Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/143

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INCLUSIVE EDITION, 1885-1918
125

Lesser men feign greater goals,
Failing whereof they may sit
Scholarly to judge the souls
That go down into the pit,
And, despite its certain clay,
Heave a new world towards the day.


These at labour make no sign,
More than planets, tides or years
Which discover God's design,
Not our hopes and not our fears;
Nor in aught they gain or lose
Seek a triumph or excuse.

For, so the Ark be borne to Zion, who
Heeds how they perished or were paid that bore it?
For, so the Shrine abide, what shame—what pride—
If we, the priests, were bound or crowned before it?



THE SEA AND THE HILLS

1902

WHO hath desired the Sea?—the sight of salt water unbounded—
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing—

Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing—