Songs from Books

by Rudyard Kipling

INDEX TO FIRST LINES

PAGE
About the time that taverns shut, 279
A farmer of the Augustan Age, 89
After the sack of the City, when Rome was sunk to a name, 256
All day long to the judgment-seat, 86
All the world over, nursing their scars, 138
Alone upon the housetops to the North, 234
And if ye doubt the tale I tell, 136
'And some are sulky, while some will plunge', 32
And they were stronger hands than mine, 235
As Adam lay a-dreaming beneath the Apple Tree, 301
As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur belled, 294
A stone's throw out on either hand, 34
At the hole where he went in, 249

Beat off in our last fight were we?, 79
Because I sought it far from men, 80
Bees! Bees! Hark to your bees!, 172
Before my spring I garnered autumn's gain, 135
Between the waving tufts of jungle-grass, 133
By the Hoof of the Wild Goat uptossed, 217

China-going P. and O.'s, 189
Cities and Thrones and Powers, vii
Cry 'Murder' in the market-place, and each, 31

Dark children of the mere and marsh, 133

Eddi, priest of St. Wilfrid, 45
Ere Mor the Peacock flutters, ere the Monkey People cry, 204
Excellent herbs had our fathers of old, 127
Eyes aloft, over dangerous places, 228

For a season there must be pain, 200
For our white and our excellent nights—for the nights
of swift running, 248
For the sake of him who showed, 56
From the wheel and the drift of Things, 202

'Gold is for the mistress—silver for the maid', 36
Go, stalk the red deer o'er the heather, 31

Harry, our King in England, from London town is gone, 272
He drank strong waters and his speech was coarse, 35
Here come I to my own again, 151
Here we go in a flung festoon, 92
His spots are the joy of the Leopard: his horns are the
Buffalo's pride, 245
'How far is St. Helena from a little child at play?', 66

I am the land of their fathers, 1
I am the Most Wise Baviaan, saying in most wise tones, 184
I closed and drew for my love's sake, 17
'If I have taken the common clay', 84
If I were hanged on the highest hill, 237
I followed my Duke ere I was a lover, 19
If Thought can reach to Heaven, 170
If you can keep your head when all about you, 149
If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet, 269
I have been given my charge to keep, 50
I keep six honest serving-men, 185
I know not in Whose hands are laid, 154
I met my mates in the morning (and oh, but I am old!), 161
I'm just in love with all these three, 8
In the daytime, when she moved about me, 34
'I see the grass shake in the sun for leagues on either
hand', 28
I tell this tale, which is strictly true, 266
It was not in the open fight, 33
I've never sailed the Amazon, 188
I was very well pleased with what I knowed, 10
I will let loose against you the fleet-footed vines, 241
I will remember what I was, I am sick of rope and chain, 251

Jubal sang of the Wrath of God, 112

Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee, 143
'Less you want your toes trod off you'd better get back
at once', 138
'Let us now praise famous men', 116
Life's all getting and giving, 215
Look, you have cast out Love! What Gods are these, 30

Man goes to Man! Cry the challenge through the Jungle!, 249
Mithras, God of the Morning, our trumpets waken the Wall!, 52
Much I owe to the Land that grew, 159
My Brother kneels, so saith Kabir, 303
My father's father saw it not, 96
My new-cut ashlar takes the light, 43

Neither the harps nor the crowns amused, nor the cherubs' dove-winged races, 174 Not though you die to-night, O Sweet, and wail, 32 Not with an outcry to Allah nor any complaining, 71 Now Chil the Kite brings home the night, 245 Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan brown, 79 Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky, 120 Now we are come to our Kingdom, 15

Of all the trees that grow so fair, 21
Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us, 250
Oh, light was the world that he weighed in his hands!, 39
Oh, little did the Wolf-Child care, 243
Old Horn to All Atlantic said, 285

