Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/459

 INCLUSIVE EDITION, 1885-1918 441

If mortal man could change me through and through From all I was what may The God not do?

HINDU SEPOY IN FRANCE

This man in his own country prayed we know not to what

Powers. We pray Them to reward him for his bravery in ours.

THE COWARD

I could not look on Death, which being known, Men led me to him, blindfold and alone.

SHOCK

My name, my speech, my self I had forgot. My wife and children came I knew them not. I died. My Mother followed. At her call And on her bosom I remembered all.

A GRAVE NEAR CAIRO

Gods of the Nile, should this stout fellow here Get out get out! He knows not shame nor fear.

PELICANS IN THE WILDERNESS (A GRAVE NEAR HALFA)

The blown sand heaps on me, that none may learn

Where I am laid for whom my children grieve. . ..

O wings that beat at dawning, ye return Out of the desert to your young at eve!

THE FAVOUR

Death favoured me from the first, well knowing I could not

endure

To wait on him day by day. He quitted my betters and came