All Poems
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The Old Issue
© Rudyard Kipling
Here is nothing new nor aught unproven," say the Trumpets,
"Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed.
"It is the King--the King we schooled aforetime! "
(Trumpets in the marshes-in the eyot at Runnymede!)
Creation
© Ambrose Bierce
GOD dreamedthe suns sprang flaming into place,
And sailing worlds with many a venturous race.
He wokeHis smile alone illumined space.
La Nuit Blanche
© Rudyard Kipling
A much-discerning Public hold
The Singer generally sings
And prints and sells his past for gold.
The New Knighthood
© Rudyard Kipling
Who gives him the Bath?
"I," said the wet,
Rank-Jungle-sweat,
"I'll give him the Bath!"
The Necessitarian
© Rudyard Kipling
I know not in Whose hands are laid
To empty upon earth
From unsuspected ambuscade
The very Urns of Mirth;
The Triumph
© Siegfried Sassoon
When life was a cobweb of stars for Beauty who came
In the whisper of leaves or a bird's lone cry in the glen,
On dawn-lit hills and horizons girdled with flame
I sought for the triumph that troubles the faces of men.
The Naulahka
© Rudyard Kipling
Beware the man who's crossed in love;
For pent-up steam must find its vent.
Stand back when he is on the move,
And lend him all the Continent.
"I want to serve you"
© Osip Emilevich Mandelstam
1
I want to serve you
On an equal footing with others;
From jealousy, to tell your fortune
Natural Theology
© Rudyard Kipling
We had a kettle: we let it leak:
Our not repairing it made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week. . .
The bottom is out of the Universe!
The Three Urgandas
© Madison Julius Cawein
Cast on sleep there came to me
Three Urgandas; and the sea
A Nativity
© Rudyard Kipling
1914-18
The Babe was laid in the Manger
Between the gentle kine --
All safe from cold and danger --
Slave Boy
© Yusuf ibn Harun al-Ramadi
They shaved his head
to clothe him in ugliness
out of jealousy and fear
of his beauty.
The Native-Born
© Rudyard Kipling
And the children nine and ten (Stand up!),
And the life we live and know,
Let a fellow sing o' the little things he cares about,
If a fellow fights for the little things he cares about
With the weight of a two-fold blow!
My Rival
© Rudyard Kipling
I go to concert, party, ball --
What profit is in these?
I sit alone against the wall
And strive to look at ease.
The Barefooted Friar
© Sir Walter Scott
I'll give thee, good fellow, a twelvemonth or twain,
To search Europe through, from Byzantium to Spain;
But ne'er shall you find, should you search till you tire,
So happy a man as the Barefooted Friar.
My New-Cut Ashler
© Rudyard Kipling
My New-Cut ashlar takes the light
Where crimson-blank the windows flare.
By my own work before the night,
Great Overseer, I make my prayer.
Roses and Rue
© Oscar Wilde
Could we dig up this long-buried treasure,
Were it worth the pleasure,
We never could learn love's song,
We are parted too long
My Lady's Law
© Rudyard Kipling
The Law whereby my lady moves
Was never Law to me,
But 'tis enough that she approves
Whatever Law it be.
