Poems - The Old Issue : Rudyard Kipling - 1 views
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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,
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(Time himself is witness, till the battle joins, Deeper strikes the rottenness in the people’s loins.)
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Give no heed to bondsmen masking war with peace. Suffer not the old King here or overseas.
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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.