Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/695

 INCLUSIVE EDITION, 1885-1918 677

Envy ah ! even to tears !

The fortune of their years

Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended.

Scarce had they lifted up

Life's full and fiery cup,

Than they had set it down untouched before them.

Before their day arose

They beckoned it to close

Close in confusion and destruction o'er them.

They did not stay to ask

What prize should crown their task

Well sure that prize was such as no man strives for;

But passed into eclipse,

Her kiss upon their lips

Even Belphoebe's, whom they gave their lives for!

THE CITY OF SLEEP

/"WER the edge of the purple down,

Where the single lamplight gleams, Know ye the road to the Merciful Town

That is hard by the Sea of Dreams Where the poor may lay their wrongs away,

And the sick may forget to weep? But we pity us! Oh, pity us!

We wakeful; ah, pity us! We must go back with Policeman Day

Back from the City of Sleep!

Weary they turn from the scroll and crown, Fetter and prayer and plough

They that go up to the Merciful Town, For her gates are closing now.