Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/606

 588 RUDYARD KIPLING'S VERSE

The price of our loss shall be paid to our hands, not an- other's hereafter.

Neither the Alien nor Priest shall decide on it. That is our right.

But who shall return us the children ?

At the hour the Barbarian chose to disclose his pretences, And raged against Man, they engaged, on the breasts that

they bared for us,

The first felon-stroke of the sword he had long-time pre- pared for us

Their bodies were all our defense while we wrought our defenses.

They bought us anew with their blood, forbearing to blame

us, Those hours which we had not made good when the Judgment

o'ercame us. They believed us and perished for it. Our statecraft, our

learning

Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour Not since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed

upon her.

Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them. The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemp- tion: Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our

redemption,

Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marvelling, closed on them.

That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was

given To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven