The Sack of the Gods
STRANGERS drawn from the ends of the earth, jewelled and plumed were we;
I was Lord of the Inca race, and she was Queen of the Sea.
Under the stars beyond our stars where the new-forged meteors glow,
Hotly we stormed Valhalla, a million years ago!
Ever ’neath high Valhalla Hall the well-tuned horns begin,
When the swords are out in the underworld, and the weary Gods come in.
Ever through high Valhalla Gate the Patient Angel goes
He opens the eyes that are blind with hate—he joins the hands of foes.
Dust of the stars was under our feet, glitter of stars above—
Wrecks of our wrath dropped reeling down as we fought and we spurned and we strove.
Worlds upon worlds we tossed aside, and scattered them to and fro,
The night that we stormed Valhalla, a million years ago!
They are forgiven as they forgive all those dark wounds and deep,
Their beds are made on the Lap of Time and they lie down and sleep.
They are forgiven as they forgive all those old wounds that bleed.
They shut their eyes from their worshippers; they sleep till the world has need.
She with the star I had marked for my own—I with my set desire—
Lost in the loom of the Night of Nights—lighted by worlds afire—
Met in a war against the Gods where the headlong meteors glow,
Hewing our way to Valhalla, a million years ago!
They will come back—come back again, as long as the red Earth rolls.
He never wasted a leaf or a tree. Do you think He would squander souls ?
Beautiful. I have personal hope that not only are souls recycled, but that we return as our own pets in a time-irrelevant karmic circle.
Can’t beat Kipling…
Do I correctly recall that this poem has an SF/Filk setting? Somehow, I’m sure I heard it sung at Midwestern filks in the 80s.
I don’t know about this one, but I heard a modern classical composer’s setting of the Roman Centurion’s Song on the radio this morning!
Yes, it does. It’s beautiful, and employs a sets of flats and sharp chords to challenge the typical filk player. I can do it, just barely.
I’m so glad to see this poem. Not sure if I’ve read it before. I’ll look about the Roman Centurion’s Song; is that the title, and is it by Kipling or some other?
Kipling’s Kim has been one of my favorite books since I read it as a boy. I think I’m overdue for a re-read.
Hmm…reincarnation or no, I wouldn’t mind getting to see old friends again, who’ve gone on to that next-door otherworld. …more Things in Heaven and Earth, dear Horatio, than are dreamt of in your Philosophy.
Yes it’s the title – both of Kipling’s poem, and also of the the song/composition. I had a quick look for it online earlier, but couldn’t readily dig it out. If it help it was on either BBC radio 3, or Classic FM, the morning of the 4th, UK time!
Thank you, David. I looked at Wiki and Google, and found a link to the poem online:
http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_romancenturion.htm
And thereby, found the site for Kipling’s works. Very nice!
I’ll rummage through where I’d gotten an ebook claiming to be the complete collected works of Rudyard Kipling, to locate that and a couple of other poems. It looks like it’s a pity he didn’t get a lot of mention in my lit classes. It seems he wrote a massive number of poems, in addition to the fiction and non-fiction he was famous for. I found a reference in the Wiki bio, which I only skimmed, to two science fiction short stories, with a reviewer’s claim they were written as hard SF. That should be interesting, if I ever get around to it.
I read the two poems aloud for my grandmother, who was duly impressed.
I think Rosemary Sutcliff must have known The Roman Centurion. She practically quoted it -“a marsh to drain, a road to make” — in one of her books, I can’t call to mind which one.
And then there’s “The Conundrum of the Workshops” — http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_conundrum.htm — that delighted me when I first discovered it, years and years after I had loved _Kim_ and “Kotick, the White Seal” (and hated “If”)
When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden’s green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, “It’s pretty, but is it Art ?”
That last couplet is dead on target.
I adore Kipling’s Just So Stories. My favorites are the one about the rhinoceros. (Them that takes cakes
Which the Parsee-man bakes Makes dreadful mistakes.) http://boop.org/jan/justso/rhino.htm
The Elephant’s Child (I once had a recording of Jack Nicholson reading this one but it seems to have gotten away from me.) http://boop.org/jan/justso/elephant.htm
and The Cat Who Walks By Himself.
http://boop.org/jan/justso/cat.htm
As for his other works, I’ve read some of them, but it’s the old conundrum of “so many books, so little time.”
“Old Man Dingo, Yellow-Dog Dingo, grinning like a coal-scuttle…”
“O most Wise and Sagacious Cetacean, have you ever tasted Man?”
“I have many little thorns under my tongue to prick their hides.”
“O rash and inexperienced young traveler, we must now seriously devote ourselves to a little high tension, or else it is my opinion that yonder self-propelled man-o-war with the armor-plated upper deck (and by this, O Best Beloved, he meant the Crocodile), will permanently vitiate your future career.”
“Bother my white teeth!”
“I come, most infamous Bandar-Log!”
Kipling did have a turn of phrase.
😀
Kipling goes on my list of things/ people to explore during the Time of the Dark of Winter.
@AbigailM……truer words were never spoke! Love it! 😀
There’s a more readable collection of Kipling’s works at
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/
There are 3 good Roman stories in “Puck of Pook’s Hill”: A Centurion of the Thirtieth, On the Great Wall, and The Winged Hats – along with their accompanying poems.
Puck of Pook’s Hill and its sequel Rewards and Fairies are highly recommended!
The Runes on Weland’s Sword
A Smith makes me
To betray my Man
In my first fight.
To gather Gold
At the world’s end
I am sent.
