The Complete Poetical Works of Rudyard Kipling (570+ Poems in One Edition). Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг

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СКАЧАТЬ And the men of the First Shikaris

       Went back to their grave again,

      Each man bearing a basket

       Red as his palms that day,

       Red as the blazing village—

       The village of Pabengmay,

       And the "drip-drip-drip" from the baskets

       Reddened the grass by the way.

      They made a pile of their trophies

       High as a tall man's chin,

       Head upon head distorted,

       Set in a sightless grin,

       Anger and pain and terror

       Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.

      Subadar Prag Tewarri

       Put the head of the Boh

       On the top of the mound of triumph,

       The head of his son below,

       With the sword and the peacock-banner

       That the world might behold and know.

      Thus the samadh was perfect,

       Thus was the lesson plain

       Of the wrath of the First Shikaris—

       The price of a white man slain;

       And the men of the First Shikaris

       Went back into camp again.

      Then a silence came to the river,

       A hush fell over the shore,

       And Bohs that were brave departed,

       And Sniders squibbed no more;

       For the Burmans said

       That a kullah's head

       Must be paid for with heads five score.

      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.

The Moon of Other Days

       Table of Contents

      Beneath the deep veranda's shade,

       When bats begin to fly,

       I sit me down and watch—alas!—

       Another evening die.

      Blood-red behind the sere ferash

       She rises through the haze.

       Sainted Diana! can that be

       The Moon of Other Days?

      Ah! shade of little Kitty Smith,

       Sweet Saint of Kensington!

       Say, was it ever thus at Home

       The Moon of August shone,

       When arm in arm we wandered long

       Through Putney's evening haze,

       And Hammersmith was Heaven beneath

       The Moon of Other Days?

      But Wandle's stream is Sutlej now,

       And Putney's evening haze

       The dust that half a hundred kine

       Before my window raise.

       Unkempt, unclean, athwart the mist

       The seething city looms,

       In place of Putney's golden gorse

       The sickly babul blooms.

      Glare down, old Hecate, through the dust,

       And bid the pie-dog yell,

       Draw from the drain its typhoid-germ,

       From each bazaar its smell;

       Yea, suck the fever from the tank

       And sap my strength therewith:

       Thank Heaven, you show a smiling face

       To little Kitty Smith!

      The Overland Mail(Foot-Service to the Hills)

       In the name of the Empress of India, make way,

       O Lords of the Jungle, wherever you roam.

       The woods are astir at the close of the day—

       We exiles are waiting for letters from Home.

       Let the robber retreat—let the tiger turn tail—

       In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail!

      With a jingle of bells as the dusk gathers in,

       He turns to the foot-path that heads up the hill—

       The bags on his back and a cloth round his chin,

       And, tucked in his waist-belt, the Post Office bill:

       "Despatched on this date, as received by the rail,

       Per runner, two bags of the Overland Mail."

      Is the torrent in spate? He must ford it or swim.

       Has the rain wrecked the road? He must climb by the cliff.

       Does the tempest cry "Halt"? What are tempests to him?

       The Service admits not a "but" or and "if."

       While the breath's in his mouth, he must bear without fail,

       In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail.

      From aloe to rose-oak, from rose-oak to fir,

       From level to upland, from upland to crest,

       From rice-field to rock-ridge, from rock-ridge to spur,

       Fly the soft sandalled СКАЧАТЬ