Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922.
The Last Department
“N
Of favour.” Wait awhile, till we attain
The Last Department where nor fraud nor fools,
Nor grade nor greed, shall trouble us again.
To the grim Head who claims our services?
I never knew a wife or interest yet
Delay that pukka step, miscalled “decease”;
When idleness of all Eternity
Becomes our furlough, and the marigold
Our thriftless, bullion-minting Treasury
Each in his strait, wood-scantled office pent,
No longer Brown reverses Smith’s appeals,
Or Jones records his Minute of Dissent.
As mud between the beams thereof is wrought;
And One who wrote on phosphates for the crops
Is subject-matter of his own Report.
Let Him who Is, go call on Him who Was;
And He shall see the mallie steals the slab
For currie-grinder, and for goats the grass.
A draught of water, or a horse’s fright—
The droning of the fat Sheristadar
Ceases, the punkah stops, and falls the night
The step that offers, or their work resign?
Trust me, To-day’s Most Indispensables,
Five hundred men can take your place or mine.