The Works of Rudyard Kipling Part 9

The walls are high, and she is very far.

How shall the woman's message reach unto her Above the tumult of the packed bazaar?

Free wind of March, against the lattice blowing, Bear thou our thanks, lest she depart unknowing.

Go forth across the fields we may not roam in, Go forth beyond the trees that rim the city, To whatsoe'er fair place she hath her home in, Who dowered us with wealth of love and pity.

Out of our shadow pa.s.s, and seek her singing-- "I have no gifts but Love alone for bringing."

Say that we be a feeble folk who greet her, But old in grief, and very wise in tears; Say that we, being desolate, entreat her That she forget us not in after years; For we have seen the light, and it were grievous To dim that dawning if our lady leave us.

By life that ebbed with none to stanch the failing By Love's sad harvest garnered in the spring, When Love in ignorance wept unavailing O'er young buds dead before their blossoming; By all the grey owl watched, the pale moon viewed, In past grim years, declare our grat.i.tude!

By hands uplifted to the G.o.ds that heard not, By fits that found no favor in their sight, By faces bent above the babe that stirred not, By nameless horrors of the stifling night; By ills foredone, by peace her toils discover, Bid Earth be good beneath and Heaven above her!

If she have sent her servants in our pain If she have fought with Death and dulled his sword; If she have given back our sick again.

And to the breast the waking lips restored, Is it a little thing that she has wrought?

Then Life and Death and Motherhood be nought.

Go forth, O wind, our message on thy wings, And they shall hear thee pa.s.s and bid thee speed, In reed-roofed hut, or white-walled home of kings, Who have been helpen by her in their need.

All spring shall give thee fragrance, and the wheat Shall be a ta.s.selled floorcloth to thy feet.

Haste, for our hearts are with thee, take no rest!

Loud-voiced amba.s.sador, from sea to sea Proclaim the blessing, manifold, confessed.

Of those in darkness by her hand set free.

Then very softly to her presence move, And whisper: "Lady, lo, they know and love!"

A BALLAD OF JAKKO HILL

One moment bid the horses wait, Since tiffin is not laid till three, Below the upward path and straight You climbed a year ago with me.

Love came upon us suddenly And loosed--an idle hour to kill-- A headless, armless armory That smote us both on Jakko Hill.

Ah Heaven! we would wait and wait Through Time and to Eternity!

Ah Heaven! we could conquer Fate With more than G.o.dlike constancy I cut the date upon a tree-- Here stand the clumsy figures still: "10-7-85, A.D."

Damp with the mist of Jakko Hill.

What came of high resolve and great, And until Death fidelity!

Whose horse is waiting at your gate?

Whose 'rickshaw-wheels ride over me?

No Saint's, I swear; and--let me see Tonight what names your programme fill-- We drift asunder merrily, As drifts the mist on Jakko Hill.

L'ENVOI.

Princess, behold our ancient state Has clean departed; and we see 'Twas Idleness we took for Fate That bound light bonds on you and me.

Amen! Here ends the comedy Where it began in all good will; Since Love and Leave together flee As driven mist on Jakko Hill!

THE PLEA OF THE SIMLA DANCERS

Too late, alas! the song To remedy the wrong;-- The rooms are taken from us, swept and garnished for their fate.

But these tear-besprinkled pages Shall attest to future ages That we cried against the crime of it-- too late, alas! too late!

"What have we ever done to bear this grudge?"

Was there no room save only in Benmore For docket, duftar, and for office drudge, That you usurp our smoothest dancing floor?

Must babus do their work on polished teak?

Are ball-rooms fittest for the ink you spill?

Was there no other cheaper house to seek?

You might have left them all at Strawberry Hill.

We never harmed you! Innocent our guise, Dainty our shining feet, our voices low; And we revolved to divers melodies, And we were happy but a year ago.

Tonight, the moon that watched our lightsome wiles-- That beamed upon us through the deodars-- Is wan with gazing on official files, And desecrating desks disgust the stars.

Nay! by the memory of tuneful nights-- Nay! by the witchery of flying feet-- Nay! by the glamour of foredone delights-- By all things merry, musical, and meet-- By wine that sparkled, and by sparkling eyes-- By wailing waltz--by reckless galop's strain-- By dim verandas and by soft replies, Give us our ravished ball-room back again!

Or--hearken to the curse we lay on you!

The ghosts of waltzes shall perplex your brain, And murmurs of past merriment pursue Your 'wildered clerks that they indite in vain; And when you count your poor Provincial millions, The only figures that your pen shall frame Shall be the figures of dear, dear cotillions Danced out in tumult long before you came.

Yea! "See Saw" shall upset your estimates, "Dream Faces" shall your heavy heads bemuse, Because your hand, unheeding, desecrates Our temple; fit for higher, worthier use.

And all the long verandas, eloquent With echoes of a score of Simla years, Shall plague you with unbidden sentiment-- Babbling of kisses, laughter, love, and tears.

So shall you mazed amid old memories stand, So shall you toil, and shall accomplish nought, And ever in your ears a phantom Band Shall blare away the staid official thought.

Wherefore--and ere this awful curse he spoken, Cast out your swarthy sacrilegious train, And give--ere dancing cease and hearts be broken-- Give us our ravished ball-room back again!

THE BALLAD OF FISHER'S BOARDING-HOUSE

That night, when through the mooring-chains The wide-eyed corpse rolled free, To blunder down by Garden Reach And rot at Kedgeree, The tale the Hughli told the shoal The lean shoal told to me.

'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.

They lied about the purple Sea That gave them scanty bread, They lied about the Earth beneath, The Heavens overhead, For they had looked too often on Black rum when that was red.

They told their tales of wreck and wrong, Of shame and l.u.s.t and fraud, They backed their toughest statements with The Brimstone of the Lord, And crackling oaths went to and fro Across the fist-banged board.

And there was Hans the blue-eyed Dane, Bull-throated, bare of arm, Who carried on his hairy chest The maid Ultruda's charm-- The little silver crucifix That keeps a man from harm.

And there was Jake Without-the-Ears, And Pamba the Malay, And Carboy Gin the Guinea cook, And Luz from Vigo Bay, And Honest Jack who sold them slops And harvested their pay.

And there was Salem Hardieker, A lean Bostonian he-- Russ, German, English, Halfbreed, Finn, Yank, Dane, and Portuguee, At Fultah Fisher's boarding-house They rested from the sea.