Works

And they were stronger hands than mine
That digged the Ruby from the earth,
More cunning brains that made it worth
The large desire of a king,
And stouter hearts that through the brine...

This is the reason why Rustum Beg,
Rajah of Kolazai,
Drinketh the "simpkin" and brandy peg,
Maketh the money to fly,
Vexeth a Government, tender and kind,
Also, but this is a detail, blind.

...

Once on a time, the ancient legends tell,
Truth, rising from the bottom of her well,
Looked on the world, but, hearing how it lied,
Returned to her seclusion horrified....

There's a pasture in a valley where the hanging woods divide,
And a Herd lies down and ruminates in peace;
Where the pheasant rules the nooning, and the owl the twilight tide,...

Song of the Returning Hunter (Esquimaux) - "Quiquern", The Second Jungle Book

Our gloves are stiff with the frozen blood,
Our furs with the drifted snow,
As we come in with the seal, the seal!...

A great and glorious thing it is
To learn, for seven years or so,
The Lord knows what of that and this,
Ere reckoned fit to face the foe,
The flying bullet down the Pass,...

Friend, thou beholdest the lightning? Who has the charge of it,
To decree which rock-ridge shall receive, shall be chosen for targe of it?
Which crown among palms shall go down, by the thunderbolt broken;...

Fair is our lot, O goodly is our heritage!
(Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!)
For the Lord our God Most High
He hath made the deep as dry,...

Now, this is the cup the White Men drink
When they go to right a wrong,
And that is the cup of the old world's hate,
Cruel and strained and strong.
We have drunk that cup, and a bitter, bitter cup,...

Where's the lamp that Hero lit
Once to call Leander home?
Equal Time hath shovelled it
'Neath the wrack of Greece and Rome.
Neither wait we any more
That worn sail which Argo bore.
...

Mithras, God of the Morning, our trumpets waken the Wall!
'Rome is above the Nations, but Thou art over all!'
Now as the names are answered, and the guards are marched away,...

As I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of a comely
Maid last season worshiped dumbly, watched with fervor from afar;
And I wondered idly, blindly, if the maid would greet me kindly....

Where the sober-colored cultivator smiles
On his byles;
Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow
Come and go;
Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea,
Hides and ghi;...

I'm just in love with all these three,
The Weald and the Marsh and the Down country.
Nor I don't know which I love the most,
The Weald or the Marsh or the white Chalk coast!
...

There are whose study is of smells,
And to attentive schools rehearse
How something mixed with something else
Makes something worse.

Some cultivate in broths impure
The clients of our body, these,...

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!)...

THE BRICKLAYER:

I tell this tale, which is strictly true,
Just by way of convincing you
How very little, since things were made,
Things have altered in building trade.
...

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,...

"... 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,...

"To Be Filed For Reference", Plain Tales From the Hills



By the Hoof of the Wild Goat uptossed
From the cliff where she lay in the Sun
Fell the Stone
To the Tarn where the daylight is lost,...