Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/776

 758 RUDYARD KIPLING'S VERSE

He was the author of his line

He wrote that witches should be burnt;

He wrote that monarchs were divine, And left a son who proved they weren't!

EDGEHILL FIGHT (CiviL WARS, 1642)

and grey the Cotswolds stand Beneath the autumn sun, And the stubble-fields on either hand

Where Stour and Avon run. There is no change in the patient land That has bred us every one.

She should have passed in cloud and fire

And saved us from this sin Of war red war 'twixt child and sire,

Household and kith and kin, In the heart of a sleepy Midland shire,

With the harvest scarcely in.

But there is no change as we meet at last On the brow-head or the plain,

And the raw astonished ranks stand fast To slay or to be slain

By the men they knew in the kindly past That shall never come again

By the men they met at dance or chase,

In the tavern or the hall, At the justice-bench and the market-place,

At the cudgel-play or brawl Of their own blood and speech and race,

Comrades or neighbours all!