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Home  »  Rudyard Kipling’s Verse  »  To the True Romance

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

To the True Romance

1893

THY face is far from this our war,

Our call and counter-cry,

I shall not find Thee quick and kind,

Nor know Thee till I die.

Enough for me in dreams to see

And touch Thy garments’ hem:

Thy feet have trod so near to God

I may not follow them!

Through wantonness if men profess

They weary of Thy parts,

E’en let them die at blasphemy

And perish with their arts;

But we that love, but we that prove

Thine excellence august,

While we adore, discover more

Thee perfect, wise, and just.

Since spoken word Man’s Spirit stirred

Beyond his belly-need,

What is is Thine of fair design

In Thought and Craft and Deed.

Each stroke aright of toil and fight,

That was and that shall be,

And hope too high wherefore we die,

Has birth and worth in Thee.

Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee

To gild his dross thereby,

And knowledge sure that he endure

A child until he die—

For to make plain that man’s disdain

Is but new Beauty’s birth—

For to possess in singleness

The joy of all the earth.

As Thou didst teach all lovers speech

And Life all mystery,

So shalt Thou rule by every school

Till life and longing die,

Who wast or yet the Lights were set,

A whisper in the Void,

Who shalt be sung through planets young

When this is clean destroyed.

Beyond the bounds our staring rounds,

Across the pressing dark,

The children wise of outer skies

Look hitherward and mark

A light that shifts, a glare that drifts,

Rekindling thus and thus,

Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borne

Strange tales to them of us.

Time hath no tide but must abide

The servant of Thy will;

Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme

The ranging stars stand still—

Regent of spheres that lock our fears

Our hopes invisible,

Oh ’t was certes at Thy decrees

We fashioned Heaven and Hell!

Pure Wisdom hath no certain path

That lacks thy morning-eyne,

And Captains bold by Thee controlled

Most like to Gods design.

Thou art the Voice to kingly boys

To lift them through the fight,

And Comfortress of Unsuccess,

To give the Dead good-night.

A veil to draw ’twixt God His Law

And Man’s infirmity,

A shadow kind to dumb and blind

The shambles where we die;

A rule to trick th’ arithmetic,

Too base, of leaguing odds—

The spur of trust, the curb of lust,

Thou handmaid of the Gods!

O Charity, all patiently

Abiding wrack and scaith!

O Faith, that meets ten thousand cheats

Yet drops no jot of faith!

Devil and brute Thou dost transmute

To higher, lordlier show,

Who art in sooth that lovely Truth

The careless angels know!

Thy face is far from this our war,

Our call and counter-cry,

I may not find Thee quick and kind,

Nor know Thee till I die.

Yet may I look with heart unshook

On blow brought home or missed

Yet may I hear with equal ear

The clarions down the List;

Yet set my lance above mischance

And ride the barriere

Oh, hit or miss, how little ’t is,

My Lady is not there!