Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/340

Then Satan said to Dives:—"Return again with me,
"Who hast broken His Commandment in the day He set thee free,
⁠"Who grindest for thy greed,
⁠"Man's belly-pinch and need;
"And the blood of Man to filthy usury!"

Then softly answered Dives where the money-changers sit:—
"My refuge is Our Master, O My Master in the Pit.
⁠"But behold all Earth is laid
⁠"In the Peace which I have made,
"And behold I wait on thee to trouble it!"

Then angrily turned Satan, and about the Seas he fled,
To shake the new-sown peoples with insult, doubt, and dread;
⁠But, for all the sleight he used,
⁠There was never squadron loosed.
And the brands he flung flew dying and fell dead.

But to Dives came Atlantis and the Captains of the West—
And their hates were nothing weakened nor their anger nor unrest—
⁠And they pawned their utmost trade
⁠For the dry, decreeing blade;
And Dives lent and took of them their best.

Then Satan said to Dives:—"Declare thou by The Name,
"The secret of thy subtlety that turneth mine to shame.
⁠"It is known through all the Hells
⁠"How my peoples mocked my spells,
"And my faithless Kings denied me ere I came."

Then answered cunning Dives: "Do not gold and hate abide
"At the heart of every Magic, yea, and senseless fear beside?
⁠"With gold and fear and hate
⁠"I have harnessed state to state,
"And by hate and fear and gold their hates are tied.-