Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/617

 INCLUSIVE EDITION, 1885-1918 599

Wherein he statelily moved to the clink of his chains unre- garded,

Nowise abashed but contented to drink of the potion awarded.

Saluting aloofly his Fate, he made haste with his story,

And the words of his mouth were as slaves spreading carpets of glory

Embroidered with names of the Djinns a miraculous weav- ing

But the cool and perspicuous eye overbore unbelieving.

So I submitted myself to the limits of rapture

Bound by this man we had bound, amid captives his cap- ture

Till he returned me to earth and the visions departed.

But on him be the Peace and the Blessing; for he was great- hearted !

THE PUZZLER

T^HE Celt in all his variants from Builth to Bally-hoo, His mental processes are plain one knows what he will

do,

And can logically predicate his finish by his start; But the English ah, the English! they are quite a race

apart.

Their psychology is bovine, their outlook crude and raw. They abandon vital matters to be tickled with a straw, But the straw that they were tickled with the chaff that

they were fed with They convert into a weaver's beam to break their foeman's

head with.

For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, They arrive at their conclusions largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none; But sometimes in a smoking-room, one learns why things were done.