Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922.

A General Summary

WE are very slightly changed

From the semi-apes who ranged

India’s prehistoric clay;

He that drew the longest bow

Ran his brother down, you know,

As we run men down to-day.

“Dowb,” the first of all his race,

Met the Mammoth face to face

On the lake or in the cave:

Stole the steadiest canoe,

Ate the quarry others slew,

Died—and took the finest grave.

When they scratched the reindeer-bone,

Some one made the sketch his own,

Filched it from the artist—then,

Even in those early days,

Won a simple Viceroy’s praise

Through the toil of other men.

Ere they hewed the Sphinx’s visage

Favouritism governed kissage,

Even as it does in this age.

Who shall doubt “the secret hid

Under Cheops’ pyramid”

Was that the contractor did

Cheops out of several millions?

Or that Joseph’s sudden rise

To Comptroller of Supplies

Was a fraud of monstrous size

On King Pharaoh’s swart Civilians?

Thus, the artless songs I sing

Do not deal with anything

New or never said before.

As it was in the beginning

Is to-day official sinning,

And shall be for evermore!