Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/461

 INCLUSIVE EDITION, 1885-1918 443

THE SLEEPY SENTINEL

Faithless the watch that I kept: now I have none to keep. I was slain because I slept: now I am slain I sleep. Let no man reproach me again, whatever watch is unkept I sleep because I am slain. They slew me because I slept.

BATTERIES OUT OF AMMUNITION

If any mourn us in the workshop, say We died because the shift kept holiday.

COMMON FORM

If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.

A DEAD STATESMAN

I could not dig: I dared not rob: Therefore I lied to please the mob. Now all my lies are proved 'untrue And I must face the men I slew. What tale shall serve me here among Mine angry and defrauded young?

THE REBEL

If I had clamoured at Thy Gate

For gift of Life on Earth, And, thrusting through the souls that wait,

Flung headlong into birth Even then, even then, for gin and snare

About my pathway spread, Lord, I had mocked Thy thoughtful care

Before I joined the Dead! But now? ... I was beneath Thy Hand

Ere yet the Planets came. And now though Planets pass, I stand

The witness to Thy shame.