'Old Mother Laidinwool had nigh twelve months been dead', 179
Once a ripple came to land, 226
Once we feared The Beast—when he followed us we ran, 296
One man in a thousand, Solomon says, 62
One moment past our bodies cast, 223
Our Fathers in a wondrous age, 130
Our gloves are stiff with the frozen blood, 292
Our Lord Who did the Ox command, 41
Our sister sayeth such and such, 232
Over the edge of the purple down, 198

Pit where the buffalo cooled his hide, 35
Prophets have honour all over the Earth, 111
Pussy can sit by the fire and sing, 190

Queen Bess was Harry's daughter. Stand forward partners
all!, 193

Ride with an idle whip, ride with an unused heel, 33
Rome never looks where she treads, 98
Roses red and roses white, 225

See you the ferny ride that steals, 3
She dropped the bar, she shot the bolt, she fed the fire
anew, 238
Shiv, who poured the harvest and made the winds to blow, 48
Shove off from the wharf-edge! Steady!, 219
Singer and tailor am I, 299
So we settled it all when the storm was done, 83
'Stopped in the straight when the race was his own!', 31
Strangers drawn from the ends of the earth, jewelled and
plumed were we, 12

Take of English earth as much, 26
Tell it to the locked-up trees, 24
The beasts are very wise, 143
The Camel's hump is an ugly lump, 182
The Celt in all his variants from Builth to Ballyhoo, 73
The doors were wide, the story saith, 135
The gull shall whistle in his wake, the blind wave break
in fire, 114
The lark will make her hymn to God, 84
The Law whereby my lady moves, 230
The night we felt the earth would move, 253
The People of the Eastern Ice, they are melting like the
snow, 252
There are three degrees of bliss, 156
There is pleasure in the wet, wet clay, 81
There is sorrow enough in the natural way, 168
There runs a road by Merrow Down, 176
There's a convict more in the Central Jail, 137
There's no wind along these seas, 290
There was a strife 'twixt man and maid, 81
There was never a Queen like Balkis, 191
There were three friends that buried the fourth, 85
These are the Four that are never content, that have
never been filled since the Dews began, 248
These were my companions going forth by night, 69
The Stranger within my gate, 100
The stream is shrunk—the pool is dry, 246
The torn boughs trailing o'er the tusks aslant, 133
The Weald is good, the Downs are best, 9
The wind took off with the sunset, 254
The wolf-cub at even lay hid in the corn, 84
The World hath set its heavy yoke, 32
They burnt a corpse upon the sand, 33
They killed a child to please the Gods, 132
They shut the road through the woods, 6
This I saw when the rites were done, 79
This is the mouth-filling song of the race that was run
by a Boomer, 186
Three things make earth unquiet, 124
Thrones, Powers, Dominions, Peoples, Kings, 94
To-night, God knows what thing shall tide, 34
To the Heavens above us, 164

Unto whose use the pregnant suns are poised, 136

Valour and Innocence, 196
Veil them, cover them, wall them round, 247

We be the Gods of the East, 82
We lent to Alexander the strength of Hercules, 145
We meet in an evil land, 78
What is a woman that you forsake her, 60
What is the moral? Who rides may read, 64
What of the hunting, hunter bold?, 247
'What's that that hirples at my side?', 283
When a lover hies abroad, 81
When first by Eden Tree, 140
When I left home for Lalage's sake, 102
When the cabin port-holes are dark and green, 182
When the drums begin to beat, 288
When the Earth was sick and the Skies were grey, 30
When the Great Ark, in Vigo Bay, 109
When the robust and Brass-bound Man commissioned first
for sea, 263
When the water's countenance, 277
When ye say to Tabaqui, 'My Brother!' when ye call the
Hyena to meat, 252
Where's the lamp that Hero lit 157
Who gives him the Bath? 54
Who knows the heart of the Christian? How does he reason? 75

Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him 85
You mustn't swim till you're six weeks old 250
Your jar of Virginny 105
Your tiercel's too long at hack, Sir. He's no eyass 206