Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/573

 Under their feet in the grasses

My clinging magic runs.

They shall return as strangers.

They shall remain as sons.

Over their heads in the branches

Of their new-bought, ancient trees,

I weave an incantation

And draw them to my knees.

Scent of smoke in the evening,

Smell of rain in the night—

The hours, the days and the seasons,

Order their souls aright,

Till I make plain the meaning

Of all my thousand years—

Till I fill their hearts with knowledge,

While I fill their eyes with tears.





you the ferny ride that steals

Into the oak-woods far?

O that was whence they hewed the keels

That rolled to Trafalgar.

And mark you where the ivy clings

To Bayham's mouldering walls?

O there we cast the stout railings

That stand around St. Paul's.

See you the dimpled track that runs

All hollow through the wheat?

O that was where they hauled the guns

That smote King Philip's fleet.

