The Years Between. Rudyard Kipling

enemy divisions,

      Recruits of every class,

      And highly-screened positions

      For flame or poison-gas,

      The craft that we call modern,

      The crimes that we call new,

      John Bunyan had 'em typed and filed

      In Sixteen Eighty-two

      Likewise the Lords of Looseness

      That hamper faith and works,

      The Perseverance-Doubters,

      And Present-Comfort shirks,

      With brittle intellectuals

      Who crack beneath a strain —

      John Bunyan met that helpful set

      In Charles the Second's reign.

      Emmanuel's vanguard dying

      For right and not for rights,

      My Lord Apollyon lying

      To the State-kept Stockholmites,

      The Pope, the swithering Neutrals,

      The Kaiser and his Gott —

      Their rôles, their goals, their naked souls —

      He knew and drew the lot.

      Now he hath left his quarters,

      In Bunhill Fields to lie.

      The wisdom that he taught us

      Is proven prophecy —

      One watchword through our armies,

      One answer from our lands —

      'No dealings with Diabolus

      As long as Mansoul stands.

      A pedlar from a hovel,

      The lowest of the low,

      The father of the Novel,

      Salvation's first Defoe,

      Eight blinded generations

      Ere Armageddon came,

      He showed us how to meet it,

      And Bunyan was his name!

      THE HOUSES

(A SONG OF THE DOMINIONS)1898

      'Twixt my house and thy house the pathway is broad,

      In thy house or my house is half the world's hoard;

      By my house and thy house hangs all the world's fate,

      On thy house and my house lies half the world's hate.

      For my house and thy house no help shall we find

      Save thy house and my house – kin cleaving to kind:

      If my house be taken, thine tumbleth anon,

      If thy house be forfeit, mine followeth soon.

      'Twixt my house and thy house what talk can there be

      Of headship or lordship, or service or fee?

      Since my house to thy house no greater can send

      Than thy house to my house – friend comforting friend;

      And thy house to my house no meaner can bring

      Than my house to thy house – King counselling King.

      RUSSIA TO THE PACIFISTS

      God rest you, peaceful gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,

      But – leave your sports a little while – the dead are borne this way!

      Armies dead and Cities dead, past all count or care.