The Ballad of the King's Jest

WHEN spring-time flushes the desert grass,

Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.

Lean are the camels but fat the frails,

Light are the purses but heavy the bales,

As the snowbound trade of the North comes down

To the market-square of Peshawur town.

In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,

A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.

Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,

And tent-peg answered to hammer-nose;

And the picketed ponies, shag and wild,

Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled;

And the bubbling camels beside the load

Sprawled for a furlong adown the road;

And the Persian pussy-cats, brought for sale,

Spat at the dogs from the camel-bale;

And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food;

And the camp-fires twinkled by Fort Jumrood;

And there fled on the wings of the gathering dusk

A savour of camels and carpets and musk,

A murmur of voices, a reek of smoke,

To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke.

The lid of the flesh-pot chattered high,

The knives were whetted and -- then came I

To Mahbub Ali the muleteer,

Patching his bridles and counting his gear,

Crammed with the gossip of half a year.

But Mahbub Ali the kindly said,

"Better is speech when the belly is fed."

So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deep

In a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep,

And he who never hath tasted the food,

By Allah! he knoweth not bad from good.

We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease,

We lay on the mats and were filled with peace,

And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south,

With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth.

Four things greater than all things are, --

Women and Horses and Power and War.

We spake of them all, but the last the most,

For I sought a word of a Russian post,

Of a shifty promise, an unsheathed sword

And a gray-coat guard on the Helmund ford.

Then Mahbub Ali lowered his eyes

In the fashion of one who is weaving lies.

Quoth he: "Of the Russians who can say?

"When the night is gathering all is gray.

"But we look that the gloom of the night shall die

"In the morning flush of a blood-red sky.

"Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise

"To warn a King of his enemies?

"We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,

"But no man knoweth the mind of the King.

"That unsought counsel is cursed of God

"Attesteth the story of Wali Dad.

"His sire was leaky of tongue and pen,

"His dam was a clucking Khuttuck hen;

"And the colt bred close to the vice of each,

"For he carried the curse of an unstanched speech.

"Therewith madness -- so that he sought

"The favour of kings at the Kabul court;

"And travelled, in hope of honour, far

"To the line where the gray-coat squadrons are.

"There have I journeyed too -- but I

"Saw naught, said naught, and -- did not die!

"He harked to rumour, and snatched at a breath

"Of 'this one knoweth' and 'that one saith', --

"Legends that ran from mouth to mouth

"Of a gray-coat coming, and sack of the South.

"These have I also heard -- they pass

"With each new spring and the winter grass.

"Hot-foot southward, forgotten of God,

"Back to the city ran Wali Dad,

"Even to Kabul -- in full durbar

"The King held talk with his Chief in War.

"Into the press of the crowd he broke,

"And what he had heard of the coming spoke.

"Then Gholam Hyder, the Red Chief, smiled,

"As a mother might on a babbling child;

"But those who would laugh restrained their breath,

"When the face of the King showed dark as death.

"Evil it is in full durbar

"To cry to a ruler of gathering war!

"Slowly he led to a peach-tree small,

"That grew by a cleft of the city wall.

"And he said to the boy: 'They shall praise thy zeal

"So long as the red spurt follows the steel.

"And the Russ is upon us even now?

"Great is thy prudence -- await them, thou.

"Watch from the tree. Thou art young and strong,

"Surely thy vigil is not for long.

"The Russ is upon us, thy clamour ran?

"Surely an hour shall bring their van.

"Wait and watch. When the host is near,

"Shout aloud that my men may hear.'

"Friend of my heart, is it meet or wise

"To warn a King of his enemies?

"A guard was set that he might not flee --

"A score of bayonets ringed the tree.

"The peach-bloom fell in showers of snow,

"When he shook at his death as he looked below.

"By the power of God, who alone is great,

"Till the seventh day he fought with his fate.

"Then madness took him, and men declare

"He mowed in the branches as ape and bear,

"And last as a sloth, ere his body failed,

"And he hung as a bat in the forks, and wailed,

"And sleep the cord of his hands untied,

"And he fell, and was caught on the points and died.

"Heart of my heart, is it meet or wise

"To warn a King of his enemies?

"We know what Heaven or Hell may bring,

"But no man knoweth the mind of the King.

"Of the gray-coat coming who can say?

"When the night is gathering all is gray.

"Two things greater than all things are,

"The first is Love, and the second War.

"And since we know not how War may prove,

"Heart of my heart, let us talk of Love!"

