Peace in thy utmost borders, and strength on a

road untrod?

These are dealt or diminished at the secret will of God.

"I have swayed troublous councils, I am wise. in terrible things;

Father and son and grandson, I have known the heart of the Kings.

Shall I give thee my sleepless wisdom, or the gift all wisdom above?

Ay, we be women together-I give thee thy people's love:

"Tempered, august, abiding, reluctant of prayers or vows,

Eager in face of peril as thine for thy mother's house.

God requite thee, my Sister, through the wonderful years to be,

And make thy people to love thee as thou hast loved me!"

RIMMON

DULY with knees that feign to quake-
Bent head and shaded brow,-

Yet once again, for my father's sake,
In Rimmon's House I bow.

The curtains part, and the trumpet blares,
And the eunuchs howl aloud;

And the gilt, swag-bellied idol glares

Insolent over the crowd.

"This is Rimmon, Lord of the Earth"Fear Him and bow the knee!"

And I watch my comrades hide their mirth That rode to the wars with me.

For we remember the sun and the sand

And the rocks whereon we trod,

Ere we came to a scorched and a scornful land That did not know our God;

As we remember the sacrifice

Dead men an hundred laid

Slain while they served His mysteries
And that He would not aid.

Not though we gashed ourselves and wept,
For the high-priest bade us wait;
Saying He went on a journey or slept,
Or was drunk or had taken a mate.

(Praise ye Rimmon, King of Kings,
Who ruleth Earth and Sky!

And again I bow as the censer swings
And the God Enthroned goes by.)

Ay, we remember His sacred ark

And the virtuous men that knelt

To the dark and the hush behind the dark Wherein we dreamed He dwelt;

Until we entered to hale Him out,
And found no more than an old
Uncleanly image girded about

The loins with scarlet and gold.

Him we o'erset with the butts of our spears

Him and his vast designs

To be the scorn of our muleteers

And the jest of our halted lines.

By the picket-pins that the dogs defile,
In the dung and the dust He lay,
Till the priests ran and chattered awhile
And wiped Him and took Him away.

Hushing the matter before it was known,
They returned to our fathers afar,
And hastily set Him afresh on His throne
Because He had won us the war.

Wherefore with knees that feign to quake-
Bent head and shaded brow-

To this dead dog, for my father's sake,
In Rimmon's House I bow.

THE OLD ISSUE

OCTOBER 9TH, 1899

"Here is nothing new nor aught unproven," say the Trumpets,

"Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed.

"It is the King-the King we schooled aforetime!"

(Trumpets in the marshes-in the eyot at Runnymede !)

"Here is neither haste, nor hate, nor anger," peal the Trumpets,

"Pardon for his penitence or pity for his fall. "It is the King !"-inexorable Trumpets(Trumpets round the scaffold at the dawning by Whitehall!)

Copyright, 1899, by Rudyard Kipling, under title “The King”