Читать книгу The Years Between - Rudyard Kipling - Страница 2

The banked oars fell an hundred strong,

And backed and threshed and ground,

But bitter was the rowers' song

As they brought the war-boat round.

They had no heart for the rally and roar

That makes the whale-bath smoke —

When the great blades cleave and hold and leave

As one on the racing stroke.

They sang: – 'What reckoning do you keep,

And steer her by what star,

If we come unscathed from the Southern deep

To be wrecked on a Baltic bar?

'Last night you swore our voyage was done,

But seaward still we go,

And you tell us now of a secret vow

You have made with an open foe!

'That we must lie off a lightless coast

And haul and back and veer,

At the will of the breed that have wronged us most

For a year and a year and a year!

'There was never a shame in Christendie

They laid not to our door —

And you say we must take the winter sea

And sail with them once more?

'Look South! The gale is scarce o'erpast

That stripped and laid us down,

When we stood forth but they stood fast

And prayed to see us drown

'Our dead they mocked are scarcely cold,

Our wounds are bleeding yet —

And you tell us now that our strength is sold

To help them press for a debt'

''Neath all the flags of all mankind

That use upon the seas,

Was there no other fleet to find

That you strike hands with these?

'Of evil times that men can choose

On evil fate to fall,

What brooding Judgment let you loose

To pick the worst of all?

'In sight of peace – from the Narrow Seas

O'er half the world to run —

With a cheated crew, to league anew

With the Goth and the shameless Hun!'