Collected verse of Rudyard Kipling Author:Rudyard Kipling Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: (Out with great mirth that do desire Hazard of trackless ways, In with content to wait their watch And warm before the blaze) ; And some return by fail... more »ing light, And some in waking dream, For she hears the heels of the dripping ghosts That ride the rough roof-beam. Home, they come home from all the ports, The living and the dead; The good wife's sons come home again For her blessing on their head! THE BROKEN MEN 1902 F OR things we never mention, For Art misunderstood — For excellent intention That did not turn to good; From ancient tales' renewing, From clouds we would not clear - Beyond the Law's pursuing We fled, and settled here. We took no tearful leaving, We bade no long good-byes; Men talked of crime and thieving, Men wrote of fraud and lies. To save our injured feelings 'T was time and time to go — Behind was dock and Dartmoor, Ahead lay Callao! The widow and the orphan That pray for ten per cent, They clapped their trailers on us To spy the road we went. They watched the foreign sailings (They scan the shipping still), And that's your Christian people Returning good for ill! God bless the thoughtful islands Where never warrants come; God bless the just Republics That give a man a home, That ask no foolish questions, But set him on his feet; And save his wife and daughters From the workhouse and the street! On church and square and market The noonday silence falls; You 'll hear the drowsy mutter Of the fountain in our halls. Asleep amid the yuccas The city takes her ease — Till twilight brings the land-wind To the clicking jalousies. Day long the diamond weather, The high, unaltered blue — The smell of goats and incense And the mule-bells tinkling ...« less