Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/686

 668 RUDYARD KIPLING'S VERSE

They spiled along the water-course with trunks of willow- trees

And planks of elms behind 'em and immortal oaken knees. And when the spates of Autumn whirl the gravel-beds away You can see their faithful fragments iron-hard in iron clay.

Georgii Quinti Anno Sexto, I, who own the River-field, Am fortified with title-deeds, attested, signed and sealed, Guaranteeing me, my assigns, my executors and heirs All sorts of powers and profits which are neither mine nor theirs.

I have rights of chase and warren, as my dignity requires. I can fish but Hobden tickles. I can shoot but Hobden

wires.

I repair, but he reopens, certain gaps which, men allege, Have been used by every Hobden since a Hobden swapped a

hedge.

Shall I dog his morning progress o'er the track-betraying

dew?

Demand his dinner-basket into which my pheasant flew? Confiscate his evening faggot under which the conies ran, And summons him to judgment? I would sooner summons

Pan.

His dead are in the churchyard thirty generations laid. Their names were old in history when Domesday Book was

made.

And the passion and the piety and prowess of his line Have seeded, rooted, fruited in some land the Law calls mine.

Not for any beast that burrows, not for any bird that flies, Would I lose his large sound council, miss his keen amending eyes.