Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг
Verses 1889-1896

THE LAMENT OF THE BORDER CATTLE THIEF

O woe is me for the merry life
   I led beyond the Bar,
And a treble woe for my winsome wife
   That weeps at Shalimar.

They have taken away my long jezail,
   My shield and sabre fine,
And heaved me into the Central jail
   For lifting of the kine.

The steer may low within the byre,
   The Jat may tend his grain,
But there’ll be neither loot nor fire
   Till I come back again.

And God have mercy on the Jat
   When once my fetters fall,
And Heaven defend the farmer’s hut
   When I am loosed from thrall.

It’s woe to bend the stubborn back
   Above the grinching quern,
It’s woe to hear the leg-bar clack
   And jingle when I turn!

But for the sorrow and the shame,
   The brand on me and mine,
I’ll pay you back in leaping flame
   And loss of the butchered kine.

For every cow I spared before
   In charity set free,
If I may reach my hold once more
   I’ll reive an honest three.

For every time I raised the low
   That scared the dusty plain,
By sword and cord, by torch and tow
   I’ll light the land with twain!

Ride hard, ride hard to Abazai,
   Young Sahib with the yellow hair —
Lie close, lie close as khuttucks lie,
   Fat herds below Bonair!

The one I’ll shoot at twilight-tide,
   At dawn I’ll drive the other;
The black shall mourn for hoof and hide,
   The white man for his brother.

‘Tis war, red war, I’ll give you then,
   War till my sinews fail;
For the wrong you have done to a chief of men,
   And a thief of the Zukka Kheyl.

And if I fall to your hand afresh
   I give you leave for the sin,
That you cram my throat with the foul pig’s flesh,
   And swing me in the skin!

THE RHYME OF THE THREE CAPTAINS

This ballad appears to refer to one of the exploits of the notorious

Paul Jones, the American pirate. It is founded on fact.

