1,82 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 73
Ähnliche
THE YEARS BETWEEN
Rudyard Kipling
KYPROS PRESS
Thank you for reading. In the event that you appreciate this book, please consider sharing the good word(s) by leaving a review, or connect with the author.
This book is a work of poetry; its contents are wholly imagined.
All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.
Copyright © 2015 by Rudyard Kipling
Interior design by Pronoun
Distribution by Pronoun
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Years Between
The Benefactors
The Choice
“The City of Brass”
The Covenant
The Dead King
A Death-Bed
The Declaration of London
Dedication
To the Seven Watchmen
En-Dor
The Female of the Species
“For All We Have and Are”
France
Gehazi
Gethsemane
The Holy War
The Houses
The Hyænas
Justice
The Irish Guards
Lord Roberts
Mary’s Son
Mesopotamia
My Boy Jack
A Nativity
Natural Theology
The Outlaws
A Pilgrim’s Way
The Question
A Recantation
The Rowers
Russia to the Pacifists
A Song at Cock-Crow
A Song in Storm
The Song of the Lathes
The Sons of Martha
The Spies’ March
Things and the Man
Ulster
The Verdicts
The Veterans
The Virginity
Zion
THE YEARS BETWEEN
THE BENEFACTORS
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 her nakedness
Defeats us every time?
It is not learning, grace nor gear,
Nor easy meat and drink,
But bitter pinch of pain and fear
That makes creation think
When in this world’s unpleasing youth
Our god-like race began,
The longest arm, the sharpest tooth,
Gave man control of man;
Till, bruised and bitten to the bone
And taught by pain and fear,
He learned to deal the far-off stone,
And poke the long, safe spear.
So tooth and nail were obsolete
As means against a foe,
Till, bored by uniform defeat,
Some genius built the bow.
Then stone and javelin proved as vain
As old-time tooth and nail;
Till, spurred anew by fear and pain,
Man fashioned coats of mail.
Then was there safety for the rich
And danger for the poor,
Till someone mixed a powder which
Redressed the scale once more.
Helmet and armour disappeared
With sword and bow and pike,
And, when the smoke of battle cleared,
All men were armed alike. . . .
And when ten million such were slain
To please one crazy king,
Man, schooled in bulk by fear and pain,
Grew weary of the thing;
And, at the very hour designed,
To enslave him past recall,
His tooth-stone-arrow-gun-shy mind
Turned and abolished all.
All Power, each Tyrant, every Mob
Whose head has grown too large,
Ends by destroying its own job
And works its own discharge;
And Man, whose mere necessities
Move all things from his path,
Trembles meanwhile at their decrees,
And deprecates their wrath!
THE CHOICE
[1917]
The American Spirit speaks:
TO the Judge of Right and Wrong
With Whom fulfilment lies
Our purpose and our power belong,
Our faith and sacrifice,
Let Freedom’s Land rejoice!
Our ancient bonds are riven;
Once more to us the eternal choice
Of Good or Ill is given.
Not at a little cost,
Hardly by prayer or tears,
Shall we recover the road we lost
In the drugged and doubting years.
But, after the fires and the wrath,
But, after searching and pain,
His Mercy opens us a path
To live with ourselves again.
In the Gates of Death rejoice!
We see and hold the good —
Bear witness, Earth, we have made our choice
With Freedom’s brotherhood!
Then praise the Lord Most High
Whose Strength hath saved us whole,
Who bade us choose that the Flesh should die
And not the living Soul!
To the God in Man displayed —
Wheree’er we see that Birth,
Be love and understanding paid
As never yet on earth!
To the Spirit that moves in Man,
On Whom all worlds depend,
Be Glory since our world began
And service to the end!
“THE CITY OF BRASS”
[1909]
Here was a people whom after their works thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion: and in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust.
— The Arabian Nights.
IN A land that the sand overlays — the ways to her gates are untrod —
A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God,
Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall,
And of these is a story written: but Allah A1one knoweth all!
When the wine stirred in their heart their bosoms dilated,
They rose to suppose themselves kings over all things created —
To decree a new earth at a birth without labour or sorrow —
To declare: “We prepare it to-day and inherit to-morrow.”
They chose themselves prophets and priests of minute understanding,
Men swift to see done, and outrun, their extremest commanding —
Of the tribe which describe with a jibe the perversions of Justice —
Panders avowed to the crowd whatsoever its lust is.
Swiftly these pulled down the walls that their fathers had made them —
The impregnable ramparts of old, they razed and relaid them
As playgrounds of pleasure and leisure with limitless entries,
And havens of rest for the wastrels where once walked the sentries;
And because there was need of more pay for the shouters and marchers,
They disbanded in face of their foemen their yeomen and archers.
They replied to their well-wishers’ fears — to their enemies’ laughter,
Saying: “Peace! We have fashioned a God Which shall save us hereafter.
We ascribe all dominion to man in his factions conferring,
And have given to numbers the Name of the Wisdom unerring.”
They said: “Who has hate in his soul? Who has envied his neighbour?
Let him arise and control both that man and his labour.”
They said: “Who is eaten by sloth? Whose unthrift has destroyed him?
He shall levy a tribute from all because none have employed him.”
They said: “Who hath toiled, who hath striven, and gathered possession?
Let him be spoiled. He hath given full proof of transgression.”
They said: “Who is irked by the Law? Though we may not remove it,
If he lend us his aid in this raid, we will set him above it!”
So the robber did judgment again upon such as displeased him,
The slayer, too, boasted his slain, and the judges released him.
As for their kinsmen far off, on the skirts of the nation,
They harried all earth to make sure none escaped reprobation,
They awakened unrest for a jest in their newly-won borders,
And jeered at the blood of their brethren betrayed by their orders.
They instructed the ruled to rebel, their rulers to aid them;
And, since such as obeyed them not fell, their Viceroys obeyed them.
When the riotous set them at naught they said: “Praise the upheaval!
For the show and the word and the thought of Dominion is evil!”
They unwound and flung from them with rage, as a rag that defiled them
The imperial gains of the age which their forefathers piled them.
They ran panting in haste to lay waste and embitter for ever
The wellsprings of Wisdom and Strength which are Faith and Endeavour.
They nosed out and digged up and dragged forth and exposed to derision
All doctrine of purpose and worth and restraint and prevision:
And it ceased, and God granted them all things for which they had striven,
And the heart of a beast in the place of a man’s heart was given. . .
. . . . .
When they were fullest of wine and most flagrant in error,
Out of the sea rose a sign — out of Heaven a terror.
Then they saw, then they heard, then they knew — for none troubled to hide it,
An hosthadpreparedtheirdestruction, but still theydenied it.
They denied what they dared not abide if it came to the trial,
But the Sword that was forged while they lied did not heed their denial.
It drove home, and no time was allowed to the crowd that was driven.
The preposterous-minded were cowed — they thought time would be given.
