Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/229

 His easy unswept hearth he lends

From Labrador to Guadeloupe;

Till, elbowed out by sloven friends,

He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop.

Calm-eyed he scoffs at Sword and Crown,

Or, panic-blinded, stabs and slays:

Blatant he bids the world bow down,

Or cringing begs a crust of praise;

Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart,

He dubs his dreary brethren Kings.

His hands are black with blood—his heart

Leaps, as a babe's, at little things.

But, through the shift of mood and mood,

Mine ancient humour saves him whole—

The cynic devil in his blood

That bids him mock his hurrying soul;

That bids him flout the Law he makes,

That bids him make the Law he flouts,

Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes

The drumming guns that—have no doubts;

That checks him foolish-hot and fond,

That chuckles through his deepest ire,

That gilds the slough of his despond

But dims the goal of his desire;

Inopportune, shrill-accented,

The acrid Asiatic mirth

That leaves him, careless 'mid his dead,

The scandal of the elder earth.