    .. At the close of a winter day,
Their anchors down, by London town, the Three Great Captains lay;
And one was Admiral of the North from Solway Firth to Skye,
And one was Lord of the Wessex coast and all the lands thereby,
And one was Master of the Thames from Limehouse to Blackwall,
And he was Captain of the Fleet – the bravest of them all.
Their good guns guarded their great gray sides
    that were thirty foot in the sheer,
When there came a certain trading-brig with news of a privateer.
Her rigging was rough with the clotted drift that drives in a Northern breeze,
Her sides were clogged with the lazy weed that spawns in the Eastern seas.
Light she rode in the rude tide-rip, to left and right she rolled,
And the skipper sat on the scuttle-butt and stared at an empty hold.
“I ha’ paid Port dues for your Law,” quoth he, “and where is the Law ye boast
If I sail unscathed from a heathen port to be robbed on a Christian coast?
Ye have smoked the hives of the Laccadives as we burn the lice in a bunk,
We tack not now to a Gallang prow or a plunging Pei-ho junk;
I had no fear but the seas were clear as far as a sail might fare
Till I met with a lime-washed Yankee brig that rode off Finisterre.
There were canvas blinds to his bow-gun ports to screen the weight he bore,
And the signals ran for a merchantman from Sandy Hook to the Nore.
He would not fly the Rovers’ flag – the bloody or the black,
But now he floated the Gridiron and now he flaunted the Jack.
He spoke of the Law as he crimped my crew – he swore it was only a loan;
But when I would ask for my own again, he swore it was none of my own.
He has taken my little parrakeets that nest beneath the Line,
He has stripped my rails of the shaddock-frails and the green unripened pine;
He has taken my bale of dammer and spice I won beyond the seas,
He has taken my grinning heathen gods – and what should he want o’ these?
My foremast would not mend his boom, my deckhouse patch his boats;
He has whittled the two, this Yank Yahoo, to peddle for shoe-peg oats.
I could not fight for the failing light and a rough beam-sea beside,
But I hulled him once for a clumsy crimp and twice because he lied.
Had I had guns (as I had goods) to work my Christian harm,
I had run him up from his quarter-deck to trade with his own yard-arm;
I had nailed his ears to my capstan-head, and ripped them off with a saw,
And soused them in the bilgewater, and served them to him raw;
I had flung him blind in a rudderless boat to rot in the rocking dark,
I had towed him aft of his own craft, a bait for his brother shark;
I had lapped him round with cocoa husk, and drenched him with the oil,
And lashed him fast to his own mast to blaze above my spoil;
I had stripped his hide for my hammock-side,
    and tasselled his beard i’ the mesh,
And spitted his crew on the live bamboo
    that grows through the gangrened flesh;
I had hove him down by the mangroves brown,
    where the mud-reef sucks and draws,
Moored by the heel to his own keel to wait for the land-crab’s claws!
He is lazar within and lime without, ye can nose him far enow,
For he carries the taint of a musky ship – the reek of the slaver’s dhow!”
   The skipper looked at the tiering guns and the bulwarks tall and cold,
And the Captains Three full courteously peered down at the gutted hold,
And the Captains Three called courteously from deck to scuttle-butt: —
“Good Sir, we ha’ dealt with that merchantman or ever your teeth were cut.
Your words be words of a lawless race, and the Law it standeth thus:
He comes of a race that have never a Law, and he never has boarded us.
We ha’ sold him canvas and rope and spar – we know that his price is fair,
And we know that he weeps for the lack of a Law as he rides off Finisterre.
And since he is damned for a gallows-thief by you and better than you,
We hold it meet that the English fleet should know that we hold him true.”
   The skipper called to the tall taffrail: – “And what is that to me?
Did ever you hear of a Yankee brig that rifled a Seventy-three?
Do I loom so large from your quarter-deck that I lift like a ship o’ the Line?
He has learned to run from a shotted gun and harry such craft as mine.
There is never a Law on the Cocos Keys to hold a white man in,
But we do not steal the niggers’ meal, for that is a nigger’s sin.
Must he have his Law as a quid to chaw, or laid in brass on his wheel?
Does he steal with tears when he buccaneers?
    ‘Fore Gad, then, why does he steal?”
   The skipper bit on a deep-sea word, and the word it was not sweet,
For he could see the Captains Three had signalled to the Fleet.
But three and two, in white and blue, the whimpering flags began: —
“We have heard a tale of a – foreign sail, but he is a merchantman.”
   The skipper peered beneath his palm and swore by the Great Horn Spoon: —
“‘Fore Gad, the Chaplain of the Fleet would bless my picaroon!”
   By two and three the flags blew free to lash the laughing air: —
“We have sold our spars to the merchantman – we know that his price is fair.”
   The skipper winked his Western eye, and swore by a China storm: —
“They ha’ rigged him a Joseph’s jury-coat to keep his honour warm.”
   The halliards twanged against the tops, the bunting bellied broad,
The skipper spat in the empty hold and mourned for a wasted cord.
Masthead – masthead, the signal sped by the line o’ the British craft;
The skipper called to his Lascar crew, and put her about and laughed: —
“It’s mainsail haul, my bully boys all – we’ll out to the seas again —
Ere they set us to paint their pirate saint, or scrub at his grapnel-chain.
It’s fore-sheet free, with her head to the sea,
    and the swing of the unbought brine —
We’ll make no sport in an English court till we come as a ship o’ the Line:
Till we come as a ship o’ the Line, my lads, of thirty foot in the sheer,
Lifting again from the outer main with news of a privateer;
Flying his pluck at our mizzen-truck for weft of Admiralty,
Heaving his head for our dipsey-lead in sign that we keep the sea.
Then fore-sheet home as she lifts to the foam – we stand on the outward tack,
We are paid in the coin of the white man’s trade —
    the bezant is hard, ay, and black.
The frigate-bird shall carry my word to the Kling and the Orang-Laut
How a man may sail from a heathen coast to be robbed in a Christian port;
How a man may be robbed in Christian port while Three Great Captains there
Shall dip their flag to a slaver’s rag – to show that his trade is fair!”

THE BALLAD OF THE “CLAMPHERDOWN”

It was our war-ship Clampherdown
Would sweep the Channel clean,
Wherefore she kept her hatches close
When the merry Channel chops arose,
To save the bleached marine.

She had one bow-gun of a hundred ton,
And a great stern-gun beside;
They dipped their noses deep in the sea,
They racked their stays and stanchions free
   In the wash of the wind-whipped tide.

It was our war-ship Clampherdown,
   Fell in with a cruiser light
That carried the dainty Hotchkiss gun
And a pair o’ heels wherewith to run
   From the grip of a close-fought fight.

She opened fire at seven miles —
   As ye shoot at a bobbing cork —
And once she fired and twice she fired,
Till the bow-gun drooped like a lily tired
   That lolls upon the stalk.

“Captain, the bow-gun melts apace,
   The deck-beams break below,
‘Twere well to rest for an hour or twain,
And botch the shattered plates again.”
    And he answered, “Make it so.”

She opened fire within the mile —
   As ye shoot at the flying duck —
And the great stern-gun shot fair and true,
With the heave of the ship, to the stainless blue,
   And the great stern-turret stuck.

“Captain, the turret fills with steam,
   The feed-pipes burst below —
You can hear the hiss of the helpless ram,
You can hear the twisted runners jam.”
    And he answered, “Turn and go!”

