Gunga Din
by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1935)

You may talk o’ gin and beer
When you’re quartered safe out ’ere,
An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it;
But when it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it.
Now in Injia’s sunny clime,
Where I used to spend my time
A-servin’ of ’Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them black-faced crew
The finest man I knew
Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.
⁠         He was “Din! Din! Din!
⁠   “You limping lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din!
⁠         “Hi! slippery hitherao!
⁠         “Water, get it! Panee lao,
⁠   You squigy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.”

The uniform ’e wore
Was nothin’ much before,
An’ rather less than ’arf o’ that be’ind,
For a piece o’ twisty rag
An’ a goatskin water-bag
Was all the field-equipment e’ could find.
When the sweatin’ troop-train lay
In a sidin’ through the day,
Where the ’eat would make your bloomin’ eyebrows crawl,
We shouted “Harry By!”
Till our throats were bricky-dry,
Then we wopped ’im ’cause ’e couldn’t serve us all.
         ⁠It was “Din! Din! Din!
⁠“You ’eathen, where the mischief ’ave you been?
⁠         “You put some juldee in it
⁠         “Or I’ll marrow you this minute
⁠“If you don’t fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!”

’E would dot an’ carry one
⁠Till the longest day was done
⁠An’ ’e didn’t seem to know the use o’ fear.
⁠If we charged or broke or cut,
⁠You could bet your bloomin’ nut,
⁠’E’d be waitin’ fifty paces right flank rear.
⁠With ’is mussick on ’is back,
⁠’E would skip with our attack,
⁠An’ watch us till the bugles made “Retire,”
⁠An’ for all ’is dirty ’ide
⁠’E was white, clear white, inside
⁠When ’e went to tend the wounded under fire!
⁠         It was “Din! Din! Din!”
⁠   With the bullets kickin’ dust-spots on the green.
⁠         When the cartridges ran out,
⁠         You could hear the front-files shout,
⁠   “Hi! ammunition-mules an’ Gunga Din!”

⁠

I shan’t forgit the night
⁠When I dropped be’ind the fight
⁠With a bullet where my belt plate should ’a’ been.
⁠I was chokin’ mad with thirst,
⁠An’ the man that spied me first
⁠Was our good old grinnin’, gruntin’ Gunga Din.
⁠’E lifted up my ’ead,
⁠An’ he plugged me where I bled,
⁠An’ ’e guv me ’arf-a-pint o’ water-green:
⁠It was crawlin’ and it stunk,
⁠But of all the drinks I’ve drunk,
⁠I’m gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.
⁠         It was “Din! Din! Din!”
⁠   “’Ere’s a beggar with a bullet through ’is spleen;
⁠         “’E’s chawin’ up the ground,
⁠         “An’ ’e’s kickin’ all around:
⁠   “For Gawd’s sake git the water, Gunga Din!”

⁠’E carried me away
⁠To where a dooli lay,
⁠An’ a bullet come an’ drilled the beggar clean.
⁠’E put me safe inside,
⁠An’ just before ’e died:
⁠”I ’ope you liked your drink,” sez Gunga Din.
⁠So I’ll meet ’im later on
⁠At the place where ’e is gone—
⁠Where it’s always double drill and no canteen;
⁠’E’ll be squattin’ on the coals,
⁠Givin’ drink to poor damned souls,
⁠An’ I’ll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
⁠         Yes, Din! Din! Din!
⁠   You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
⁠         Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,
⁠         By the living Gawd that made you,
⁠   You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

Views: 44

“Faith is a fine invention”
by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Faith is a fine invention—
For gentleman who see;
But microscopes are prudent
In an emergency!

Views: 45

The City in the Sea
by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently—
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free—
Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls—
Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls—
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathéd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol’s diamond eye—
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass—
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea—
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave—there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide—
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow—
The hours are breathing faint and low—
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones.
Shall do it reverence.

Views: 59

The Old Familiar Faces
by Charles Lamb (1775-1834)

Where are they gone, the old familiar faces?
I had a mother, but she died, and left me,
Died prematurely in a day of horrors—
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days,
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies,
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I loved a love once, fairest among women;
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her—
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man;
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.

Ghost-like, I paced round the haunts of my childhood.
Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse,
Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father’s dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces—

How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

Views: 58

Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College
by Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

Ye distant spires, ye antique towers
         That crown the watery glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
         Her Henry’s holy shade;
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor’s heights th’ expanse below
         Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
         His silver-winding way:

Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
         Ah, fields belov’d in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray’d,
         A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales that from ye blow
A momentary bliss bestow,
         As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
         To breathe a second spring.

Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
         Full many a sprightly race
Disporting on thy margin green
         The paths of pleasure trace—
Who foremost now delight to cleave
With pliant arm, thy glassy wave?
         The captive linnet which enthral?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle’s speed
         Or urge the flying ball?

While some on earnest business bent
         Their murmuring labours ply
’Gainst graver hours that bring constraint
         To sweet liberty:
Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign
         And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in every wind,
         And snatch a fearful joy.

Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
         Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
         The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health, of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,
         And lively cheer, of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light
         That fly th’ approach of morn.

Alas! regardless of their doom,
         The little victims play;
No sense have they of ills to come,
         Nor care beyond to-day:
Yet see how all around ’em wait
The ministers of human fate
And black Misfortune’s baleful train!
Ah, show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murderous band!
         Ah, tell them they are men!

