A Lover's Journey

When a lover hies abroad
Looking for his love,
Azrael smiling sheathes his sword,
Heaven smiles above.
Earth and sea
His servants be,
And to lesser compass round,
That his love be sooner found!

Rudyard Kipling

Butterflies

Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,

The children follow the butterflies,

And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,

Slash with a net at the empty skies.

So it goes they fall amid brambles,

And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,

Till, after a thousand scratches and scrambles,

They wipe their brows and the hunting stops.

Then to quiet them comes their father

And stills the riot of pain and grief,

Saying, "Little ones, go and gather

Out of my garden a cabbage-leaf.

"You will find on it whorls and clots of

Dull grey eggs that, properly fed,

Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of

Glorious butterflies raised from the dead."...

"Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly,"

The three-dimensioned preacher saith;

So we must not look where the snail and the slug lie

For Psyche's birth.... And that is our death!

Evil Land

We meet in an evil land

That is near to the gates of hell.

I wait for thy command

To serve, to speed or withstand.

And thou sayest, I do not well?

Oh Love, the flowers so red

Are only tongues of flame,

The earth is full of the dead,

The new-killed, restless dead.

There is danger beneath and o'erhead.

And I guard thy gates in fear

Of words thou canst not hear,

Of peril and jeopardy,

Of signs thou canst not see—

And thou sayest 'tis ill that I came?

My Rival

I go to concert, party, ball --

What profit is in these?

I sit alone against the wall

And strive to look at ease.

The incense that is mine by right

They burn before her shrine;

And that's because I'm seventeen

And She is forty-nine.

I cannot check my girlish blush,

My color comes and goes;

I redden to my finger-tips,

And sometimes to my nose.

But She is white where white should be,

And red where red should shine.

The blush that flies at seventeen

Is fixed at forty-nine.

I wish I had Her constant cheek;

I wish that I could sing

All sorts of funny little songs,

Not quite the proper thing.

I'm very gauche and very shy,

Her jokes aren't in my line;

And, worst of all, I'm seventeen

While She is forty-nine.

The young men come, the young men go

Each pink and white and neat,

She's older than their mothers, but

They grovel at Her feet.

They walk beside Her 'rickshaw wheels --

None ever walk by mine;

And that's because I'm seventeen

And She is foty-nine.

She rides with half a dozen men,

(She calls them "boys" and "mashers")

I trot along the Mall alone;

My prettiest frocks and sashes

Don't help to fill my programme-card,

And vainly I repine

From ten to two A.M. Ah me!

Would I were forty-nine!

She calls me "darling," "pet," and "dear,"

And "sweet retiring maid."

I'm always at the back, I know,

She puts me in the shade.

She introduces me to men,

"Cast" lovers, I opine,

For sixty takes to seventeen,

Nineteen to foty-nine.

But even She must older grow

And end Her dancing days,

She can't go on forever so

At concerts, balls and plays.

One ray of priceless hope I see

Before my footsteps shine;

Just think, that She'll be eighty-one

When I am forty-nine.

Rudyard Kipling

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