Rudyard Kipling



              Before A Midnight Breaks In Storm...


                   Before a midnight breaks in storm,
                     Or herded sea in wrath,         
                   Ye know what wavering gusts inform 
                     The greater tempest's path;
                       Till the loosed wind
                       Drive all from mind,
                   Except Distress, which, so will prophets cry,    
                   O'ercame them, houseless, from the unhinting sky.
                                                     
                   Ere rivers league against the land              
                     In piratry of flood,                                 
                   Ye know what waters steal and stand
                     Where seldom water stood.                  
                       Yet who will note,                        
                       Till fields afloat,                              
                   And washen carcass and the returning well,
                   Trumpet what these poor heralds strove to tell? 
                                                                   
                   Ye know who use the Crystal Ball                
                     (To peer by stealth on Doom),          
                   The Shade that, shaping first of all,        
                     Prepares an empty room.                
                       Then doth It pass                     
                       Like breath from glass,
                   But, on the extorted Vision bowed intent, 
                   No man considers why It came or went.
                                                       
                   Before the years reborn behold            
                     Themselves with stranger eye,   
                   And the sport-making Gods of old,
                     Like Samson slaying, die,                         
                       Many shall hear                 
                       The all-pregnant sphere,                        
                   Bow to the birth and sweat, but — speech denied — 
                   Sit dumb or — dealt in part — fall weak and wide.     
                                                                        
                   Yet instant to fore-shadowed need
                     The eternal balance swings;
                   That winged men, the Fates may breed
                     So soon as Fate hath wings.
                       These shall possess
                       Our littleness,
                   And in the imperial task (as worthy) lay
                   Up our lives' all to piece one giant Day.

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