Rudyard Kipling

The Conundrum of the Workshops

WHEN the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold,

Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;

And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,

Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, "It's pretty, but is it Art?"

Wherefore he called to his wife, and fled to fashion his work anew --

The first of his race who cared a fig for the first, most dread review;

And he left his lore to the use of his sons -- and that was a glorious gain

When the Devil chuckled "Is it Art?" in the ear of the branded Cain.

They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart,

Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art?"

The stone was dropped at the quarry-side and the idle derrick swung,

While each man talked of the aims of Art, and each in an alien tongue.

They fought and they talked in the North and the South, they talked and they fought in the West,

Till the waters rose on the pitiful land, and the poor Red Clay had rest --

Had rest till that dank blank-canvas dawn when the dove was preened to start,

And the Devil bubbled below the keel: "It's human, but is it Art?"

The tale is as old as the Eden Tree -- and new as the new-cut tooth --

For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth;

And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart,

The Devil drum on the darkened pane: "You did it, but was it Art?"

We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg,

We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yelk of an addled egg,

We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart;

But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art?"

When the flicker of London sun falls faint on the Club-room's green and gold,

The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mould --

They scratch with their pens in the mould of their graves, and the ink and the anguish start,

For the Devil mutters behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art?"

Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the Four Great Rivers flow,

And the Wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago,

And if we could come when the sentry slept and softly scurry through,

By the favour of God we might know as much -- as our father Adam knew!

Rudyard Kipling

In the Neolithic Age

IN the Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage

For food and fame and woolly horses' pelt.

I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man,

And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt.

Yea, I sang as now I sing, when the Prehistoric spring

Made the piled Biscayan ice-pack split and shove;

And the troll and gnome and dwerg, and the Gods of Cliff and Berg

Were about me and beneath me and above.

But a rival, of Solutré, told the tribe my style was outré --

By a hammer, grooved of dolomite, he fell.

And I left my views on Art, barbed and tanged below the heart

Of a mammothistic etcher at Grenelle.

Then I stripped them, scalp from skull, and my hunting-dogs fed full,

And their teeth I threaded neatly on a thong;

And I wiped my mouth and said, "It is well that they are dead,

For I know my work is right and theirs was wrong."

But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole-shrine he came,

And he told me in a vision of the night: --

"There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,

"And every single one of them is right!"

 .      .      .      .      .      .       .

Then the silence closed upon me till They put new clothing on me

Of whiter, weaker fresh and bone more frail; .

And I stepped beneath Time's finger, once again a tribal singer,

And a minor poet certified by Traill!

Still they skirmish to and fro, men my messmates on the snow

When we headed off the aurochs turn for turn;

When the rich Allobrogenses never kept amanuenses,

And our only plots were piled in lakes at Berne.

Still a cultured Christian age sees us scuffle, squeak, and rage,

Still we pinch and slap and jabber, scratch and dirk;

Still we let our business slide -- as we dropped the half-dressed hide --

To show a fellow-savage how to work.

Still the world is wondrous large, -- seven seas from marge to marge --

And it holds a vast of various kinds of man;

And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu

And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.

Here's my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the moose

And the reindeer roared where Paris roars to-night: --

"There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,

"And -- every -- single -- one -- of -- them -- is -- right!"

Rudyard Kipling

The English Flag

WINDS of the World, give answer! They are whimpering to and fro --

And what should they know of England who only England know? --

The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,

They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English Flag!

Must we borrow a clout from the Boer -- to plaster anew with dirt?

An Irish liar's bandage, or an English coward's shirt?

We may not speak of England; her Flag's to sell or share.

What is the Flag of England? Winds of the World, declare!

The North Wind blew: -- "From Bergen my steel-shod vanguards go;

I chase your lazy whalers home from the Disko floe;

By the great North Lights above me I work the will of God,

And the liner splits on the ice-field or the Dogger fills with cod.

"I barred my gates with iron, I shuttered my doors with flame,

Because to force my ramparts your nutshell navies came;

I took the sun from their presence, I cut them down with my blast,

And they died, but the Flag of England blew free ere the spirit passed.

"The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic night,

The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern Light:

What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my bergs to dare,

Ye have but my drifts to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!"

The South Wind sighed: -- "From the Virgins my mid-sea course was ta'en

Over a thousand islands lost in an idle main,

Where the sea-egg flames on the coral and the long-backed breakers croon

Their endless ocean legends to the lazy, locked lagoon.

