Works

"Uncovenanted Mercies" - From "Limits and Renewals" [1930]


Lo! The Wild Cow of the Desert, her yeanling estrayed from her,
Lost in the wind-plaited sand-dunes, athirst in the maze of them....

I'm 'ere in a ticky ulster an' a broken billycock 'at,
A-layin' on the sergeant I don't know a gun from a bat;
My shirt's doin' duty for jacket, my sock's stickin' out o' my boots,...

'T was Fultah Fisher's boarding-house,
Where sailor-men reside,
And there were men of all the ports
From Mississip to Clyde,
And regally they spat and smoked,
And fearsomely they lied.
...

"Once in so often," King Solomon said,
Watching his quarrymen drill the stone,
"We will club our garlic and wine and bread
And banquet together beneath my Throne,
And all the Brethren shall come to that mess...

When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre,
He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea;
An' what he thought 'e might require,
'E went an' took, the same as me!

The market-girls an' fishermen,...

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.
...

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,...

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:...

"Oh, where are you going to, all you Big Steamers,
With England's own coal, up and down the salt seas?"
"We are going to fetch you your bread and your butter,...

"'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."
...

March! The mud is cakin' good about our trousies.
Front!, eyes front, an' watch the Colour-casin's drip.
Front! The faces of the women in the 'ouses
Ain't the kind o' things to take aboard the ship.
...

March! The mud is cakin' good about our trousies.
Front! eyes front, an' watch the Colour-casin's drip.
Front! The faces of the women in the 'ouses
Ain't the kind o' things to take aboard the ship.
...

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....

[Field Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar]

There's a little red-faced man,
Which is Bobs,
Rides the talliest 'orse 'e can,
Our Bobs.
If it bucks or kicks or rears,
'E can sit for twenty years...

We're foot, slog, slog, slog, sloggin' over Africa,
Foot, foot, foot, foot, sloggin' over Africa,
(Boots, boots, boots, boots, movin' up and down again!)
There's no discharge in the war!
...

"... 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,...

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!...

In the days of lace-ruffles, perukes and brocade
Brown Bess was a partner whom none could despise,
An out-spoken, flinty-lipped, brazen-faced jade,
With a habit of looking men straight in the eyes,...

"And there is a Japanese idol at Kamakura"



O ye who tread the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,
Be gentle when "the heathen" pray
To Buddha at Kamakura!
...

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,...