Work poems
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A Song In Storm
© Rudyard Kipling
Be well assured that on our side
The abiding oceans fight,
Though headlong wind and heaping tide
Make us their sport to-night.
Soldier an' Sailor Too
© Rudyard Kipling
As I was spittin' into the Ditch aboard o' the Crocodile,
I seed a man on a man-o'-war got up in the Reg'lars' style.
'E was scrapin' the paint from off of 'er plates, an' I sez to 'im, "'Oo are you?"
Sez 'e, "I'm a Jolly -- 'Er Majesty's Jolly -- soldier an' sailor too!"
The Settler
© Rudyard Kipling
1903(South African War ended, May, 1902)
Here, where my fresh-turned furrows run,
And the deep soil glistens red,
I will repair the wrong that was done
Nathan The Wise - Act IV
© Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
SCENE.--The Cloister of a Convent.
The FRIAR alone.
An Ode In Time Of Inauguration
© Franklin Pierce Adams
G.W., initial prex,
Right down in Wall Street, New York City,
Took his first oath. Oh, multiplex
The whimsies quaint, the comments witty
One might evolve from that! I scorn
To mock the spot where he was sworn.
The Secret of the Machines
© Rudyard Kipling
We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive,
We can print and plough and weave and heat and light,
We can run and race and swim and fly and dive,
We can see and hear and count and read and write!
Screw-Guns
© Rudyard Kipling
Smokin' my pipe on the mountings, sniffin' the mornin' cool,
I walks in my old brown gaiters along o' my old brown mule,
With seventy gunners be'ind me, an' never a beggar forgets
It's only the pick of the Army that handles the dear little pets -- 'Tss! 'Tss!
Sinne's Round
© George Herbert
Sorrie I am, my God, sorrie I am,
That my offences course it in a ring.
My thoughts are working like a busie flame,
Untill their cockatrice they hatch and bring:
And when they once have perfected their draughts,
My words take fire from my inflamed thoughts.
A School Song
© Rudyard Kipling
"Let us now praise famous men"--
Men of little showing--
For their work continueth,
And their work continueth,
Broad and deep continues,
Greater then their knowing!
The Rhyme of the Three Sealers
© Rudyard Kipling
Away by the lands of the Japanee
Where the paper lanterns glow
And the crews of all the shipping drink
In the house of Blood Street Joe,
The Rhyme of the Three Captains
© Rudyard Kipling
This ballad appears to refer to one of the exploits of the notorious
Paul Jones, the American pirate. It is founded on fact.
Gold Egg: A Dream-Fantasy
© James Russell Lowell
I swam with undulation soft,
Adrift on Vischer's ocean,
And, from my cockboat up aloft,
Sent down my mental plummet oft
In hope to reach a notion.
Aubade
© Philip Larkin
I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
Funeral Libation (At Gautiers Tomb)
© Stéphane Mallarme
To you, gone emblem of our happiness!
Greetings, in pale libation and madness,
The Prayer of Miriam Cohen
© Rudyard Kipling
From the wheel and the drift of Things
Deliver us, Good Lord,
And we will face the wrath of Kings,
The faggot and the sword!
The Captain of the Push
© Henry Lawson
As the night was falling slowly down on city, town and bush,
From a slum in Jones's Alley sloped the Captain of the Push;
And he scowled towards the North, and he scowled towards the South,
As he hooked his little finger in the corners of his mouth.
Then his whistle, loud and shrill, woke the echoes of the `Rocks',
And a dozen ghouls came sloping round the corners of the blocks.
The Plea of the Simla Dancers
© Rudyard Kipling
Too late, alas! the song
To remedy the wrong; --
The rooms are taken from us, swept and
garnished for their fate.
A Pict Song
© Rudyard Kipling
Rome never looks where she treads.
Always her heavy hooves fall
On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads;
And Rome never heeds when we bawl.
The Palace
© Rudyard Kipling
When I was a King and a Mason -- a Master proven and skilled --
I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build.
I decreed and dug down to my levels. Presently, under the silt,
I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built.
