Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/75

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INCLUSIVE EDITION, 1885-1918
57

I cut the date upon a tree—
Here stand the clumsy figures still:—
"10-7-85, A.D."
Damp in the mists on Jakko Hill.


What came of high resolve and great,
And until Death fidelity?
Whose horse is waiting at your gate?
Whose 'rickshaw-wheels ride over me?
No Saint's, I swear; and—let me see
To-night what names your programme fill—
We drift asunder merrily,
As drifts the mist on Jakko Hill!

L'Envoi

Princess, behold our ancient state
Has clean departed; and we see
'Twas Idleness we took for Fate
That bound light bonds on you and me.
Amen! Here ends the comedy
Where it began in all good will,
Since Love and Leave together flee
As driven mist on Jakko Hill!



THE PLEA OF THE SIMLA DANCERS

Too late, alas! the song
To remedy the wrong;—
The rooms are taken from us, swept and garnished for their fate,
But these tear-besprinkled pages
Shall attest to future ages
That we cried against the crime of it—too late, alas! too late!

WHAT have we ever done to bear this grudge?"
Was there no room save only in Benmore
For docket, duftar,[1] and for office-drudge,

That you usurp our smoothest dancing floor?
  1. Office.