The Five Nations, Volume I

THE SERVICE EDITION OF THE WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING
THE FIVE NATIONS
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I
METHUEN AND CO., LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
Before a midnight breaks in storm, Or herded sea in wrath, Ye know what wavering gusts inform The greater tempest’s path; Till the loosed wind Drive all from mind, Except Distress, which, so will prophets cry, O’ercame them, houseless, from the unhinting sky.
Ere rivers league against the land In piratry of flood, Ye know what waters slip and stand Where seldom water stood. Yet who will note, Till fields afloat, And washen carcass and the returning well, Trumpet what these poor heralds strove to tell?
Ye know who use the Crystal Ball (To peer by stealth on Doom), The Shade that, shaping first of all, Prepares an empty room. Then doth It pass Like breath from glass, But, on the extorted vision bowed intent, No man considers why It came or went.
Before the years reborn behold Themselves with stranger eye, And the sport-making Gods of old, Like Samson slaying, die, Many shall hear The all-pregnant sphere, Bow to the birth and sweat, but—speech denied— Sit dumb or—dealt in part—fall weak and wide.
Yet instant to fore-shadowed need The eternal balance swings; That wingèd men the Fates may breed So soon as Fate hath wings. These shall possess Our littleness, And in the imperial task (as worthy) lay Up our lives’ all to piece one giant day.
Who hath desired the Sea?—the sight of salt water unbounded— The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded? The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing— Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing— His Sea in no showing the same—his Sea and the same ’neath each showing— His Sea as she slackens or thrills? So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise hillmen desire their Hills!
Who hath desired the Sea?—the immense and contemptuous surges? The shudder, the stumble, the swerve, as the star-stabbing bowsprit emerges? The orderly clouds of the Trades, and the ridged, roaring sapphire thereunder— Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail’s low-volleying thunder— His Sea in no wonder the same—his Sea and the same through each wonder: His Sea as she rages or stills? So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise hillmen desire their Hills.