It was our war-ship Clampherdown,
   And grimly did she roll;
Swung round to take the cruiser’s fire
As the White Whale faces the Thresher’s ire
   When they war by the frozen Pole.

“Captain, the shells are falling fast,
   And faster still fall we;
And it is not meet for English stock
To bide in the heart of an eight-day clock
   The death they cannot see.”

“Lie down, lie down, my bold A.B.,
   We drift upon her beam;
We dare not ram, for she can run;
And dare ye fire another gun,
   And die in the peeling steam?”

It was our war-ship Clampherdown   That carried an armour-belt;
But fifty feet at stern and bow
Lay bare as the paunch of the purser’s sow,
   To the hail of the Nordenfeldt.

“Captain, they hack us through and through;
   The chilled steel bolts are swift!
We have emptied the bunkers in open sea,
Their shrapnel bursts where our coal should be.”
    And he answered, “Let her drift.”

It was our war-ship Clampherdown,
   Swung round upon the tide,
Her two dumb guns glared south and north,
And the blood and the bubbling steam ran forth,
   And she ground the cruiser’s side.

“Captain, they cry, the fight is done,
   They bid you send your sword.”
   And he answered, “Grapple her stern and bow.
They have asked for the steel. They shall have it now;
   Out cutlasses and board!”

It was our war-ship Clampherdown   Spewed up four hundred men;
And the scalded stokers yelped delight,
As they rolled in the waist and heard the fight
   Stamp o’er their steel-walled pen.

They cleared the cruiser end to end,
   From conning-tower to hold.
They fought as they fought in Nelson’s fleet;
They were stripped to the waist, they were bare to the feet,
   As it was in the days of old.

It was the sinking Clampherdown   Heaved up her battered side —
And carried a million pounds in steel,
To the cod and the corpse-fed conger-eel,
   And the scour of the Channel tide.

It was the crew of the Clampherdown   Stood out to sweep the sea,
On a cruiser won from an ancient foe,
As it was in the days of long ago,
   And as it still shall be.

THE BALLAD OF THE “BOLIVAR”

       Seven men from all the world, back to Docks again,
       Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:
       Give the girls another drink ‘fore we sign away —
       We that took the Bolivar out across the Bay!

We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails;
   We put back to Sunderland ‘cause our cargo shifted;
We put out from Sunderland – met the winter gales —
   Seven days and seven nights to the Start we drifted.
      Racketing her rivets loose, smoke-stack white as snow,
      All the coals adrift adeck, half the rails below,
      Leaking like a lobster-pot, steering like a dray —
      Out we took the Bolivar, out across the Bay!

One by one the Lights came up, winked and let us by;
   Mile by mile we waddled on, coal and fo’c’sle short;
Met a blow that laid us down, heard a bulkhead fly;
   Left the Wolf behind us with a two-foot list to port.
      Trailing like a wounded duck, working out her soul;
      Clanging like a smithy-shop after every roll;
      Just a funnel and a mast lurching through the spray —
      So we threshed the Bolivar out across the Bay!

‘Felt her hog and felt her sag, betted when she’d break;
   Wondered every time she raced if she’d stand the shock;
Heard the seas like drunken men pounding at her strake;
   Hoped the Lord ‘ud keep his thumb on the plummer-block.
      Banged against the iron decks, bilges choked with coal;
      Flayed and frozen foot and hand, sick of heart and soul;
      Last we prayed she’d buck herself into judgment Day —
      Hi! we cursed the Bolivar knocking round the Bay!

O her nose flung up to sky, groaning to be still —
   Up and down and back we went, never time for breath;
Then the money paid at Lloyd’s caught her by the heel,
   And the stars ran round and round dancin’ at our death.
      Aching for an hour’s sleep, dozing off between;
      ‘Heard the rotten rivets draw when she took it green;
      ‘Watched the compass chase its tail like a cat at play —
      That was on the Bolivar, south across the Bay.

Once we saw between the squalls, lyin’ head to swell —
   Mad with work and weariness, wishin’ they was we —
Some damned Liner’s lights go by like a long hotel;
   Cheered her from the Bolivar swampin’ in the sea.
      Then a grayback cleared us out, then the skipper laughed;
      “Boys, the wheel has gone to Hell – rig the winches aft!
      Yoke the kicking rudder-head – get her under way!”
       So we steered her, pulley-haul, out across the Bay!

Just a pack o’ rotten plates puttied up with tar,
In we came, an’ time enough, ‘cross Bilbao Bar.
      Overloaded, undermanned, meant to founder, we
      Euchred God Almighty’s storm, bluffed the Eternal Sea!

