Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/71

By hands uplifted to the Gods that heard not,
 By gifts that found no favor in their sight,
By faces bent above the babe that stirred not,
 By nameless horrors of the stifling night;
  By ills foredone, by peace her toils discover,
  Bid Earth be good beneath and Heaven above her!

If she have sent her servants in our pain,
 If she have fought with Death and dulled his sword;
If she have given back our sick again,
  Is it a little thing that she has wrought?
  Then Life and Death and Motherhood be nought.

Go forth, O Wind, our message on thy wings,
 And they shall hear thee pass and bid thee speed,
In reed-roofed hut, or white-walled home of kings,
 Who have been holpen by her in their need
  All spring shall give thee fragrance, and the wheat
  Shall be a tasselled floorcloth to thy feet.

Haste, for our hearts are with thee, take no rest!
 Loud-voiced ambassador, from sea to sea
Proclaim the blessing, mainfold, confest,
 Of those in darkness by her hand set free,
  And whisper: "Lady, lo, they know and love!"

 

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THE BETROTHED

"You must choose between me and your cigar." Breach of Promise Case, circa, 1885

OPEN the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.