Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/105

Rh Let the organ moan her sorrow to the roof—

I have told the naked stars the Grief of Man!

Let the trumpets snare the foeman to the proof—

I have known Defeat, and mocked it as we ran!

My bray ye may not alter nor mistake

When I stand to jeer the fatted Soul of Things,

But the Song of Lost Endeavour that I make,

Is it hidden in the twanging of the strings?

With my ' Ta-ra-rara-rara-ra-ra-rrrp! '

[Is it naught to you that hear and pass me by?]

But the word—the word is mine, when the order moves the line

And the lean, locked ranks go roaring down to die.

The grandam of my grandam was the Lyre—

[O the blue below the little fisher huts!]

That the Stealer stooping beachward filled with fire,

Till she bore my iron head and ringing guts!