Contradictions

The drowsy carrier sways
To the drowsy horses' tramp.
His axles winnow the sprays
Of the hedge where the rabbit plays
In the light of his single lamp.

He hears a roar behind,
A howl, a hoot, and a yell,
A headlight strikes him blind
And a stench o'erpowers the wind
Like a blast from the mouth of Hell.

He mends his swingle-bar,
And loud his curses ring;
But a mother watching afar
Hears the hum of the doctor's car
Like the beat of an angel's wing!

So, to the poet's mood,
Motor or carrier's van,
Properly understood,
Are neither evil nor good,
Ormuzd not Ahriman!

Rudyard

Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. His notable works include the novels 'The Jungle Book,' 'Kim,' and the poem 'If—.' Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907, making him the youngest recipient of the award.

Rudyard

As The Bell Clinks

Rudyard , Simple Poetry

Songs Of Seventy Horses

Rudyard , Simple Poetry

The Conundrum Of The Workshops

Rudyard , Simple Poetry

The Comforters

Rudyard , Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Waggoner - Canto Third

Right gladly had the horses stirred,
When they the wished-for greeting heard,
The whip's loud notice from the door,
That they were free to move once more.
You think, those doings must have bred
In them disheartening doubts and dread;
No, not a horse of all the eight,
Although it be a moonless night,
Fears either for himself or freight;
For this they know (and let it hide,
In part, the offences of their guide)
That Benjamin, with clouded brains,
Is worth the best with all their pains;
And, if they had a prayer to make,
The prayer would be that they may take
With him whatever comes in course,
The better fortune or the worse;
That no one else may have business near them,
And, drunk or sober, he may steer them.
So, forth in dauntless mood they fare,...

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Prelude - The Wayside Inn - Part Second

A cold, uninterrupted rain,
That washed each southern window-pane,
And made a river of the road;
A sea of mist that overflowed
The house, the barns, the gilded vane,
And drowned the upland and the plain,
Through which the oak-trees, broad and high,
Like phantom ships went drifting by;
And, hidden behind a watery screen,
The sun unseen, or only seen
As a faint pallor in the sky;--
Thus cold and colorless and gray,
The morn of that autumnal day,
As if reluctant to begin,
Dawned on the silent Sudbury Inn,
And all the guests that in it lay.

Full late they slept.    They did not hear
The challenge of Sir Chanticleer,
Who on the empty threshing-floor,
Disdainful of the rain outside,
Was strutting with a martial stride,
As if upon his t...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Chapter Headings

Plain Tales From the Hills

Look, you have cast out Love! What Gods are these
You bid me please?
The Three in One, the One in Three?Not so!
To my own Gods I go.
It may be they shall give me greater ease
Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities.
- Lispeth.

When the earth was sick and the skies were grey,
And the woods were rotted with rain,
The Dead Man rode through the autumn day
To visit his love again.

His love she neither saw nor heard,
So heavy was her shame;
And tho' the babe within her stirred
She knew not that he came.
- The Other Man.

Cry "Murder" in the market-place, and each
Will turn upon his neighbour anxious eyes
Asking: "Art thou the man?" We hunted Cain
Some centuries ago across the world.
This ...

Rudyard

The Waggoner - Canto Fourth

Thus they, with freaks of proud delight,
Beguile the remnant of the night;
And many a snatch of jovial song
Regales them as they wind along;
While to the music, from on high,
The echoes make a glad reply.
But the sage Muse the revel heeds
No farther than her story needs;
Nor will she servilely attend
The loitering journey to its end.
Blithe spirits of her own impel
The Muse, who scents the morning air,
To take of this transported pair
A brief and unreproved farewell;
To quit the slow-paced waggon's side,
And wander down yon hawthorn dell,
With murmuring Greta for her guide.
There doth she ken the awful form
Of Raven-crag black as a storm
Glimmering through the twilight pale;
And Ghimmer-crag, his tall twin brother,
Each peering forth t...

William Wordsworth

The Waggoner - Canto First

'Tis spent this burning day of June!
Soft darkness o'er its latest gleams is stealing;
The buzzing dor-hawk, round and round, is wheeling,
That solitary bird
Is all that can be heard
In silence deeper far than that of deepest noon!
Confiding Glow-worms, 'tis a night
Propitious to your earth-born light!
But, where the scattered stars are seen
In hazy straits the clouds between,
Each, in his station twinkling not,
Seems changed into a pallid spot.
The mountains against heaven's grave weight
Rise up, and grow to wondrous height.
The air, as in a lion's den,
Is close and hot; and now and then
Comes a tired and sultry breeze
With a haunting and a panting,
Like the stifling of disease;
But the dews allay the heat,
And the silence makes it sweet.<...

William Wordsworth

The Nurses

When, with a pain he desires to explain to the multitude, Baby
Howls himself black in the face, toothlessly striving to curse;
And the six-months-old Mother begins to enquire of the Gods if it may be
Tummy, or Temper, or Pins, what does the adequate Nurse?

See! At one turn of her head the trouble is guessed; and, thereafter,
She juggles (unscared by his throes) with drops of hot water and spoons,
Till the hiccoughs are broken by smiles, and the smiles pucker up into laughter,
And he lies oer her shoulder and crows, and she, as she nurses him, croons!

When, at the head of the grade, tumultuous out of the cutting,
Pours the belated Express, roars at the night, and draws dear,
Redly obscured or displayed by her fire-doors opening and shutting,
Symbol of strength under stres...

Rudyard