The Seven Seas - Rudyard Kipling (best free ebook reader for android .txt) 📗
- Author: Rudyard Kipling
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class="stanza">And the children nine and ten, (Stand up!)
And the life we live and know,
Let a fellow sing o' the little things he cares about,
If a fellow fights for the little things he cares about
With the weight of a two-fold blow!
And the life we live and know,
Let a fellow sing o' the little things he cares about,
If a fellow fights for the little things he cares about
With the weight of a two-fold blow!
To the far-flung fenceless prairie
Where the quick cloud-shadows trail,
To our neighbour's barn in the offing
And the line of the new-cut rail;
To the plough in her league-long furrow
With the gray Lake gulls behind—
To the weight of a half-year's winter
And the warm wet western wind!
Where the quick cloud-shadows trail,
To our neighbour's barn in the offing
And the line of the new-cut rail;
To the plough in her league-long furrow
With the gray Lake gulls behind—
To the weight of a half-year's winter
And the warm wet western wind!
To the home of the floods and thunder,
To her pale dry healing blue—
To the lift of the great Cape combers,
And the smell of the baked Karroo.
To the growl of the sluicing stamp-head—
To the reef and the water-gold,
To the last and the largest Empire,
To the map that is half unrolled!
To her pale dry healing blue—
To the lift of the great Cape combers,
And the smell of the baked Karroo.
To the growl of the sluicing stamp-head—
To the reef and the water-gold,
To the last and the largest Empire,
To the map that is half unrolled!
To our dear dark foster-mothers,
To the heathen songs they sung—
To the heathen speech we babbled
Ere we came to the white man's tongue.
To the cool of our deep verandas—
To the blaze of our jewelled main,
To the night, to the palms in the moonlight,
And the fire-fly in the cane!
To the heathen songs they sung—
To the heathen speech we babbled
Ere we came to the white man's tongue.
To the cool of our deep verandas—
To the blaze of our jewelled main,
To the night, to the palms in the moonlight,
And the fire-fly in the cane!
To the hearth of our people's people—
To her well-ploughed windy sea,
To the hush of our dread high-altars
Where the Abbey makes us We;
To the grist of the slow-ground ages,
To the gain that is yours and mine—
To the Bank of the Open Credit,
To the Power-house of the Line!
To her well-ploughed windy sea,
To the hush of our dread high-altars
Where the Abbey makes us We;
To the grist of the slow-ground ages,
To the gain that is yours and mine—
To the Bank of the Open Credit,
To the Power-house of the Line!
We've drunk to the Queen—God bless her!—
We've drunk to our mothers' land;
We've drunk to our English brother
(And we hope he'll understand).
We've drunk as much as we're able,
And the Cross swings low to the morn;
Last toast—and your foot on the table!—
A health to the Native-born!
We've drunk to our mothers' land;
We've drunk to our English brother
(And we hope he'll understand).
We've drunk as much as we're able,
And the Cross swings low to the morn;
Last toast—and your foot on the table!—
A health to the Native-born!
A health to the Native-born, (Stand up!)
We're six white men arow,
All bound to sing o' the little things we care about,
All bound to fight for the little things we care about
With the weight of a six-fold blow!
By the might of our cable-tow, (Take hands!)
From the Orkneys to the Horn,
All round the world (and a little loop to pull it by),
All round the world (and a little strap to buckle it),
A health to the Native-born!
THE KING.
We're six white men arow,
All bound to sing o' the little things we care about,
All bound to fight for the little things we care about
With the weight of a six-fold blow!
By the might of our cable-tow, (Take hands!)
From the Orkneys to the Horn,
All round the world (and a little loop to pull it by),
All round the world (and a little strap to buckle it),
A health to the Native-born!
THE KING.
"Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said;
"With bone well carved he went away,
Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead,
And jasper tips the spear to-day.
Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance,
And he with these. Farewell, Romance!"
"With bone well carved he went away,
Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead,
And jasper tips the spear to-day.
Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance,
And he with these. Farewell, Romance!"
"Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed;
"We lift the weight of flatling years;
The caverns of the mountain side
Hold him who scorns our hutted piers.
Lost hills whereby we dare not dwell,
Guard ye his rest. Romance, farewell!"
