Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/414



I run eight hundred hens to the acre They die by dozens mysteriously. . . . I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker. Why has the Lord afflicted me? What a return for all my endeavour Not to mention the L. S. D! I am an atheist now and for ever, Because this God has afflicted me!

Money spent on an Army or Fleet Is homicidal lunacy. . . . My son has been killed in the Mons retreat, Why is the Lord afflicting me? Why are murder, pillage and arson And rape allowed by the Deity? I will write to the Times, deriding our parson Because my God has afflicted me.

We had a kettle: we let it leak: Our not repairing it made it worse. We haven't had any tea for a week. The bottom is out of the Universe!

This was none of the good Lord's pleasure, For the Spirit He breathed in Man is free; But what comes after is measure for measure, And not a God that afflicteth thee.