Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922.
The Ballad of the Red Earl
R
The silly camel-birds,
That ye bury your head in an Irish thorn,
On a desert of drifting words?
As the Lord o’ Wrong and Right;
But the day is done with the setting sun—
Will ye follow into the night?
For food on the wastrel way;
Will ye rise and eat in the night, Red Earl,
That fed so full in the day?
And where did the wandering lead?
From the day that ye praised the spoken word
To the day ye must gloss the deed.
So must ye give in loss;
And as ye ha’ come to the brink of the pit,
So must ye loup across.
And some be rogues in fact,
And rogues direct and rogues elect;
But all be rogues in pact.
Take heed to where ye stand.
Ye have tied a knot with your tongue, Red Earl,
That ye cannot loose with your hand.
In the grip of a tightening tether,
Till ye find at the end ye must take for friend
The quick and their dead together.
And mouthed it daintilee;
But the gist o’ the speech is ill to teach,
For ye say: “Let wrong go free.”
And gat your place from a King:
Do ye make Rebellion of no account,
And Treason a little thing?
That stand and speak so high?
And is it good that the guilt o’ blood,
Be cleared at the cost of a sigh?
Our tattered Honour to sell,
And higgle anew with a tainted crew—
Red Earl, and is it well?
On a dark and doubtful way,
And the road is hard, is hard, Red Earl,
And the price is yet to pay.
For the toil of your tongue and pen—
In the praise of the blamed and the thanks of the shamed,
And the honour o’ knavish men.
And the worst at the last shall be,
When you tell your heart that it does not know
And your eye that it does not see.