Work poems
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The Last Chantey
© Rudyard Kipling
"And there was no more sea."
Thus said The Lord in the Vault above the Cherubim
The Land
© Rudyard Kipling
When Julius Fabricius, Sub-Prefect of the Weald,
In the days of Diocletian owned our Lower River-field,
He called to him Hobdenius-a Briton of the Clay,
Saying: "What about that River-piece for layin'' in to hay?"
Kitchener's School
© Rudyard Kipling
Being a translation of the song that was made by a Mohammedanschoolmaster of Bengal Infantry (some time on service at Suakim)when he heard that Kitchener was taking money from the English tobuild a Madrissa for Hubshees -- or a college for the Sudanese.
Oh Hubshee, carry your shoes in your hand and bow your head on your breast!
This is the message of Kitchener who did not break you in jest.
It was permitted to him to fulfil the long-appointed years;
Reaching the end ordained of old over your dead Emirs.
Songs of the Night Watches (complete)
© Jean Ingelow
Come out and hear the waters shoot, the owlet hoot, the owlet hoot;
Yon crescent moon, a golden boat, hangs dim behind the tree, O!
The dropping thorn makes white the grass, O sweetest lass, and sweetest
lass;
Come out and smell the ricks of hay adown the croft with me, O!”
In the Neolithic Age
© Rudyard Kipling
I 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.
An Imperial Rescript
© Rudyard Kipling
Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser decreed,
To ease the strong of their burden, to help the weak in their need,
He sent a word to the peoples, who struggle, and pant, and sweat,
That the straw might be counted fairly and the tally of bricks be set.
I Keep Six Honest...
© Rudyard Kipling
She sends'em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes-
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!
The Holy War
© Rudyard Kipling
"For here lay the excellent wisdom of him that built Mansoul, thatthe
walls could never be broken down nor hurt by the most mighty adverse
potentate unless the townsmen gave consent thereto."--Bunyan's Holy War.)
A Poem On The Last Day - Book III
© Edward Young
Each gesture mourns, each look is black with care,
And every groan is loaden with despair.
Reader, if guilty, spare the Muse, and find
A truer image pictured in thy mind.
The Grave of the Hundered Head
© Rudyard Kipling
There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.
In The People's Park
© Edith Nesbit
Many's the time I've found your face
Fresh as a bunch of flowers in May,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
© Rudyard Kipling
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.
'eering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
Giffen's Debt
© Rudyard Kipling
Imprimis he was "broke." Thereafter left
His Regiment and, later, took to drink;
Then, having lost the balance of his friends,
"Went Fantee" -- joined the people of the land,
Monologue Of A Commercial Fisherman
© Alan Dugan
If you work a body of water and a body of woman
you can take fish out of one and children out of the other
Remembrance
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Friend of mine! whose lot was cast
With me in the distant past;
Where, like shadows flitting fast,
Distant Authors
© Mary Colborne-Veel
Dear books! and each the living soul,
Our hearts aver, of men unseen,
Whose power to strengthen, charm, control,
Surmounts all earth's green miles between.
The Floods
© Rudyard Kipling
The rain it rains without a stay
In the hills above us, in the hills;
And presently the floods break way
Whose strength is in the hills.
Farewell and adieu...
© Rudyard Kipling
1914-18
Farewell and adieu to you, Harwich Ladies,
Farewell and adieu to you, ladies ashore!
For we've received orders to work to the eastward
Where we hope in a short time to strafe 'em some more.
The Fabulists
© Rudyard Kipling
When all the world would keep a matter hid,
Since Truth is seldom Friend to any crowd,
Men write in Fable, as old AEsop did,
Jesting at that which none will name aloud.
And this they needs must do, or it will fall
Unless they please they are not heard at all.
The 'eathen
© Rudyard Kipling
The 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood an' stone;
'E don't obey no orders unless they is 'is own;
'E keeps 'is side-arms awful: 'e leaves 'em all about,
An' then comes up the Regiment an' pokes the 'eathen out.
