Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/127

For since that wife had gate or gear,
 Or hearth or garth or field,
She willed her sons to the white harvest,
 And that is a bitter yield.
 
She wills her sons to the wet ploughing,
 To ride the horse of tree;
And syne her sons come back again
 Far-spent from out the sea.
 
The good wife's sons come home again
 With little into their hands,
But the lore of men that have dealt with men
 In the new and naked lands;
 
But the faith of men that have brothered men
 By more than easy breath,
And the eyes o' men that have read with men
 In the open books of Death.
 
Rich are they, rich in wonders seen,
 But poor in the goods o' men;
So what they have got by the skin o' their teeth
 They sell for their teeth again.
 
And whether they lose to the naked life
 Or win to their hearts' desire,
They tell it all to the weary wife
 That nods beside the fire.
 
Her hearth is wide to every wind
 That makes the white ash spin;
And tide and tide and 'tween the tides
 Her sons go out and in;