The Years Between (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

By Rudyard Kipling

This 1919 collection of verse, written in the years between the Boer War and World War I, includes one of the author’s most famous poems, “The Female of the Species,” as well as “‘For All We Have and Are,’” “The Choice,” “France,” “‘The City of Brass,’” “The Declaration of London,” “Zion,” and more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Sep 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781411461314

Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was an English author and poet who began writing in India and shortly found his work celebrated in England. An extravagantly popular, but critically polarizing, figure even in his own lifetime, the author wrote several books for adults and children that have become classics, Kim, The Jungle Book, Just So Stories, Captains Courageous and others. Although taken to task by some critics for his frequently imperialistic stance, the author’s best work rises above his era’s politics. Kipling refused offers of both knighthood and the position of Poet Laureate, but was the first English author to receive the Nobel prize.

Book preview

THE YEARS BETWEEN

RUDYARD KIPLING

This 2011 edition published by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

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ISBN: 978-1-4114-6131-4

CONTENTS

BENEFACTORS, THE

CHOICE, THE

'CITY OF BRASS, THE'

COVENANT, THE

CRAFTSMAN, THE

DEAD KING, THE

DEATH-BED, A

DECLARATION OF LONDON, THE

EN-DOR

EPITAPHS

FEMALE OF THE SPECIES, THE

'FOR ALL WE HAVE AND ARE'

FRANCE

GEHAZI

GETHSEMANE

HOLY WAR, THE

HOUSES, THE

HYÆNAS, THE

JUSTICE

IRISH GUARDS, THE

LORD ROBERTS

MARY'S SON

MESOPOTAMIA

MY BOY JACK

NATIVITY, A

NATURAL THEOLOGY

OLDEST SONG, THE

OUTLAWS, THE

PILGRIM'S WAY, A

PRO-CONSULS, THE

QUESTION, THE

RECANTATION, A

ROWERS, THE

RUSSIA TO THE PACIFISTS

SONG AT COCK-CROW, A

SONG IN STORM, A

SONG OF THE LATHES, THE

SONS OF MARTHA, THE

SPIES' MARCH, THE

THINGS AND THE MAN

ULSTER

VERDICTS, THE

VETERANS, THE

VIRGINITY, THE

ZION

INDEX TO FIRST LINES

Across a world where all men grieve

A. 'I was a have.' B. 'I was a have-not,'

After the burial-parties leave

Ah! What avails the classic bent

A tinker out of Bedford

Be well assured that on our side

Brethren, how shall it fare with me

Broke to every known mischance, lifted over all

For all we have and are

God rest you, peaceful gentlemen, let nothing you dismay

'Have you news of my boy Jack?'

He passed in the very battle-smoke

I ate my fill of a whale that died

I do not look for holy saints to guide me on my way

If you stop to find out what your wages will be

In a land that the sand overlays—the ways to her gates are untrod

Not in the thick of the fight

Oh ye who hold the written clue

Once, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid

The Babe was laid in the Manger

The banked oars fell an hundred strong

The dark eleventh hour

The Doorkeepers of Zion

The fans and the beltings they roar round me

The first time that Peter denied his Lord

The Garden called Gethsemane

The overfaithful sword returns the user

There are no leaders to lead us to honour, and yet without leaders we sally

The road to En-dor is easy to tread

These were never your true love's eyes

The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part

They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young

'This is the State above the Law

Today, across our fathers' graves

To the Judge of Right and Wrong

Through learned and laborious years

Try as he will, no man breaks wholly loose

'Twixt my house and thy house the pathway is broad

We're not so old in the Army List

We thought we ranked above the chance of ill

We were all one heart and one race

What boots it on the Gods to call?

'Whence comest thou, Gehazi

When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride

Who in the Realm today lays down dear life for the sake of a land more dear?

THE ROWERS

1902

(When Germany proposed that England should help her in a naval demonstration to collect debts from Venezuela.)

THE banked oars fell an hundred strong,

And backed and threshed and ground,

But bitter was the rowers' song

As they brought the war-boat round.

They had no heart for the rally and roar

That makes the whale-bath smoke—

When the great blades cleave and hold and leave

As one on the racing stroke.

They sang:—'What reckoning do you keep,

And steer her by what star,

If we come unscathed from the Southern deep

To be wrecked on a Baltic bar?

'Last night you swore our voyage was done,

But seaward still we go,

And you tell us now of a secret vow

You have made with an open foe!

'That we must lie off a lightless coast

And haul and back and veer,

At the will of the breed that have wronged us most

For a year