These shall the fury Passions tear,
         The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
         And Shame that skulks behind;
Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
Or Jealousy with rankling tooth
         That inly gnaws the secret heart,
And Envy wan, and faded Care,
Grim-visaged comfortless Despair,
         And Sorrow’s piercing dart.

Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
         Then whirl the wretch from high
To bitter Scorn a sacrifice
         And grinning Infamy.
The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
And hard Unkindness’ alter’d eye,
         That mocks the tear it forced to flow;
And keen Remorse with blood defil’d,
And moody Madness laughing wild
         Amid severest woe.

Lo, in the vale of years beneath
         A griesly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,
         More hideous than their queen:
This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That every labouring sinew strains,
         Those in the deeper vitals rage;
Lo! Poverty, to fill the band
That numbs the soul with icy hand,
         And slow-consuming Age.

To each his sufferings: all are men,
         Condemn’d alike to groan—
The tender for another’s pain,
         Th’ unfeeling for his own.
Yet, ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
         And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their Paradise.
No more;—where ignorance is bliss,
         ’Tis folly to be wise.

Views: 49

Kings
by Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

The Kings of the earth are men of might,
And cities are burned for their delight,
And the skies rain death in the silent night,
⁠      And the hills belch death all day!

But the King of Heaven, Who made them all,
Is fair and gentle, and very small;
He lies in the straw, by the oxen’s stall—
⁠      Let them think of Him to-day!

Views: 70

A visit from St. Nicholas
by Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863)

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And Mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,—
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof,
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof—
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he look’d like a pedlar just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlfull of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself,
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And fill’d all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”

Views: 45

“The time draws near the birth of Christ”
      (In Memoriam, XXVIII)
by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

The time draws near the birth of Christ:
   The moon is hid; the night is still;
   The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,
   From far and near, on mead and moor,
   Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind,
   That now dilate, and now decrease,
   Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,
   I almost wish’d no more to wake,
   And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

But they my troubled spirit rule,
   For they controll’d me when a boy;
   They bring me sorrow touch’d with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule.

Views: 34

Mr. Flood’s Party
by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)

Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night
Over the hill between the town below
And the forsaken upland hermitage
That held as much as he should ever know
On earth again of home, paused warily.
The road was his with not a native near;
And Eben, having leisure, said aloud,
For no man else in Tilbury Town to hear:

“Well, Mr. Flood, we have the harvest moon
Again, and we may not have many more;
The bird is on the wing, the poet says,
And you and I have said it here before.
Drink to the bird.” He raised up to the light
The jug that he had gone so far to fill,
And answered huskily: “Well, Mr. Flood,
Since you propose it, I believe I will.”

Alone, as if enduring to the end
A valiant armor of scarred hopes outworn,
He stood there in the middle of the road
Like Roland’s ghost winding a silent horn.
Below him, in the town among the trees,
Where friends of other days had honored him,
A phantom salutation of the dead
Rang thinly till old Eben’s eyes were dim.

Then, as a mother lays her sleeping child
Down tenderly, fearing it may awake,
He set the jug down slowly at his feet
With trembling care, knowing that most things break;
And only when assured that on firm earth
It stood, as the uncertain lives of men
Assuredly did not, he paced away,
And with his hand extended paused again:

“Well, Mr. Flood, we have not met like this
In a long time; and many a change has come
To both of us, I fear, since last it was
We had a drop together. Welcome home!”
Convivially returning with himself,
Again he raised the jug up to the light;
And with an acquiescent quaver said:
“Well, Mr. Flood, if you insist, I might.

“Only a very little, Mr. Flood—
For auld lang syne. No more, sir; that will do.”
So, for the time, apparently it did,
And Eben evidently thought so too;
For soon amid the silver loneliness
Of night he lifted up his voice and sang,
Secure, with only two moons listening,
Until the whole harmonious landscape rang—

“For auld lang syne.” The weary throat gave out,
The last word wavered; and the song being done,
He raised again the jug regretfully
And shook his head, and was again alone.
There was not much that was ahead of him,
And there was nothing in the town below-
Where strangers would have shut the many doors
That many friends had opened long ago.

Views: 57

Not Understood
by Thomas Bracken (1843-1898)

Not understood, we move along asunder;
      Our paths grow wider as the seasons creep
Along the years; we marvel and we wonder
      Why life is life, and then we fall asleep
            Not understood.

Not understood, we gather false impressions
      And hug them closer as the years go by;
Till virtues often seem to us transgressions;
      And thus men rise and fall, and live and die
            Not understood.

Not understood! Poor souls with stunted vision
      Oft measure giants with their narrow gauge;
The poisoned shafts of falsehood and derision
      Are oft impelled ’gainst those who mould the age,
            Not understood.

Not understood! The secret springs of action
      Which lie beneath the surface and the show,
Are disregarded; with self-satisfaction
      We judge our neighbours, and they often go
            Not understood.

Not understood! How trifles often change us!
      The thoughtless sentence and the fancied slight
Destroy long years of friendship, and estrange us,
      And on our souls there falls a freezing blight;
            Not understood.

Not understood! How many breasts are aching
      For lack of sympathy! Ah! day by day
How many cheerless, lonely hearts are breaking!
      How many noble spirits pass away,
            Not understood.

O God! that men would see a little clearer,
      Or judge less harshly where they cannot see!
O God! that men would draw a little nearer
      To one another, – they’d be nearer Thee,
            And understood.

Views: 41