       Seven men from all the world, back to town again,
       Rollin’ down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:
       Seven men from out of Hell. Ain’t the owners gay,
       ‘Cause we took the “Bolivar” safe across the Bay?

THE SACRIFICE OF ER-HEB

       Er-Heb beyond the Hills of Ao-Safai
       Bears witness to the truth, and Ao-Safai
       Hath told the men of Gorukh. Thence the tale
       Comes westward o’er the peaks to India.

The story of Bisesa, Armod’s child, —
A maiden plighted to the Chief in War,
The Man of Sixty Spears, who held the Pass
That leads to Thibet, but to-day is gone
To seek his comfort of the God called Budh
The Silent – showing how the Sickness ceased
Because of her who died to save the tribe.

Taman is One and greater than us all,
Taman is One and greater than all Gods:
Taman is Two in One and rides the sky,
Curved like a stallion’s croup, from dusk to dawn,
And drums upon it with his heels, whereby
Is bred the neighing thunder in the hills.

This is Taman, the God of all Er-Heb,
Who was before all Gods, and made all Gods,
And presently will break the Gods he made,
And step upon the Earth to govern men
Who give him milk-dry ewes and cheat his Priests,
Or leave his shrine unlighted – as Er-Heb
Left it unlighted and forgot Taman,
When all the Valley followed after Kysh
And Yabosh, little Gods but very wise,
And from the sky Taman beheld their sin.

He sent the Sickness out upon the hills,
The Red Horse Sickness with the iron hooves,
To turn the Valley to Taman again.

And the Red Horse snuffed thrice into the wind,
The naked wind that had no fear of him;
And the Red Horse stamped thrice upon the snow,
The naked snow that had no fear of him;
And the Red Horse went out across the rocks,
The ringing rocks that had no fear of him;
And downward, where the lean birch meets the snow,
And downward, where the gray pine meets the birch,
And downward, where the dwarf oak meets the pine,
Till at his feet our cup-like pastures lay.

That night, the slow mists of the evening dropped,
Dropped as a cloth upon a dead man’s face,
And weltered in the Valley, bluish-white
Like water very silent – spread abroad,
Like water very silent, from the Shrine
Unlighted of Taman to where the stream
Is dammed to fill our cattle-troughs – sent up
White waves that rocked and heaved and then were still,
Till all the Valley glittered like a marsh,
Beneath the moonlight, filled with sluggish mist
Knee-deep, so that men waded as they walked.

That night, the Red Horse grazed above the Dam,
Beyond the cattle-troughs. Men heard him feed,
And those that heard him sickened where they lay.

Thus came the Sickness to Er-Heb, and slew
Ten men, strong men, and of the women four;
And the Red Horse went hillward with the dawn,
But near the cattle-troughs his hoof-prints lay.

That night, the slow mists of the evening dropped,
Dropped as a cloth upon the dead, but rose
A little higher, to a young girl’s height;
Till all the Valley glittered like a lake,
Beneath the moonlight, filled with sluggish mist.

That night, the Red Horse grazed beyond the Dam,
A stone’s-throw from the troughs. Men heard him feed,
And those that heard him sickened where they lay.
Thus came the Sickness to Er-Heb, and slew
Of men a score, and of the women eight,
And of the children two.

                            Because the road
To Gorukh was a road of enemies,
And Ao-Safai was blocked with early snow,
We could not flee from out the Valley. Death
Smote at us in a slaughter-pen, and Kysh
Was mute as Yabosh, though the goats were slain;
And the Red Horse grazed nightly by the stream,
And later, outward, towards the Unlighted Shrine,
And those that heard him sickened where they lay.

Then said Bisesa to the Priests at dusk,
When the white mist rose up breast-high, and choked
The voices in the houses of the dead: —
“Yabosh and Kysh avail not. If the Horse
Reach the Unlighted Shrine we surely die.
Ye have forgotten of all Gods the Chief,
Taman!” Here rolled the thunder through the Hills
And Yabosh shook upon his pedestal.
“Ye have forgotten of all Gods the Chief
Too long.” And all were dumb save one, who cried
On Yabosh with the Sapphire ‘twixt His knees,
But found no answer in the smoky roof,
And, being smitten of the Sickness, died
Before the altar of the Sapphire Shrine.

