One Viceroy Resigns

by Rudyard Kipling

　　

---

So here's your Empire. No more wine, then? Good. We'll clear the Aides and khitmatgars away. (You'll know that fat old fellow with the knife He keeps the Name Book, talks in English too, And almost thinks himself the Government.) O Youth, Youth, Youth! Forgive me, you're so young. Forty from sixty twenty years of work And power to back the working. Ay def mi! You want to know, you want to see, to touch, And, by your lights, to act. It's natural. I wonder can I help you. Let me try. You saw what did you see from Bombay east? Enough to frighten any one but me? Neat that! It frightened Me in Eighty-Four! You shouldn't take a man from Canada And bid him smoke in powder-magazines; Nor with a Reputation such as Bah! That ghost has haunted me for twenty years, My Reputation now full blown Your fault Yours, with your stories of the strife at Home, Who's up, who's down, who leads and who is led One reads so much, one hears so little here. Well, now's your turn of exile. I go back To Rome and leisure. All roads lead to Rome, Or books the refuge of the destitute. When you ... that brings me back to India. See! Start clear. I couldn't. Egypt served my turn. You'll never plumb the Oriental mind, And if you did it isn't worth the toil. Think of a sleek French priest in Canada; Divide by twenty half-breeds. Multiply By twice the Sphinx's silence. There's your East, And you're as wise as ever. So am I. Accept on trust and work in darkness, strike At venture, stumble forward, make your mark, (It's chalk on granite), then thank God no flame Leaps from the rock to shrivel mark and man. I'm clear my mark is made. Three months of drought Had ruined much. It rained and washed away The specks that might have gathered on my Name. I took a country twice the size of France, And shuttered up one doorway in the North. I stand by those. You'll find that both will pay, I pledged my Name on both they're yours to-night. Hold to them they hold fame enough for two. I'm old, but I shall live till Burma pays. Men there not German traders Crsthw-te knows You'll find it in my papers. For the North Guns always quietly but always guns. You've seen your Council? Yes, they'll try to rule, And prize their Reputations. Have you met A grim lay-reader with a taste for coins, And faith in Sin most men withhold from God? He's gone to England. R-p-n knew his grip And kicked. A Council always has its H-pes. They look for nothing from the West but Death Or Bath or Bournemouth. Here's their ground. They fight Until the middle classes take them back, One of ten millions plus a C.S.I. Or drop in harness. Legion of the Lost? Not altogether earnest, narrow men, But chiefly earnest, and they'll do your work, And end by writing letters to the Times, (Shall I write letters, answering H-nt-r fawn With R-p-n on the Yorkshire grocers? Ugh!) They have their Reputations. Look to one I work with him the smallest of them all, White-haired, red-faced, who sat the plunging horse Out in the garden. He's your right-hand man, And dreams of tilting W-ls-y from the throne, But while he dreams gives work we cannot buy; He has his Reputation wants the Lords By way of Frontier Roads. Meantime, I think, He values very much the hand that falls Upon his shoulder at the Council table Hates cats and knows his business; which is yours. Your business! twice a hundered million souls. Your business! I could tell you what I did Some nights of Eighty-Five, at Simla, worth A Kingdom's ransom. When a big ship drives, God knows to what new reef the man at the whee! Prays with the passengers. They lose their lives, Or rescued go their way; but he's no man To take his trick at the wheel again that's worse Than drowning. Well, a galled Mashobra mule (You'll see Mashobra) passed me on the Mall, And I was some fool's wife and ducked and bowed To show the others I would stop and speak. Then the mule fell three galls, a hund-breadth each, Behind the withers. Mrs. Whatsisname Leers at the mule and me by turns, thweet thoul! "How could they make him carry such a load!" I saw it isn't often I dream dreams More than the mule that minute smoke and flame From Simla to the haze below. That's weak. You're younger. You'll dream dreams before you've done. You've youth, that's one good workmen that means two Fair chances in your favor. Fate's the third. I know what I did. Do you ask me, "Preach"? I answer by my past or else go back To platitudes of rule or take you thus In confidence and say: "You know the trick: You've governed Canada. You know. You know!" And all the while commend you to Fate's hand (Here at the top on loses sight o' God), Commend you, then, to something more than you The Other People's blunders and . . . that's all. I'd agonize to serve you if I could. It's incommunicable, like the cast That drops the tackle with the gut adry. Too much too little there's your salmon lost! And so I tell you nothing with you luck, And wonder how I wonder! for your sake And triumph for my own. You're young, you're young, You hold to half a hundred Shibboleths. I'm old. I followed Power to the last, Gave her my best, and Power followed Me. It's worth it on my sould I'm speaking plain, Here by the claret glasses! worth it all. I gave no matter what I gave I win. I know I win. Mine's work, good work that lives! A country twice the size of France the North Safeguarded. That's my record: sink the rest And better if you can. The Rains may serve, Rupees may rise three pence will give you Fame It's rash to hope for sixpence If they rise Get guns, more guns, and lift the salt-tax. Oh! I told you what the Congress meant or thought? I'll answer nothing. Half a year will prove The full extent of time and thought you'll spare To Congress. Ask a Lady Doctor once How little Begums see the light deduce Thence how the True Reformer's child is born. It's interesting, curious . . . and vile. I told the Turk he was a gentlman. I told the Russian that his Tartar veins Bled pure Parisian ichor; and he purred. The Congress doesn't purr. I think it swears. You're young you'll swear to ere you've reached the end. The End! God help you, if there be a God. (There must be one to startle Gl-dst-ne's soul In that new land where all the wires are cut. And Cr-ss snores anthems on the asphodel.) God help you! And I'd help you if I could, But that's beyond me. Yes, your speech was crude. Sound claret after olives yours and mine; But Medoc slips into vin ordinaire. (I'll drink my first at Genoa to your health.) Raise it to Hock. You'll never catch my style. And, after all, the middle-classes grip The middle-class for Brompton talk Earl's Court. Perhaps you're right. I'll see you in the Times A quarter-column of eye-searing print, A leader once a quarter then a war; The Strand abellow through the fog: "Defeat!" "'Orrible slaughter!" While you lie awake And wonder. Oh, you'll wonder ere you're free! I wonder now. The four years slide away So fast, so fast, and leave me here alone. R-y, C-lv-n, L-l, R-b-rts, B-ck, the rest, Princes and Powers of Darkness troops and trains, (I cannot sleep in trains), land piled on land, Whitewash and weariness, red rockets, dust, White snows that mocked me, palaces with draughts, And W-stl-nd with the drafts he couldn't pay, Poor W-ls-n reading his obituary. Before he died, and H-pe, the man with bones, And A-tch-s-n a dripping mackintosh At Council in the Rains, his grating "Sirrr" Half drowned by H-nt-r's silky: "Bat my lahnd." Hunterian always: M-rsh-l spinning plates Or standing on his head; the Rent Bill's roar, A hundred thousand speeches, must red cloth, And Smiths thrice happy if I call them Jones, (I can't remember half their names) or reined My pony on the Mall to greet their wives. More trains, more troops, more dust, and then all's done. Four years, and I forget. If I forget How will they bear me in their minds? The North Safeguarded nearly (R-b-rts knows the rest), A country twice the size of France annexed. That stays at least. The rest may pass may pass Your heritage and I can teach you nought. "High trust," "vast honor," "interests twice as vast," "Due reverence to your Council" keep to those. I envy you the twenty years you've gained, But not the five to follow. What's that? One? Two! Surely not so late. Good-night. Don't dream.

---

---