Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/166

152 Where his timid foot first halted, there he stayed,

Till mere trade

Grew to Empire, and he sent his armies forth

South and North.

Till the country from Peshawar to Ceylon

Was his own.

Thus the midday halt of Charnock—more's the pity!

Grew a City.

As the fungus sprouts chaotic from its bed,

So it spread—

Chance-directed, chance-erected, laid and built

On the silt—

Palace, byre, hovel—poverty and pride—

Side by Side;

And, above the packed and pestilential town,

Death looked down.

But the Rulers in that City by the Sea,

Turned to flee—

Fled, with each returning Spring-tide from its ills

To the Hills.

From the clammy fogs of morning, from the blaze

Of the days,

From the sickness of the noontide, from the heat

Beat retreat;