The Gold I gather
Comes into England
Out of deep Water.
Like a shining Fish
Then it descends
Into deep Water.
It is not given
For goods or gear.
But for The Thing
The Gold I gather
A King covets
For an ill use.
The Gold I gather
Is drawn up
Out of deep Water.
Like a shining Fish
Then it descends
Into deep Water.
It is not given
For goods or gear
But for The Thing.
Leslie Fish set many of these to music, with the permission of the Kipling estate or national trust or whosever permission you have to get—and the music to The Runes on Weyland’s Sword is particularly haunting.
One of my favorites to play is Song of the Red War-boat.
Why was Kipling not taught in schools? Because he’s one of Ours. And until lately they never taught the Good Stuff. Kipling and Conan Doyle were the perfect expression of the spirit from which all English-language science fiction and fantasy of the 20th century came.
I love Gunga Din and consider Hadramauti one of the best lessons in alien contact there is.
Another one Leslie set to beautiful music is
Bridge-guard in the Karoo.
1901
“. . . and will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge.”
District Orders-Lines of Communication, South African War.
Sudden the desert changes,
The raw glare softens and clings,
Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges
Stand up like the thrones of Kings —
Ramparts of slaughter and peril —
Blazing, amazing, aglow —
‘Twixt the sky-line’s belting beryl
And the wine-dark flats below.
Royal the pageant closes,
Lit by the last of the sun —
Opal and ash-of-roses,
Cinnamon, umber, and dun.
The twilight swallows the thicket,
The starlight reveals the ridge.
The whistle shrills to the picket —
We are changing guard on the bridge.
(Few, forgotten and lonely,
Where the empty metals shine —
No, not combatants-only
Details guarding the line.)
We slip through the broken panel
Of fence by the ganger’s shed;
We drop to the waterless channel
And the lean track overhead;
We stumble on refuse of rations,
The beef and the biscuit-tins;
We take our appointed stations,
And the endless night begins.
We hear the Hottentot herders
As the sheep click past to the fold —
And the click of the restless girders
As the steel contracts in the cold —
Voices of jackals calling
And, loud in the hush between,
A morsel of dry earth falling
From the flanks of the scarred ravine.
And the solemn firmament marches,
And the hosts of heaven rise
Framed through the iron arches —
Banded and barred by the ties,
Till we feel the far track humming,
And we see her headlight plain,
And we gather and wait her coming —
The wonderful north-bound train.
(Few, forgotten and lonely,
Where the white car-windows shine —
No, not combatants-only
Details guarding the line.)
Quick, ere the gift escape us!
Out of the darkness we reach
For a handful of week-old papers
And a mouthful of human speech.
And the monstrous heaven rejoices,
And the earth allows again,
Meetings, greetings, and voices
Of women talking with men.
So we return to our places,
As out on the bridge she rolls;
And the darkness covers our faces,
And the darkness re-enters our souls.
More than a little lonely
Where the lessening tail-lights shine.
No – not combatants – only
Details guarding the line!
There are some downloadable mp3s on Leslie Fish’s website, including ‘Runes’, ‘The Roman Centurion’s Song’, and the wonderful ‘Cold Iron’.
http://lesliefish.com/mp3.htm
Another reason that Kipling is not taught in schools is that Kipling is seriously non-PC. That is an bigger sin to many literati even that being “one of Ours.”
Speaking of “one of ours”, anyone who has not read “With the Night Mail” (a short story, not a novel) should immediately go and look it up. There is at least one free ebook floating around, and you can probably find it in several different Kipling collections.
Hey, something new to listen to, thanks!
…And this thread has done me more good in just a few minutes than I’ve had in a while. I clearly am not around folks with a science fictional or literary bent often enough lately.
I promise to read more Kipling, poetry included. (Prolific man, he.) (I think I’ll try reading The Cat Who Walked By Himself to the grandmother-unit. I am sure it’s been years, if ever, since she’s heard it.)
Oh Kipling … a great man of words … but his politicks became rather nasty during the Boer War … and he was consigned to a deeply unfashionable place in English literature. he can be mannered, but I love his work. ever read his autobiography? he had a terrible time as a child sent back to England from India to be brought up in England by some wicked people that his parents obviously trusted until the damage was done. Stalky and co, anyone? marvellous schoolboy mystique. 😀
One thing you can say about Kipling—he actually saw the things he wrote about, and he had opinions. The politics expressed in The White Man’s Burden are interesting—because powers waited in the wings that would exploit what amounted to near First Contact situations into some really nasty business we have seen all too much of in the 20th century. While there were vile abuses in the colonial approach—there have been truly vile ones perpetrated by people with political motives far afield from the interests of the tribal peoples, who have gone into tribal areas, fanned tribal hatreds in the service of this and that cause, and then tossed modern military armament into the mess thus created. Free? In no wise is anyone in the question free, when an area tears itself apart in tribal warfare given the most terrible personal armament we have invented—a conflict in which only the bloodiest and most ruthless can win power. And we look on from the sidelines, saying it’s not in our interests to intervene.
In sixth grade, we were required to memorize Kipling’s poem “If”.
40 years on, I think about the opening lines EVERY DAY, at work usually.
“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;”
When I learned this as an idealistic pre-teen, I thought it
was presenting a harsh view of the world. Now, in my cynical and
bitter middle age (LOL), I think it’s right.
I wish I could say I still know all the poem from memory, but
I don’t. I just remember parts of it here and there, so I
look it up occasionally to refresh my memory.