Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/51

Rh Then a Face came, blind and weeping,

And It couldn't wipe Its eyes,

And It muttered I was keeping

Back the moonlight from the skies;

So I patted It for pity,

But It whistled shrill with wrath,

And a huge, black Devil City

Poured its peoples on my path.

So I fled with steps uncertain

On a thousand-year long race,

But the bellying of the curtain

Kept me always in one place,

While the tumult rose and maddened

To the roar of Earth on fire,

Ere it ebbed and sank and saddened

To a whisper tense as wire.

In tolerable stillness

Rose one little, little star,

And it chuckled at my illness,

And it mocked me from afar;

And its brethren came and eyed me,

Called the Universe to aid,

Till I lay, with naught to hide me,

'Neath the Scorn of All Things Made.

Dun and saffron, robed and splendid,

Broke the solemn, pitying Day,

And I knew my pains were ended,

And I turned and tried to pray;

But my speech was shattered wholly,

And I wept as children weep,

Till the dawn-wind, softly, slowly,

Brought to burning eyelids sleep.