

That, where the ring-dove broods.

And the badgers roll at ease,

There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods

Of a summer evening late,

When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools

Where the otter whistles his mate.

(They fear not men in the woods.

Because they see so few)

You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,

And the swish of a skirt in the dew,

Steadily cantering through

The misty solitudes,

As though they perfectly knew

The old lost road through the woods ...

But there is no road through the woods!

A THREE-PART SONG

I'm just in love with all these three,

The Weald and the Marsh and the Down countrie;

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 hop-bine yaller an' wood-smoke blue,

I reckon you'll keep her middling true!

I've loosed my mind for to out and run

On a Marsh that was old when Kings begun.

Oh Romney Level and Brenzett reeds,

I reckon you know what my mind needs!

I've given my soul to the Southdown grass,

And sheep-bells tinkled where you pass.

Oh Firle an' Ditchling an' sails at sea,

I reckon you keep my soul for me!

THE RUN OF THE DOWNS

The Weald is good, the Downs are best--

I'll give you the run of 'em, East to West.

Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill,

They were once and they are still,

Firle, Mount Caburn and Mount Harry

Go back as far as sums'll carry.

Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring,

They have looked on many a thing,

And what those two have missed between 'em

I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen 'em.

Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down

Knew Old England before the Crown.

Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood

Knew Old England before the Flood.

And when you end on the Hampshire side--

Butser's old as Time and Tide.

The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn,

You be glad you are Sussex born!

BROOKLAND ROAD

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 right in the middest of a hot June night,

With thunder duntin' round,

And I see'd her face by the fairy light

That beats from off the ground.

She only smiled and she never spoke,

She smiled and went away;

But when she'd gone my heart was broke,

And my wits was clean astray.

O stop your ringing and let me be--

Let be, O Brookland bells!

You'll ring Old Goodman[A] out of the sea,

Before I wed one else!

Old Goodman's Farm is rank sea-sand,

And was this thousand year:

But it shall turn to rich plough land

Before I change my dear.

O, Fairfield Church is water-bound

From autumn to the spring;

But it shall turn to high hill ground

Before my bells do ring.

O, leave me walk on the Brookland Road,

In the thunder and warm rain--

O, leave me look where my love goed,

And p'raps I'll see her again!

  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!

[Footnote A: Earl Godwin of the Goodwin Sands?]

THE SACK OF THE GODS

Strangers drawn from the ends of the earth, jewelled and plumed were we.

I was Lord of the Inca race, and she was Queen of the Sea.

Under the stars beyond our stars where the new-forged meteors glow

Hotly we stormed Valhalla, a million years ago.

Ever 'neath high Valhalla Hall the well-tuned horns begin

When the swords are out in the underworld, and the weary Gods come in.

Ever through high Valhalla Gate the Patient Angel goes;

He opens the eyes that are blind with hate--he joins the hands of foes.

Dust of the stars was under our feet, glitter of stars above--

Wrecks of our wrath dropped reeling down as we fought and we spurned and we strove.

Worlds upon worlds we tossed aside, and scattered them to and fro,

The night that we stormed Valhalla, a million years ago!

They are forgiven as they forgive all those dark wounds and deep,

Their beds are made on the lap of Time and they lie down and sleep.

They are forgiven as they forgive all those old wounds that bleed,

They shut their eyes from their worshippers. They sleep till the world has need.

She with the star I had marked for my own--I with my set desire--

Lost in the loom of the Night of Nights--lighted by worlds afire--

Met in a war against the Gods where the headlong meteors glow,

Hewing our way to Valhalla, a million years ago!

They will come back--come back again, as long as the red Earth rolls.

He never wasted a leaf or a tree. Do you think He would squander souls?

THE KINGDOM

Now we are come to our Kingdom,

And the State is thus and thus;

Our legions wait at the Palace gate---

Little it profits us,

Now we are come to our Kingdom!

Now we are come to our Kingdom,

And the Crown is ours to take--

With a naked sword at the Council board,

And under the throne the Snake,

Now we are come to our Kingdom!

Now we are come to our Kingdom,

And the Realm is ours by right,

With shame and fear for our daily cheer,

And heaviness at night,

Now we are come to our Kingdom!

Now we are come to our Kingdom,

But my love's eyelids fall.

All that I wrought for, all that I fought for,

Delight her nothing at all.

