Rudyard Kipling

"So I'll meet 'im later on At the place where 'e is gone— Where it's always double drill and no canteen. 'E'll be squattin' on the coals Givin' drink to poor damned souls, An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din! Yes, Din! Din! Din! You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din! Though I've belted you and flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!"

"'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead? She 'as ships on the foam—she 'as millions at 'ome, An' she pays us poor beggars in red."

"When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck, Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck, Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck And march to your front like a soldier. Front, front, front like a soldier..."

"If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white, Remember it's ruin to run from a fight: So take open order, lie down, and sit tight, And wait for supports like a soldier. Wait, wait, wait like a soldier..."

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier. Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, So-oldier of the Queen!"

"Oh the road to Mandalay Where the flyin'-fishes play An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!"

"By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea, There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me; For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say: “Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!”"

"Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst, Where there aren't no Ten Commandments, an' a man can raise a thirst."

"To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned, To my brethren in their sorrow overseas, Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed, And a trooper of the Empress, if you please."

"We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa! We're little black sheep who've gone astray, Baa—aa—aa! Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, Baa! Yah! Bah!"

"We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth, We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung, And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth. God help us, for we knew the worst too young!"

"For to admire an' for to see, For to be'old this world so wide— It never done no good to me, But I can't drop it if I tried!"

"‘There is none like to me!' says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill; But the jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still."

"We be of one blood, ye and I."

"Brother, thy tail hangs down behind! This is the way of the Monkey-kind!"

"It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. The motto of all the mongoose family is “Run and find out,” and Rikki-tikki was a true mongoose."

"If you read the old books of natural history, you will find they say that when the mongoose fights the snake and happens to get bitten, he runs off and eats some herb that cures him. That is not true. The victory is only a matter of quickness of eye and quickness of foot—snake's blow against mongoose's jump—and as no eye can follow the motion of a snake's head when it strikes, this makes things much more wonderful than any magic herb."

"Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack."

"When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither will go from the trail, Lie down till the leaders have spoken—it may be fair words shall prevail."

"Now these are the Laws of the jungle, and many and mighty are they; But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is—Obey!"

"If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!"

"We have fed our sea for a thousand years And she calls us, still unfed, Though there's never a wave of all her waves But marks our English dead."

"They change their skies above them, But not their hearts that roam!"

"The Liner she's a lady, an' she never looks nor 'eeds— The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, an' 'e gives 'er all she needs; But, oh, the little cargo-boats, that sail the wet seas roun', They're just the same as you an' me a-plyin' up an' down!"

"There's a Legion that never was 'listed, That carries no colours or crest, But, split in a thousand detachments, Is breaking the road for the rest."

"But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole shrine he came, And he told me in a vision of the night:— There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, And every single one of them is right!"

"For 'im that doth not work must surely die; But that's no reason man should labour all 'Is life on one same shift—life's none so long."

"It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world, Which you can read and care for just so long, But presently you feel that you will die Unless you get the page you're readin' done, An' turn another—likely not so good; But what you're after is to turn 'em all."

"Back to the Army again, sergeant, Back to the Army again: Out o' the cold an' the rain, sergeant, Out o' the cold an' the rain."

"'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse—soldier an' sailor too."

"I've taken my fun where I've found it; I've rogued an' I've ranged in my time; I've 'ad my pickin' o' sweet'earts, An' four o' the lot was prime. One was an 'arf-caste widow, One was a woman at Prome, One was the wife of a jemadar-sais, An' one is a girl at 'ome."

"When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died, We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—lie down for an aeon or two, Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew!"

"And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame; And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame, But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!"

"Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to exile, To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child. The White Man's Burden, Stanza 1 (1899)."

"Take up the White Man's burden-- In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror, And check the show of pride; By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain To seek another's profit, And work another's gain. The White Man's Burden, Stanza 2 (1899)."

"When you've shouted "Rule Brittania": when you've sung "God Save the Queen," When you've finished killing Kruger with your mouth, Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine For a gentleman in khaki headed South?"

"When the cabin port-holes are dark and green Because of the seas outside; When the ship goes wop (with a wiggle between) And the steward falls into the soup-tureen, And the trunks begin to slide; When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap, And Mummy tells you to let her sleep, And you aren't waked or washed or dressed, Why, then you will know (if you haven't guessed) You're ‘Fifty North and Forty West!'"

"I keep six honest serving-men: (They taught me all I knew) Their names are What and Where and When And How and Why and Who."

"I am the cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me."

"Ye know who use the Crystal Ball ⁠(To peer by stealth on Doom), ⁠The Shade that, shaping first of all, ⁠⁠Prepares an empty room. ⁠⁠⁠Then doth It pass ⁠⁠⁠Like breath from glass, ⁠But, on the extorted vision bowed intent, ⁠No man considers why It came or went."

"Before the years reborn behold ⁠Themselves with stranger eye, ⁠And the sport-making Gods of old, ⁠Like Samson slaying, die, ⁠⁠Many shall hear ⁠⁠The all-pregnant sphere, ⁠Bow to the birth and sweat, but — speech denied — ⁠Sit dumb or — dealt in part — fall weak and wide."

"Yet instant to fore-shadowed need ⁠The eternal balance swings; ⁠That winged men the Fates may breed ⁠So soon as Fate hath wings. ⁠⁠These shall possess ⁠⁠Our littleness, ⁠And in the imperial task (as worthy) lay ⁠Up our lives' all to piece one giant day."

"She has no strong white arms to fold you, But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you— Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you."

"Cities and Thrones and Powers, Stand in Time's eye, Almost as long as flowers, Which daily die: But, as new buds put forth To glad new men, Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth, The Cities rise again."

"Five and twenty ponies Trotting through the dark— Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk. Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie— Watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by!"

"Of all the trees that grow so fair, Old England to adorn, Greater are none beneath the Sun, Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn."

"Take of English earth as much As either hand may rightly clutch. In the taking of it breathe Prayer for all who lie beneath."

"If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied."

"Body and spirit I surrendered whole To harsh instructors—and received a soul... If mortal man could change me through and through From all I was—What may the God not do?"

"This man in his own country prayed we know not to what powers. We pray them to reward him for his bravery in ours."