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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=510962" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Dykes</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">We have no heart for the fishing, we have no hand for the oar —<br>All that our fathers taught us of old pleases us now no more;<br>All that our own hearts bid us believe we doubt where we do not deny —<br>There is no proof in the bread we eat or rest in the toil we ply. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Look you, our foreshore stretches far through sea-gate, dyke, and groin — <br>Made land all, that our fathers made, where the flats and the fairway join. <br>They forced the sea a sea-league back. They died, and their work stood fast.<br>We were born to peace in the lee of the dykes, but the time of our peace is past. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Far off, the full tide clambers and slips, mouthing and testing all,<br>Nipping the flanks of the water-gates, baying along the wall;<br>Turning the shingle, returning the shingle, changing the set of the sand…<br>We are too far from the beach, men say, to know how the outworks stand. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">So we come down, uneasy, to look, uneasily pacing the beach.<br>These are the dykes our fathers made: we have never known a breach.<br>Time and again has the gale blown by and we were not afraid;<br>Now we come only to look at the dykes — at the dykes our fathers made. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">O’er the marsh where the homesteads cower apart the harried sunlight flies,<br>Shifts and considers, wanes and recovers, scatters and sickens and dies — <br>An evil ember bedded in ash — a spark blown west by the wind… <br>We are surrendered to night and the sea — the gale and the tide behind! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">At the bridge of the lower saltings the cattle gather and blare,<br>Roused by the feet of running men, dazed by the lantern glare.<br>Unbar and let them away for their lives—the levels drown as they stand,<br>Where the flood-wash forces the sluices aback and the ditches deliver inland. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ninefold deep to the top of the dykes the galloping breakers stride,<br>And their overcarried spray is a sea — a sea on the landward side.<br>Coming, like stallions they paw with their hooves, going they snatch with their teeth,<br>Till the bents and the furze and the sand are dragged out, and the old-time hurdles beneath. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Bid men gather fuel for fire, the tar, the oil and the tow — <br>Flame we shall need, not smoke, in the dark if the riddled seabanks go.<br>Bid the ringers watch in the tower (who knows how the dawn shall prove?)<br>Each with his rope between his feet and the trembling bells above. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now we can only wait till the day, wait and apportion our shame.<br>These are the dykes our fathers left, but we would not look to the same.<br>Time and again were we warned of the dykes, time and again we delayed:<br>Now, it may fall, we have slain our sons, as our fathers we have betrayed. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Walking along the wreck of the dykes, watching the work of the seas!<br>These were the dykes our fathers made to our great profit and ease.<br>But the peace is gone and the profit is gone, with the old sure days withdrawn… <br>That our own houses show as strange when we come back in the dawn!</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>
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<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=510962" data-title="The Dykes de Rudyard Kipling" data-description="We have no heart for the fishing, we have no hand for the oar —
All that our fathers taught us of old pleases us now no more;
All that our own hearts bid us believe we doubt where we do not deny —
There is no proof in the bread we eat or rest ..."></div>
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