"Strayed amid lonely islets, mazed amid outer keys,

I waked the palms to laughter -- I tossed the scud in the breeze --

Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone,

But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown.

"I have wrenched it free from the halliard to hang for a wisp on the Horn;

I have chased it north to the Lizard -- ribboned and rolled and torn;

I have spread its fold o'er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea;

I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the slave set free.

"My basking sunfish know it, and wheeling albatross,

Where the lone wave fills with fire beneath the Southern Cross.

What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my reefs to dare,

Ye have but my seas to furrow. Go forth, for it is there!"

The East Wind roared: -- "From the Kuriles, the Bitter Seas, I come,

And me men call the Home-Wind, for I bring the English home.

Look -- look well to your shipping! By the breath of my mad typhoon

I swept your close-packed Praya and beached your best at Kowloon!

"The reeling junks behind me and the racing seas before,

I raped your richest roadstead -- I plundered Singapore!

I set my hand on the Hoogli; as a hooded snake she rose,

And I flung your stoutest steamers to roost with the startled crows.

"Never the lotus closes, never the wild-fowl wake,

But a soul goes out on the East Wind that died for England's sake --

Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid --

Because on the bones of the English the English Flag is stayed.

"The desert-dust hath dimmed it, the flying wild-ass knows,

The scared white leopard winds it across the taintless snows.

What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my sun to dare,

Ye have but my sands to travel. Go forth, for it is there!"

The West Wind called: -- "In squadrons the thoughtless galleons fly

That bear the wheat and cattle lest street-bred people die.

They make my might their porter, they make my house their path,

Till I loose my neck from their rudder and whelm them all in my wrath.

"I draw the gliding fog-bank as a snake is drawn from the hole,

They bellow one to the other, the frighted ship-bells toll,

For day is a drifting terror till I raise the shroud with my breath,

And they see strange bows above them and the two go locked to death.

"But whether in calm or wrack-wreath, whether by dark or day,

I heave them whole to the conger or rip their plates away,

First of the scattered legions, under a shrieking sky,

Dipping between the rollers, the English Flag goes by.

"The dead dumb fog hath wrapped it -- the frozen dews have kissed --

The naked stars have seen it, a fellow-star in the mist.

What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my breath to dare,

Ye have but my waves to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!"

Rudyard Kipling

Tomlinson

NOW Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square,

And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair --

A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away,

Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way:

Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease,

And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys.

"Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high

The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die --

The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!"

And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone.

"O I have a friend on earth," he said, "that was my priest and guide,

And well would he answer all for me if he were by my side."

-- "For that ye strove in neighbour-love it shall be written fair,

But now ye wait at Heaven's Gate and not in Berkeley Square:

Though we called your friend from his bed this night, he could not speak for you,

For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two."

Then Tomlinson looked up and down, and little gain was there,

For the naked stars grinned overhead, and he saw that his soul was bare:

The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife,

And Tomlinson took up his tale and spoke of his good in life.

"This I have read in a book," he said, "and that was told to me,

And this I have thought that another man thought of a Prince in Muscovy."

The good souls flocked like homing doves and bade him clear the path,

And Peter twirled the jangling keys in weariness and wrath.

"Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought," he said, "and the tale is yet to run:

By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer -- what ha' ye done?"

Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and little good it bore,

For the Darkness stayed at his shoulder-blade and Heaven's Gate before: --

"O this I have felt, and this I have guessed, and this I have heard men say,

And this they wrote that another man wrote of a carl in Norroway."

-- "Ye have read, ye have felt, ye have guessed, good lack! Ye have hampered Heaven's Gate;

There's little room between the stars in idleness to prate!

O none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin

Through borrowed deed to God's good meed that lies so fair within;

Get hence, get hence to the Lord of Wrong, for doom has yet to run,

And . . . the faith that ye share with Berkeley Square uphold you, Tomlinson!"

.         .         .         .         .         .         .

The Spirit gripped him by the hair, and sun by sun they fell

Till they came to the belt of Naughty Stars that rim the mouth of Hell:

The first are red with pride and wrath, the next are white with pain,

But the third are black with clinkered sin that cannot burn again:

They may hold their path, they may leave their path, with never a soul to mark,

They may burn or freeze, but they must not cease in the Scorn of the Outer Dark.

The Wind that blows between the worlds, it nipped him to the bone,

And he yearned to the flare of Hell-Gate there as the light of his own hearth-stone.