"We lift the weight of flatling years;
The caverns of the mountain side
Hold him who scorns our hutted piers.
Lost hills whereby we dare not dwell,
Guard ye his rest. Romance, farewell!"
"Farewell, Romance!" the Soldier spoke;
"By sleight of sword we may not win,
But scuffle 'mid uncleanly smoke
Of arquebus and culverin.
Honour is lost, and none may tell
Who paid good blows. Romance, farewell!"
"By sleight of sword we may not win,
But scuffle 'mid uncleanly smoke
Of arquebus and culverin.
Honour is lost, and none may tell
Who paid good blows. Romance, farewell!"
"Farewell, Romance!" the Traders cried;
"Our keels ha' lain with every sea;
The dull-returning wind and tide
Heave up the wharf where we would be;
The known and noted breezes swell
Our trudging sail. Romance, farewell!"
"Our keels ha' lain with every sea;
The dull-returning wind and tide
Heave up the wharf where we would be;
The known and noted breezes swell
Our trudging sail. Romance, farewell!"
"Good-bye, Romance!" the Skipper said;
"He vanished with the coal we burn;
Our dial marks full steam ahead,
Our speed is timed to half a turn.
Sure as the tidal trains we ply
'Twixt port and port. Romance, good-bye!"
"He vanished with the coal we burn;
Our dial marks full steam ahead,
Our speed is timed to half a turn.
Sure as the tidal trains we ply
'Twixt port and port. Romance, good-bye!"
"Romance!" the Season-tickets mourn,
"He never ran to catch his train,
But passed with coach and guard and horn—
And left the local—late again!
Confound Romance!"... And all unseen
Romance brought up the nine-fifteen.
"He never ran to catch his train,
But passed with coach and guard and horn—
And left the local—late again!
Confound Romance!"... And all unseen
Romance brought up the nine-fifteen.
His hand was on the lever laid,
His oil-can soothed the worrying cranks,
His whistle waked the snowbound grade,
His fog-horn cut the reeking Banks;
In dock and deep and mine and mill
The Boy-god reckless laboured still.
His oil-can soothed the worrying cranks,
His whistle waked the snowbound grade,
His fog-horn cut the reeking Banks;
In dock and deep and mine and mill
The Boy-god reckless laboured still.
Robed, crowned and throned, he wove his spell,
Where heart-blood beat or hearth-smoke curled,
With unconsidered miracle,
Hedged in a backward-gazing world;
Then taught his chosen bard to say:
"The King was with us—yesterday!"
THE RHYME OF THE THREE SEALERS.
Where heart-blood beat or hearth-smoke curled,
With unconsidered miracle,
Hedged in a backward-gazing world;
Then taught his chosen bard to say:
"The King was with us—yesterday!"
THE RHYME OF THE THREE SEALERS.
Away by the lands of the Japanee,
When the paper lanterns glow
And the crews of all the shipping drink
In the house of Blood Street Joe,
At twilight, when the landward breeze
Brings up the harbour noise,
And ebb of Yokohama Bay
Swigs chattering through the buoys,
In Cisco's Dewdrop Dining Rooms
They tell the tale anew
Of a hidden sea and a hidden fight,
When the Baltic ran from the Northern Light
And the Stralsund fought the two!
When the paper lanterns glow
And the crews of all the shipping drink
In the house of Blood Street Joe,
At twilight, when the landward breeze
Brings up the harbour noise,
And ebb of Yokohama Bay
Swigs chattering through the buoys,
In Cisco's Dewdrop Dining Rooms
They tell the tale anew
Of a hidden sea and a hidden fight,
When the Baltic ran from the Northern Light
And the Stralsund fought the two!
Now this is the Law of the Muscovite, that he proves with shot and steel,
When ye come by his isles in the Smoky Sea ye must not take the seal,
Where the gray sea goes nakedly between the weed-hung shelves,
And the little blue fox he is bred for his skin and the seal they breed for themselves;
For when the matkas seek the shore to drop their pups aland,
The great man-seal haul out of the sea, aroaring, band by band;
And when the first September gales have slaked their rutting-wrath,
The great man-seal haul back to the sea and no man knows their path.
Then dark they lie and stark they lie—rookery, dune, and floe,
And the Northern Lights come down o' nights to dance with the houseless snow.
