Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

The Necessitarian

I KNOW not in Whose hands are laid

To empty upon earth

From unsuspected ambuscade

The very Urns of Mirth;

Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise

And cheer our solemn round—

The Jest beheld with streaming eyes

And grovellings on the ground;

Who joins the flats of Time and Chance

Behind the prey preferred,

And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance

The Sacredly Absurd,

Till Laughter, voiceless through excess,

Waves mute appeal and sore,

Above the midriff’s deep distress,

For breath to laugh once more.

No creed hath dared to hail Him Lord,

No raptured choirs proclaim,

And Nature’s strenuous Overword

Hath nowhere breathed His Name.

Yet, it must be, on wayside jape,

The selfsame Power bestows

The selfsame power as went to shape

His Planet or His Rose.