My crown is of withered leaves,

For she sits in the dust and grieves.

Now we are come to our Kingdom!

TARRANT MOSS

I closed and drew for my love's sake

That now is false to me,

And I slew the Reiver of Tarrant Moss

And set Dumeny free.

They have gone down, they have gone down,

They are standing all arow--

Twenty knights in the peat-water,

That never struck a blow!

Their armour shall not dull nor rust,

Their flesh shall not decay,

For Tarrant Moss holds them in trust,

Until the Judgment Day.

Their soul went from them in their youth,

Ah God, that mine had gone,

Whenas I leaned on my love's truth

And not on my sword alone!

Whenas I leaned on lad's belief

And not on my naked blade--

And I slew a thief, and an honest thief,

For the sake of a worthless maid.

They have laid the Reiver low in his place,

They have set me up on high,

But the twenty knights in the peat-water

Are luckier than I.

And ever they give me gold and praise

And ever I mourn my loss--

For I struck the blow for my false love's sake

And not for the Men of the Moss!

SIR RICHARD'S SONG

(A.D. 1066)

I followed my Duke ere I was a lover,

  To take from England fief and fee;

But now this game is the other way over--

  But now England hath taken me!

I had my horse, my shield and banner,

  And a boy's heart, so whole and free;

But now I sing in another manner--

  But now England hath taken me!

As for my Father in his tower,

  Asking news of my ship at sea;

He will remember his own hour--

  Tell him England hath taken me!

As for my Mother in her bower,

  That rules my Father so cunningly,

She will remember a maiden's power--

  Tell her England hath taken me!

As for my Brother in Rouen City,

  A nimble and naughty page is he,

But he will come to suffer and pity--

  Tell him England hath taken me!

As for my little Sister waiting

  In the pleasant orchards of Normandie,

Tell her youth is the time for mating--

  Tell her England hath taken me!

As for my Comrades in camp and highway,

  That lift their eyebrows scornfully,

Tell them their way is not my way--

  Tell them England hath taken me!

Kings and Princes and Barons famed,

  Knights and Captains in your degree;

Hear me a little before I am blamed--

  Seeing England hath taken me!

Howso great man's strength be reckoned,

  There are two things he cannot flee;

Love is the first, and Death is the second--

  And Love in England hath taken me!

A TREE SONG

(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 Clay lived many a day

  Or ever AEneas began;

Ash of the Loam was a lady at home

  When Brut was an outlaw man.

Thorn of the Down saw New Troy Town

  (From which was London born);

Witness hereby the ancientry

  Of Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Yew that is old in churchyard mould,

  He breedeth a mighty bow;

Alder for shoes do wise men choose,

  And beech for cups also.

But when ye have killed, and your bowl is spilled,

  And your shoes are clean outworn,

Back ye must speed for all that ye need,

  To Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Ellum she hateth mankind, and waiteth

  Till every gust be laid,

To drop a limb on the head of him

  That anyway trusts her shade:

But whether a lad be sober or sad,

  Or mellow with ale from the horn,

He will take no wrong when he lieth along

  'Neath Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Oh, do not tell the Priest our plight,

  Or he would call it a sin;

But--we have been out in the woods all night,

  A-conjuring Summer in!

And we bring you news by word of mouth--

  Good news for cattle and corn--

Now is the Sun come up from the South,

  With Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs

  (All of a Midsummer morn)!

England shall bide till Judgment Tide,

  By Oak, and Ash, and Thorn!

CUCKOO SONG

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 old Winter, if he doubt,

Tell him squat and square--a!

Old Woman!

Old Woman!

Old Woman's let the Cuckoo out

At Heffle Cuckoo Fair--a!

March has searched and April tried--

'Tisn't long to May now,

Not so far to Whitsuntide,

And Cuckoo's come to stay now!

Hear the valiant fellow shout

Down the orchard bare--a!

Old Woman!

Old Woman!

Old Woman's let the Cuckoo out

At Heffle Cuckoo Fair--a!

When your heart is young and gay

And the season rules it--

Work your works and play your play

'Fore the Autumn cools it!

Kiss you turn and turn about,

But my lad, beware--a!

Old Woman!

Old Woman!

Old Woman's let the Cuckoo out

At Heffle Cuckoo Fair--a!

A CHARM