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Home  »  Rudyard Kipling’s Verse  »  The Pro-consuls

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

The Pro-consuls

THE OVERFAITHFUL sword returns the user

His heart’s desire at price of his heart’s blood.

The clamour of the arrogant accuser

Wastes that one hour we needed to make good.

This was foretold of old at our outgoing;

This we accepted who have squandered, knowing,

The strength and glory of our reputations,

At the day’s need, as it were dross, to guard

The tender and new-dedicate foundations

Against the sea we fear—not man’s award.

They that dig foundations deep,

Fit for realms to rise upon,

Little honour do they reap

Of their generation,

Any more than mountains gain

Stature till we reach the plain.

With no veil before their face

Such as shroud or sceptre lend—

Daily in the market-place,

Of one height to foe and friend—

They must cheapen self to find

Ends uncheapened for mankind.

Through the night when hirelings rest,

Sleepless they arise, alone,

The unsleeping arch to test

And the o’er-trusted corner-stone,

’Gainst the need, they know, that lies

Hid behind the centuries.

Not by lust of praise or show

Not by Peace herself betrayed—

Peace herself must they forego

Till that peace be fitly made;

And in single strength uphold

Wearier hands and hearts acold.

On the stage their act hath framed

For thy sports, O Liberty!

Doubted are they, and defamed

By the tongues their act set free,

While they quicken, tend and raise

Power that must their power displace.

Lesser men feign greater goals,

Failing whereof they may sit

Scholarly to judge the souls

That go down into the pit,

And, despite its certain clay,

Heave a new world towards the day.

These at labour make no sign,

More than planets, tides or years

Which discover God’s design,

Not our hopes and not our fears;

Nor in aught they gain or lose

Seek a triumph or excuse.

For, so the Ark be borne to Zion, who

Heeds how they perished or were paid that bore it?

For, so the Shrine abide, what shame—what pride

If we, the priests, were bound or crowned before it?