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Gary Edwards

Poems - The Old Issue : Rudyard Kipling - 1 views

www.kipling.org.uk/poems_oldissue.htm

Rudyard-Kipling

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Nov 13 - No Cached
  • Ancient Right unnoticed as the breath we draw— Leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the Law. Lance and torch and tumult, steel and grey-goose wing Wrenched it, inch and ell and all, slowly from the King. Till our fathers ’stablished, after bloody years, How our King is one with us, first among his peers. So they bought us freedom—not at little cost Wherefore must we watch the King, lest our gain be lost,
  • (Time himself is witness, till the battle joins, Deeper strikes the rottenness in the people’s loins.)
  • Give no heed to bondsmen masking war with peace. Suffer not the old King here or overseas.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • They that beg us barter—wait his yielding mood— Pledge the years we hold in trust—pawn our brother’s blood—
  • He shall mark our goings, question whence we came, Set his guards about us, as in Freedom’s name.
  • He shall peep and mutter; and the night shall bring Watchers ’neath our window, lest we mock the King—
  • Hate and all division; hosts of hurrying spies; Money poured in secret, carrion breeding flies.
  • Step by step, and word by word: who is ruled may read. Suffer not the old Kings: for we know the breed— All the right they promise—all the wrong they bring. Stewards of the Judgment, suffer not this King!
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Nov 13
     
    Ode to the NSA!  Hat tip to Marbux for this awesome digg.  Kipling wrote this at the outbreak of the Boer War.  Like the War on Terror, the circumstance and patriotic fervor of citizens demanding safety and security becomes occasion for the government to seize and stomp liberty. There are some really beautiful lines here.
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