And God who clears the grounding berg and steers the grinding floe,
He hears the cry of the little kit-fox and the lemming on the snow.
But since our women must walk gay and money buys their gear,
The sealing-boats they filch that way at hazard year by year.
English they be and Japanee that hang on the Brown Bear's flank,
And some be Scot, but the worst, God wot, and the boldest thieves, be Yank!
When ye come by his isles in the Smoky Sea ye must not take the seal,
Where the gray sea goes nakedly between the weed-hung shelves,
And the little blue fox he is bred for his skin and the seal they breed for themselves;
For when the matkas seek the shore to drop their pups aland,
The great man-seal haul out of the sea, aroaring, band by band;
And when the first September gales have slaked their rutting-wrath,
The great man-seal haul back to the sea and no man knows their path.
Then dark they lie and stark they lie—rookery, dune, and floe,
And the Northern Lights come down o' nights to dance with the houseless snow.
And God who clears the grounding berg and steers the grinding floe,
He hears the cry of the little kit-fox and the lemming on the snow.
But since our women must walk gay and money buys their gear,
The sealing-boats they filch that way at hazard year by year.
English they be and Japanee that hang on the Brown Bear's flank,
And some be Scot, but the worst, God wot, and the boldest thieves, be Yank!
It was the sealer Northern Light, to the Smoky Seas she bore.
With a stovepipe stuck from a starboard port and the Russian flag at her fore.
(Baltic, Stralsund, and Northern Light—oh! they were birds of a feather—
Slipping away to the Smoky Seas, three seal-thieves together!)
And at last she came to a sandy cove and the Baltic lay therein,
But her men were up with the herding seal to drive and club and skin.
There were fifteen hundred skins abeach, cool pelt and proper fur,
When the Northern Light drove into the bight and the sea-mist drove with her.
The Baltic called her men and weighed—she could not choose but run—
For a stovepipe seen through the closing mist, it shows like a four-inch gun
(And loss it is that is sad as death to lose both trip and ship
And lie for a rotting contraband on Vladivostock slip).
She turned and dived in the sea-smother as a rabbit dives in the whins,
And the Northern Light sent up her boats to steal the stolen skins.
They had not brought a load to side or slid their hatches clear,
When they were aware of a sloop-of-war, ghost-white and very near.
Her flag she showed, and her guns she showed—three of them, black, abeam,
And a funnel white with the crusted salt, but never a show of steam.
There was no time to man the brakes, they knocked the shackle free,
And the Northern Light stood out again, goose-winged to open sea.
With a stovepipe stuck from a starboard port and the Russian flag at her fore.
(Baltic, Stralsund, and Northern Light—oh! they were birds of a feather—
Slipping away to the Smoky Seas, three seal-thieves together!)
And at last she came to a sandy cove and the Baltic lay therein,
But her men were up with the herding seal to drive and club and skin.
There were fifteen hundred skins abeach, cool pelt and proper fur,
When the Northern Light drove into the bight and the sea-mist drove with her.
The Baltic called her men and weighed—she could not choose but run—
For a stovepipe seen through the closing mist, it shows like a four-inch gun
(And loss it is that is sad as death to lose both trip and ship
And lie for a rotting contraband on Vladivostock slip).
She turned and dived in the sea-smother as a rabbit dives in the whins,
And the Northern Light sent up her boats to steal the stolen skins.
They had not brought a load to side or slid their hatches clear,
When they were aware of a sloop-of-war, ghost-white and very near.
Her flag she showed, and her guns she showed—three of them, black, abeam,
And a funnel white with the crusted salt, but never a show of steam.
There was no time to man the brakes, they knocked the shackle free,
And the Northern Light stood out again, goose-winged to open sea.
(For life it is that is worse than death, by force of Russian law
To work in the mines of mercury that loose the teeth in your jaw!)
They had not run a mile from shore—they heard no shots behind—
When the skipper smote his hand on his thigh and threw her up in the wind:
"Bluffed—raised out on a bluff," said he, "for if my name's Tom Hall,
You must set a thief to catch a thief—and a thief has caught us all!
By every butt in Oregon and every spar in Maine,
The hand that spilled the wind from her sail was the hand of Reuben Paine!
