Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/666

 648 RUDYARD KIPLING'S VERSE

I'm leaving, Pater. Good-bye to you! God bless you, Mater! I'll write to you. I wouldn't be impolite to you, But, Brother, you are a hound!

THE NECESSITARIAN

T KNOW not in Whose hands are laid

To empty upon earth From unsuspected ambuscade The very Urns of Mirth;

Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise ' And cheer our solemn round The Jest beheld with streaming eyes And gro veilings on the ground;

Who joins the flats of Time and Chance

Behind the prey preferred, And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance

The Sacredly Absurd,

Till Laughter, voiceless through excess, Waves mute appeal and sore,

Above the midriff's deep distress, For breath to laugh once more.

No creed hath dared to hail Him Lord, No raptured choirs proclaim,

And Nature's strenuous Overword Hath nowhere breathed His Name.

Yet, it must be, on wayside jape,

The selfsame Power bestows The selfsame power as went to shape

His Planet or His Rose.