Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/420

Trace each all- forgot career
From long primer through brevier
Unto Death, a para minion in the Files
(Para minion—solid—bottom of the Files). . . .
Some successful Kings and Queens adorn the Files.
They were great, their views were leaded,
And their deaths were triple-headed,
So they catch the eye in running through the Files
(Show as blazes in the mazes of the Files);
For their "paramours and priests,"
And their gross, jack-booted feasts,
And their "epoch-marking actions" see the Files.
Was it Bomba fled the blue Sicilian isles?
Was it Saffi, a professor
Once of Oxford, brought redress or
Garibaldi? Who remembers
Forty-odd-year-old Septembers?—
Only sextons paid to dig among the Files
(Such as I am, born and bred among the Files).
You must hack through much deposit
Ere you know for sure who was it
Came to burial with such honour in the Files
(Only seven seasons back beneath the Files).
"Very great our loss and grievous
"So our best and brightest leave us,
"And it ends the Age of Giants," say the Files;
All the '60—'70—'80—'90 Files
(The open-minded, opportunist Files—
The easy "O King, live for ever" Files).
It is good to read a little in the Files;
'Tis a sure and sovereign balm
Unto philosophic calm,
Yea, and philosophic doubt when Life beguiles.
When you know Success is Greatness,
When you marvel at your lateness
In apprehending facts so plain to Smiles
(Self- helpful, wholly strenuous Samuel Smiles).