or expressing his fierce hatred for any condition or place where—
"…a curse was or a chain A throne for torment or a crown for bane Rose, moulded out of poor men's molten pain,"
or singing the song of a lover—
"If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather,
Blown fields or flowerful closes,
Green pleasure or grey grief;
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf;"
or voicing his early creed—
"That no life lives forever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea,"
or chanting in far nobler strains the Anglo-Saxon belief in the molding power of an infinite presence—
"I am in thee to save thee,
As my soul in thee saith,
Give thou as I gave thee,
Thy life-blood and breath,
Green leaves of thy labor, white flowers of thy thought, and red
fruit of thy death."
RUDYARD KIPLING, 1865-
[Illustration: RUDYARD KIPLING. From the painting by John
Collier.]