Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/228

 They that are wise may follow

Ere the world's war-trumpet blows,

But I—I am first in the battle,"

Said our Lady of the Snows.

A Nation spoke to a Nation,,

A Throne sent word to a Throne:

"Daughter am I in my mother's house,

But mistress in my own.

The gates are mine to open,

As the gates are mine to close,

And I abide by my Mother's House,"

Said our Lady of the Snows.



AN AMERICAN

1894

The American Spirit speaks:

F THE Led Striker call it a strike,

Or the papers call it a war,

They know not much what I am like,

Nor what he is, my Avatar.

Through many roads, by me possessed,

He shambles forth in cosmic guise;

He is the Jester and the Jest,

And he the Text himself applies.

The Celt is in his heart and hand,

The Gaul is in his brain and nerve;

Where, cosmopolitanly planned,

He guards the Redskin's dry reserve

