Verses 1889-1896 - Rudyard Kipling

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My path is mine – see thou to thine – to-night upon thy bed

        Think who there be in Kabul now that clamour for thy head.”

        That night when all the gates were shut to City and to throne,

        Within a little garden-house the King lay down alone.

        Before the sinking of the moon, which is the Night of Night,

        Yar Khan came softly to the King to make his honour white.

        The children of the town had mocked beneath his horse’s hoofs,

        The harlots of the town had hailed him “butcher!” from their roofs.

        But as he groped against the wall, two hands upon him fell,

        The King behind his shoulder spake:  “Dead man, thou dost not well!

        ‘Tis ill to jest with Kings by day and seek a boon by night;

        And that thou bearest in thy hand is all too sharp to write.

        But three days hence, if God be good, and if thy strength remain,

        Thou shalt demand one boon of me and bless me in thy pain.

        For I am merciful to all, and most of all to thee.

        My butcher of the shambles, rest – no knife hast thou for me!”

                  Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief,

                    holds hard by the South and the North;

                  But the Ghilzai knows, ere the melting snows,

                    when the swollen banks break forth,

                  When the red-coats crawl to the sungar wall,

                    and his Usbeg lances fail:

                  Ye have heard the song – How long?  How long?

                    Wolves of the Zuka Kheyl!

        They stoned him in the rubbish-field when dawn was in the sky,

        According to the written word, “See that he do not die.”

        They stoned him till the stones were piled above him on the plain,

        And those the labouring limbs displaced they tumbled back again.

        One watched beside the dreary mound that veiled the battered thing,

        And him the King with laughter called the Herald of the King.

        It was upon the second night, the night of Ramazan,

        The watcher leaning earthward heard the message of Yar Khan.

        From shattered breast through shrivelled lips broke forth the rattling breath,

        “Creature of God, deliver me from agony of Death.”

        They sought the King among his girls, and risked their lives thereby:

        “Protector of the Pitiful, give orders that he die!”

        “Bid him endure until the day,” a lagging answer came;

        “The night is short, and he can pray and learn to bless my name.”

        Before the dawn three times he spoke, and on the day once more:

        “Creature of God, deliver me, and bless the King therefor!”

        They shot him at the morning prayer, to ease him of his pain,

        And when he heard the matchlocks clink, he blessed the King again.

        Which thing the singers made a song for all the world to sing,

        So that the Outer Seas may know the mercy of the King.

                  Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief, of him is the story told,

                  He has opened his mouth to the North and the South,

                    they have stuffed his mouth with gold.

                  Ye know the truth of his tender ruth – and sweet his favours are:

                  Ye have heard the song – How long?  How long?

                    from Balkh to Kandahar.

      THE BALLAD OF THE KING’S JEST

        When spring-time flushes the desert grass,

        Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.

        Lean are the camels but fat the frails,

        Light are the purses but heavy the bales,

        As the snowbound trade of the North comes down

        To the market-square of Peshawur town.

        In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,

        A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.

        Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,

        And tent-peg answered to  hammer-nose;

        And the picketed ponies, shag and wild,

        Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled;

        And the bubbling camels beside the load

        Sprawled for a furlong adown the road;

        And the Persian pussy-cats, brought for sale,

        Spat at the dogs from the camel-bale;

        And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food;

        And the camp-fires twinkled by Fort Jumrood;

        And there fled on the wings of the gathering dusk

        A savour of camels and carpets and musk,

        A murmur of voices, a reek of smoke,

        To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke.

        The lid of the flesh-pot chattered high,

        The knives were whetted and – then came I

        To Mahbub Ali the muleteer,

        Patching his bridles and counting his gear,

        Crammed with the gossip of half a year.

        But Mahbub Ali the kindly said,

        “Better is speech when the belly is fed.”

         So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deep

        In a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep,

        And he who never hath tasted the food,

        By Allah! he knoweth not bad from good.

        We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease,

        We lay on the mats and were filled with peace,

        And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south,

        With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth.

        Four things greater than all things are, —

        Women and Horses and Power and War.

        We spake of them all, but the last the most,

        For I sought a word of a Russian post,

        Of a shifty promise, an unsheathed sword

        And a gray-coat guard on the Helmund ford.

        Then Mahbub Ali lowered his eyes

       

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