The Devil he sat behind the bars, where the desperate legions drew,

But he caught the hasting Tomlinson and would not let him through.

"Wot ye the price of good pit-coal that I must pay?" said he,

"That ye rank yoursel' so fit for Hell and ask no leave of me?

I am all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that ye should give me scorn,

For I strove with God for your First Father the day that he was born.

Sit down, sit down upon the slag, and answer loud and high

The harm that ye did to the Sons of Men or ever you came to die."

And Tomlinson looked up and up, and saw against the night

The belly of a tortured star blood-red in Hell-Mouth light;

And Tomlinson looked down and down, and saw beneath his feet

The frontlet of a tortured star milk-white in Hell-Mouth heat.

"O I had a love on earth," said he, "that kissed me to my fall,

And if ye would call my love to me I know she would answer all."

-- "All that ye did in love forbid it shall be written fair,

But now ye wait at Hell-Mouth Gate and not in Berkeley Square:

Though we whistled your love from her bed to-night, I trow she would not run,

For the sin ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one!"

The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife,

And Tomlinson took up the tale and spoke of his sin in life: --

"Once I ha' laughed at the power of Love and twice at the grip of the Grave,

And thrice I ha' patted my God on the head that men might call me brave."

The Devil he blew on a brandered soul and set it aside to cool: --

"Do ye think I would waste my good pit-coal on the hide of a brain-sick fool?

I see no worth in the hobnailed mirth or the jolthead jest ye did

That I should waken my gentlemen that are sleeping three on a grid."

Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and there was little grace,

For Hell-Gate filled the houseless Soul with the Fear of Naked Space.

"Nay, this I ha' heard," quo' Tomlinson, "and this was noised abroad,

And this I ha' got from a Belgian book on the word of a dead French lord."

-- "Ye ha' heard, ye ha' read, ye ha' got, good lack! and the tale begins afresh --

Have ye sinned one sin for the pride o' the eye or the sinful lust of the flesh?"

Then Tomlinson he gripped the bars and yammered, "Let me in --

For I mind that I borrowed my neighbour's wife to sin the deadly sin."

The Devil he grinned behind the bars, and banked the fires high:

"Did ye read of that sin in a book?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay!"

The Devil he blew upon his nails, and the little devils ran,

And he said: "Go husk this whimpering thief that comes in the guise of a man:

Winnow him out 'twixt star and star, and sieve his proper worth:

There's sore decline in Adam's line if this be spawn of earth."

Empusa's crew, so naked-new they may not face the fire,

But weep that they bin too small to sin to the height of their desire,

Over the coal they chased the Soul, and racked it all abroad,

As children rifle a caddis-case or the raven's foolish hoard.

And back they came with the tattered Thing, as children after play,

And they said: "The soul that he got from God he has bartered clean away.

We have threshed a stook of print and book, and winnowed a chattering wind

And many a soul wherefrom he stole, but his we cannot find:

We have handled him, we have dandled him, we have seared him to the bone,

And sure if tooth and nail show truth he has no soul of his own."

The Devil he bowed his head on his breast and rumbled deep and low: --

"I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should bid him go.

Yet close we lie, and deep we lie, and if I gave him place,

My gentlemen that are so proud would flout me to my face;

They'd call my house a common stews and me a careless host,

And -- I would not anger my gentlemen for the sake of a shiftless ghost."

The Devil he looked at the mangled Soul that prayed to feel the flame,

And he thought of Holy Charity, but he thought of his own good name: --

"Now ye could haste my coal to waste, and sit ye down to fry:

Did ye think of that theft for yourself?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay!"

The Devil he blew an outward breath, for his heart was free from care: --

"Ye have scarce the soul of a louse," he said, "but the roots of sin are there,

And for that sin should ye come in were I the lord alone.

But sinful pride has rule inside -- and mightier than my own.

Honour and Wit, fore-damned they sit, to each his priest and whore:

Nay, scarce I dare myself go there, and you they'd torture sore.

Ye are neither spirit nor spirk," he said; "ye are neither book nor brute --

Go, get ye back to the flesh again for the sake of Man's repute.

I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should mock your pain,

But look that ye win to worthier sin ere ye come back again.

Get hence, the hearse is at your door -- the grim black stallions wait --

They bear your clay to place to-day. Speed, lest ye come too late!

Go back to Earth with a lip unsealed -- go back with an open eye,

And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die:

That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one --

And . . . the God that you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!"

Rudyard Kipling