Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/664

 646 RUDYARD KIPLING'S VERSE

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And which is more vou'll be a Man, my son!

THE PRODIGAL SON (WESTERN VERSION)

H 1

'ERE come I to my own again,

Fed, forgiven and known again, Claimed by bone of my bone again And cheered by flesh of my flesh. The fatted calf is dressed for me, But the husks have greater zest for me I think my pigs will be best for me, So I'm off to the Yards afresh.

I never was very refined, you see, (And it weighs on my brother's mind, you see) But there's no reproach among swine, d'you see, For being a bit of a swine.