Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

A Translation

THERE are whose study is of smells,

And to attentive schools rehearse

How something mixed with something else

Makes something worse.

Some cultivate in broths impure

The clients of our body—these,

Increasing without Venus, cure,

Or cause, disease.

Others the heated wheel extol,

And all its offspring, whose concern

Is how to make it farthest roll

And fastest turn.

Me, much incurious if the hour

Present, or to be paid for, brings

Me to Brundusium by the power

Of wheels or wings;

Me, in whose breast no flame hath burned

Life-long, save that by Pindar lit,

Such lore leaves cold. I am not turned

Aside to it

More than when, sunk in thought profound

Of what the unaltering Gods require,

My steward (friend but slave) brings round

Logs for my fire.