Works

Now Chil the Kite brings home the night
That Mang the Bat sets free,
The herds are shut in byre and hut,
For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
Talon and tush and claw....

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 kill Mowgli, the Frog!...

I will let loose against you the fleet-footed vines,
I will call in the Jungle to stamp out your lines!
The roofs shall fade before it,
The house-beams shall fall;
And the Karela, the bitter Karela,...

The fear was on the cattle, for the gale was on the sea,
An' the pens broke up on the lower deck an' let the creatures free
An' the lights went out on the lower deck, an' no one near but me.
...

"Why is my District death-rate low?"
Said Binks of Hezabad.
"Well, drains, and sewage-outfalls are
"My own peculiar fad.
"I learnt a lesson once, It ran
"Thus," quoth that most veracious man:
...

Have you news of my boy Jack?"
Not this tide.
"When d'you think that he'll come back?"
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.


"Has any one else had word of him?:"
Not this tide....

There are four good legs to my Father's Chair,
Priests and People and Lords and Crown.
I sits on all of 'em fair and square,
And that is reason it don't break down.
...

The Law whereby my lady moves
Was never Law to me,
But 'tis enough that she approves
Whatever Law it be.

For in that Law, and by that Law
My constant course I'll steer;...

My New-Cut ashlar takes the light
Where crimson-blank the windows flare.
By my own work before the night,
Great Overseer, I make my prayer.

If there be good in that I wrought...

I go to concert, party, ball,
What profit is in these?
I sit alone against the wall
And strive to look at ease.
The incense that is mine by right
They burn before her shrine;...

'Go, wash thyself in Jordan, go, wash thee and be clean! '
Nay, not for any Prophet will I plunge a toe therein!
For the banks of curious Jordan are parcelled into sites,...

Primitive


I ate my fill of a whale that died
And stranded after a month at sea. . . .
There is a pain in my inside.
Why have the Gods afflicted me?
Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith!...

The man that is open of heart to his neighbour,
And stops to consider his likes and dislikes,
His blood shall be wholesome whatever his labour,
His luck shall be with him whatever he strikes....

Non nobis Domine!,
Not unto us, O Lord!
The Praise or Glory be
Of any deed or word;
For in Thy Judgment lies
To crown or bring to nought
All knowledge or device...

"My son," said the Norman Baron, "I am dying, and you will be heir
To all the broad acres in England that William gave me for share
When he conquered the Saxon at Hastings, and a nice little handful it is....

So long as memory, valour, and faith endure,
Let these stones witness, through the years to come,
How once there was a people fenced secure
Behind great waters girdling a far home.
...

All the world over, nursing their scars,
Sit the old fighting-men broke in the wars,
Sit the old fighting-men, surly and grim
Mocking the lilt of the conquerors' hymn.
...

Old Mother Laidinwool had nigh twelve months been dead.
She heard the hops was doing well, an' so popped up her head
For said she: "The lads I've picked with when I was young and fair,...

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,...

Wot makes the soldier's 'eart to penk, wot makes 'im to perspire?
It isn't standin' up to charge nor lyin' down to fire;
But it's everlastin' waitin' on a everlastin' road...