Then said Bisesa: – “I am near to Death,
And have the Wisdom of the Grave for gift
To bear me on the path my feet must tread.
If there be wealth on earth, then I am rich,
For Armod is the first of all Er-Heb;
If there be beauty on the earth,” – her eyes
Dropped for a moment to the temple floor, —
“Ye know that I am fair. If there be love,
Ye know that love is mine.” The Chief in War,
The Man of Sixty Spears, broke from the press,
And would have clasped her, but the Priests withstood,
Saying: – “She has a message from Taman.”
   Then said Bisesa: – “By my wealth and love
And beauty, I am chosen of the God
Taman.” Here rolled the thunder through the Hills
And Kysh fell forward on the Mound of Skulls.

In darkness, and before our Priests, the maid
Between the altars cast her bracelets down,
Therewith the heavy earrings Armod made,
When he was young, out of the water-gold
Of Gorukh – threw the breast-plate thick with jade
Upon the turquoise anklets – put aside
The bands of silver on her brow and neck;
And as the trinkets tinkled on the stones,
The thunder of Taman lowed like a bull.

Then said Bisesa, stretching out her hands,
As one in darkness fearing Devils: – “Help!
O Priests, I am a woman very weak,
And who am I to know the will of Gods?
Taman hath called me – whither shall I go?”
   The Chief in War, the Man of Sixty Spears,
Howled in his torment, fettered by the Priests,
But dared not come to her to drag her forth,
And dared not lift his spear against the Priests.
Then all men wept.

                      There was a Priest of Kysh
Bent with a hundred winters, hairless, blind,
And taloned as the great Snow-Eagle is.
His seat was nearest to the altar-fires,
And he was counted dumb among the Priests.
But, whether Kysh decreed, or from Taman
The impotent tongue found utterance we know
As little as the bats beneath the eaves.
He cried so that they heard who stood without: —
“To the Unlighted Shrine!” and crept aside
Into the shadow of his fallen God
And whimpered, and Bisesa went her way.

That night, the slow mists of the evening dropped,
Dropped as a cloth upon the dead, and rose
Above the roofs, and by the Unlighted Shrine
Lay as the slimy water of the troughs
When murrain thins the cattle of Er-Heb:
And through the mist men heard the Red Horse feed.

In Armod’s house they burned Bisesa’s dower,
And killed her black bull Tor, and broke her wheel,
And loosed her hair, as for the marriage-feast,
With cries more loud than mourning for the dead.

Across the fields, from Armod’s dwelling-place,
We heard Bisesa weeping where she passed
To seek the Unlighted Shrine; the Red Horse neighed
And followed her, and on the river-mint
His hooves struck dead and heavy in our ears.

Out of the mists of evening, as the star
Of Ao-Safai climbs through the black snow-blur
To show the Pass is clear, Bisesa stepped
Upon the great gray slope of mortised stone,
The Causeway of Taman. The Red Horse neighed
Behind her to the Unlighted Shrine – then fled
North to the Mountain where his stable lies.

They know who dared the anger of Taman,
And watched that night above the clinging mists,
Far up the hill, Bisesa’s passing in.

She set her hand upon the carven door,
Fouled by a myriad bats, and black with time,
Whereon is graved the Glory of Taman
In letters older than the Ao-Safai;
And twice she turned aside and twice she wept,
Cast down upon the threshold, clamouring
For him she loved – the Man of Sixty Spears,
And for her father, – and the black bull Tor,
Hers and her pride. Yea, twice she turned away
Before the awful darkness of the door,
And the great horror of the Wall of Man
Where Man is made the plaything of Taman,
An Eyeless Face that waits above and laughs.

But the third time she cried and put her palms
Against the hewn stone leaves, and prayed Taman
To spare Er-Heb and take her life for price.

They know who watched, the doors were rent apart
And closed upon Bisesa, and the rain
Broke like a flood across the Valley, washed
The mist away; but louder than the rain
The thunder of Taman filled men with fear.

Some say that from the Unlighted Shrine she cried
For succour, very pitifully, thrice,
And others that she sang and had no fear.
And some that there was neither song nor cry,
But only thunder and the lashing rain.

Howbeit, in the morning men rose up,
Perplexed with horror, crowding to the Shrine.
And when Er-Heb was gathered at the doors
The Priests made lamentation and passed in
To a strange Temple and a God they feared
But knew not.

                 From the crevices the grass
Had thrust the altar-slabs apart, the walls
Were gray with stains unclean, the roof-beams swelled
With many-coloured growth of rottenness,
And lichen veiled the Image of Taman
In leprosy. The Basin of the Blood
Above the altar held the morning sun:
A winking ruby on its heart: below,
Face hid in hands, the maid Bisesa lay.

       Er-Heb beyond the Hills of Ao-Safai
       Bears witness to the truth, and Ao-Safai
       Hath told the men of Gorukh. Thence the tale
       Comes westward o’er the peaks to India.