606 RUDYARD KIPLING'S VERSE
Will they gape for the husks that ye proffer
Or yearn to your song? And we have we nothing to offer
Who ruled them so long
In the fume of the incense, the clash of the cymbals, the blare of the conch and the gong ?
Over the strife of the schools
Low the day burns Back with the kine from the pools
Each one returns
To the life that he knows where the altar-flame glows and the tulsi 1 is trimmed in the urns.
THE LIGHT THAT FAILED
CO WE settled it all when the storm was done
As comfy as comfy could be; And I was to wait in the barn, my dears, Because I was only three; And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot Because he was five and a man; And that's how it all began, my dears, And that's how it all began!
" If I have taken the common clay
And wrought it cunningly In the shape of a God that was digged a clod,
The greater honour to me." "If thou hast taken the common clay,
And thy hands be not free From the taint of the soil, thou hast made thy spoil
The greater shame to thee." The Holv Basil.
