Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1007 page)

“South, down the Cattegat — What’s here?
  “There — are — no — lights — to guide!”
The mutter ceased, the spirit passed,
  And Anne of Austria cried
In Fultah Fisher’s boarding-house
  When Hans the mighty died.

Thus slew they Hans the blue-eyed Dane,
  Bull-throated, bare of arm,
But Anne of Austria looted first
  The maid Ultruda’s charm —
The little silver crucifix
  That keeps a man from harm.

A Ballad of Jakkko Hill

One moment bid the horses wait,
  Since tiffin is not laid till three,
Below the upward path and strait
  You climbed a year ago with me.
Love came upon us suddenly
  And loosed — an idle hour to kill —
A headless, harmless 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 Godlike constancy
I cut the date upon a tree —
  Here stand the clumsy figures still:
“10-7-85, A.D.”
  Damp in the mists on 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
  To-night 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 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 grey-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 grey.
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 Khattack hen;
And the colt bred close to the vice of each,
For he carried the curse of an unstaunched 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 grey-coat squadrons are.
There have I journeyed too — but I
Saw naught, said naught, and — did not die!
He
hearked to rumour, and snatched at a breath
Of `this one knoweth’, and ‘that one saith’, —
Legends that ran from mouth to mouth
Of a grey-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 the 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 like 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 grey-coat coming who can say?
When the night is gathering all is grey.
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!”

The Ballad of the King’s Mercy

     ABDHUR RAHMAN, the Durani Chief, of him is the story told.
     His mercy fills the Khyber hills — his grace is manifold;
     He has taken toll of the North and the South — his glory reacheth far,
     And they tell the tale of his charity from Balkh to Kandahar.

Before the old Peshawur Gate, where Kurd and Kaffir meet,
The Governor of Kabul dealt the Justice of the Street,
And that was strait as running noose and swift as plunging knife,
Tho’ he who held the longer purse might hold the longer life.

There was a hound of Hindustan had struck a Yusufzai,
Wherefore they spat upon his face and led him out to die.
It chanced the King went forth that hour when throat was bared to knife;
The Kafir grovelled under-hoof and clamoured for his life.

Then said the King:  “Have hope, O friend!  Yea, Death disgraced is hard;
Much honour shall be thine”; and called the Captain of the Guard,
Yar Khan, a bastard of the Blood, so city-babble saith,
And he was honoured of the King — the which is salt to Death;
And he was son of Daoud Shah, the Reiver of the Plains,
And blood of old Durani Lords ran fire in his veins;
And ‘twas to tame an Afghan pride nor Hell nor Heaven could bind,
The King would make him butcher to a yelping cur of Hind.

“Strike!” said the King.  “King’s blood art thou —
  his death shall be his pride!”
Then louder, that the crowd might catch:  “Fear not — his arms are tied!”
Yar Khan drew clear the Khyber knife, and struck, and sheathed again.
“O man, thy will is done,” quoth he; “a King this dog hath slain.”

    Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, to the North and the South is sold.
    The North and the South shall open their mouth to a Ghilzai flag unrolled,
    When the big guns speak to the Khyber peak, and his dog-Heratis fly:
    Ye have heard the song — How long?  How long? Wolves of the Abazai!

That night before the watch was set, when all the streets were clear,
The Governor of Kabul spoke:  “My King, hast thou no fear?
Thou knowest — thou hast heard,” — his speech died at his master’s face.
And grimly said the Afghan King:  “I rule the Afghan race.
My path is mine — see thou to thine. To-night upon thy bed
Think who there be in Kabul now that clamour for thy head.”

That night when all the gates were shut to City and to throne,
Within a little garden-house the King lay down alone.
Before the sinking of the moon, which is the Night of Night,
Yar Khan came softly to the King to make his honour white.
(The children of the town had mocked beneath his horse’s hoofs,
The harlots of the town had hailed him “butcher!” from their roofs.)
But as he groped against the wall, two hands upon him fell,
The King behind his shoulder spake:  “Dead man, thou dost not well!
‘Tis ill to jest with Kings by day and seek a boon by night;
And that thou bearest in thy hand is all too sharp to write.
But three days hence, if God be good, and if thy strength remain,
Thou shalt demand one boon of me and bless me in thy pain.
For I am merciful to all, and most of all to thee.
My butcher of the shambles, rest — no knife hast thou for me!”

     Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, holds hard by the South and the North;
     But the Ghilzai knows, ere the melting snows, when the swollen banks break forth,
     When the red-coats crawl to the sungar wall, and his Usbeg lances fail:
     Ye have heard the song — How long?  How long? Wolves of the Zukka Kheyl!

They stoned him in the rubbish-field when dawn was in the sky,
According to the written word, “See that he do not die.”

They stoned him till the stones were piled above him on the plain,
And those the labouring limbs displaced they tumbled back again.

One watched beside the dreary mound that veiled the battered thing,
And him the King with laughter called the Herald of the King.

It was upon the second night, the night of Ramazan,
The watcher leaning earthward heard the message of Yar Khan.
From shattered breast through shrivelled lips broke forth the rattling breath,
“Creature of God, deliver me from agony of Death.”

They sought the King among his girls, and risked their lives thereby:
“Protector of the Pitiful, give orders that he die!”

“Bid him endure until the day,” a lagging answer came;
“The night is short, and he can pray and learn to bless my name.”

Before the dawn three times he spoke, and on the day once more:
“Creature of God, deliver me, and bless the King therefor!”

They shot him at the morning prayer, to ease him of his pain,
And when he heard the matchlocks clink, he blessed the King again.

Which thing the singers made a song for all the world to sing,
So that the Outer Seas may know the mercy of the King.

     Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, of him is the story told,
     He has opened his mouth to the North and the South, they have stuffed his mouth with gold.
     Ye know the truth of his tender ruth — and sweet his favours are:
     Ye have heard the song — How long?  How long? from Balkh to Kandahar.

The Ballad of Minepit Shaw

“The Tree of Justice” — Rewards and Fairies
About the time that taverns shut
  And men can buy no beer,
Two lads went up to the keepers’ hut
  To steal Lord Pelham’s deer.

Night and the liquor was in their heads —
  They laughed and talked no bounds,
Till they waked the keepers on their beds
  And the keepers loosed the hounds.

They had killed a hart, they had killed a hind,
  Ready to carry away,
When they heard a whimper down the wind
  And they heard a bloodhound bay.

They took and ran across the fern,
  Their crossbows in their hand,
Till they met a man with a green lantern
  That called and bade ‘em stand.