<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=510675" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Recantation</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">1917</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>What boots it on the Gods to call?<br>Since, answered or unheard,<br>We perish with the Gods and all<br>Things made--except the Word.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ere certain Fate had touched a heart<br>By fifty years made cold,<br>I judged thee, Lyde, and thy art<br>O'erblown and over-bold.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But he--but he, of whom bereft<br>I suffer vacant days--<br>He on his shield not meanly left<br>He cherished all thy lays.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Witness the magic coffer stocked<br>With convoluted runes<br>Wherein thy very voice was locked<br>And linked to circling tunes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Witness thy portrait, smoke-defiled,<br>That decked his shelter-place.<br>Life seemed more present, wrote the child,<br>Beneath thy well-known face.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And when the grudging days restored<br>Him for a breath to home,<br>He, with fresh crowds of youth, adored<br>Thee making mirth in Rome.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Therefore, I humble, join the hosts,<br>Loyal and loud, who bow<br>To thee as Queen of Song--and ghosts,<br>For I remember how</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Never more rampant rose the Hall<br>At thy audacious line<br>Than when the news came in from Gaul<br>Thy son had--followed mine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But thou didst hide it in thy breast<br>And, capering, took the brunt<br>Of blaze and blare, and launched the jest<br>That swept next week the front.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Singer to children! Ours possessed<br>Sleep before noon--but thee,<br>Wakeful each midnight for the rest,<br>No holocaust shall free!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet they who use the Word assigned,<br>To hearten and make whole,<br>Not less than Gods have served mankind,<br>Though vultures rend their soul.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Rudyard+Kipling">Rudyard Kipling</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=510675" data-title="A Recantation de Rudyard Kipling" data-description="1917 What boots it on the Gods to call? Since, answered or unheard, We perish with the Gods and all Things made--except the Word. Ere certain Fate had touched a heart By fifty years made cold, I judged thee, Lyde, and thy art O'erblown and over..."></div> </div> </div>

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