He has rigged and trigged her with paint and spar, and, faith, he has faked her well—
But I'd know the Stralsund's deckhouse yet from here to the booms o' Hell.
Oh, once we ha' met at Baltimore, and twice on Boston pier,
But the sickest day for you, Reuben Paine, was the day that you came here—
The day that you came here, my lad, to scare us from our seal
With your funnel made o' your painted cloth, and your guns o' rotten deal!
Ring and blow for the Baltic now, and head her back to the bay,
For we'll come into the game again with a double deck to play!"
To work in the mines of mercury that loose the teeth in your jaw!)
They had not run a mile from shore—they heard no shots behind—
When the skipper smote his hand on his thigh and threw her up in the wind:
"Bluffed—raised out on a bluff," said he, "for if my name's Tom Hall,
You must set a thief to catch a thief—and a thief has caught us all!
By every butt in Oregon and every spar in Maine,
The hand that spilled the wind from her sail was the hand of Reuben Paine!
He has rigged and trigged her with paint and spar, and, faith, he has faked her well—
But I'd know the Stralsund's deckhouse yet from here to the booms o' Hell.
Oh, once we ha' met at Baltimore, and twice on Boston pier,
But the sickest day for you, Reuben Paine, was the day that you came here—
The day that you came here, my lad, to scare us from our seal
With your funnel made o' your painted cloth, and your guns o' rotten deal!
Ring and blow for the Baltic now, and head her back to the bay,
For we'll come into the game again with a double deck to play!"
They rang and blew the sealers' call—the poaching cry o' the sea—
And they raised the Baltic out of the mist, and an angry ship was she:
And blind they groped through the whirling white, and blind to the bay again,
Till they heard the creak of the Stralsund's boom and the clank of her mooring-chain.
They laid them down by bitt and boat, their pistols in their belts,
And: "Will you fight for it, Reuben Paine, or will you share the pelts?"
And they raised the Baltic out of the mist, and an angry ship was she:
And blind they groped through the whirling white, and blind to the bay again,
Till they heard the creak of the Stralsund's boom and the clank of her mooring-chain.
They laid them down by bitt and boat, their pistols in their belts,
And: "Will you fight for it, Reuben Paine, or will you share the pelts?"
A dog-toothed laugh laughed Reuben Paine, and bared his flenching knife.
"Yea, skin for skin, and all that he hath a man will give for his life;
But I've six thousand skins below, and Yeddo Port to see,
And there's never a law of God or man runs north of Fifty-Three.
So go in peace to the naked seas with empty holds to fill,
And I'll be good to your seal this catch, as many as I shall kill."
"Yea, skin for skin, and all that he hath a man will give for his life;
But I've six thousand skins below, and Yeddo Port to see,
And there's never a law of God or man runs north of Fifty-Three.
So go in peace to the naked seas with empty holds to fill,
And I'll be good to your seal this catch, as many as I shall kill."
Answered the snap of a closing lock and the jar of a gun-butt slid,
But the tender fog shut fold on fold to hide the wrong they did.
The weeping fog rolled fold on fold the wrath of man to cloak,
And the flame-spurts pale ran down the rail as the sealing-rifles spoke.
The bullets bit on bend and butt, the splinter slivered free,
(Little they trust to sparrow-dust that stop the seal in his sea!)
The thick smoke hung and would not shift, leaden it lay and blue,
But three were down on the Baltic's deck and two of the Stralsund's crew.
An arm's length out and overside the banked fog held them bound;
But, as they heard or groan or word, they fired at the sound.
For one cried out on the name of God, and one to have him cease;
And the questing volley found
But the tender fog shut fold on fold to hide the wrong they did.
The weeping fog rolled fold on fold the wrath of man to cloak,
And the flame-spurts pale ran down the rail as the sealing-rifles spoke.
The bullets bit on bend and butt, the splinter slivered free,
(Little they trust to sparrow-dust that stop the seal in his sea!)
The thick smoke hung and would not shift, leaden it lay and blue,
But three were down on the Baltic's deck and two of the Stralsund's crew.
An arm's length out and overside the banked fog held them bound;
But, as they heard or groan or word, they fired at the sound.
For one cried out on the name of God, and one to have him cease;
And the questing volley found
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