Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936 / 2008-06-23 00:00:00
EBOOK FRANCE AT WAR ***
Produced by David S. Miller
FRANCE AT WAR
On the Frontier of Civilization
BY
RUDYARD KIPLING
1915
CONTENTS
Poem: France
I. On the Frontier of Civilization
II. The Nation's Spirit and a New Inheritance
III. Battle Spectacle and a Review
IV. The Spirit of the People
V. Life in Trenches on the Mountain Side
VI. The Common Task of a Great People
FRANCE AT WAR
On the Frontier of Civilization
FRANCE*
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
_Broke to every known mischance, lifted over
all
By the light sane joy of life, the buckler of
the Gaul,
Furious in luxury, merciless in toil,
Terrible with strength that draws from her
tireless soil,
Strictest judge of her own worth, gentlest of
men's mind,
First to follow truth and last to leave old
truths behind--
France beloved of every soul that loves its
fellow-kind._
Ere our birth (rememberest thou?) side
by side we lay
Fretting in the womb of Rome to begin
the fray.
Ere men knew our tongues apart, our one
taste was known--
Each must mould the other's fate as he
wrought his own.
To this end we stirred mankind till all
earth was ours,
Till our world-end strifes began wayside
thrones and powers,
Puppets that we made or broke to bar
the other's path--
Necessary, outpost folk, hirelings of our
wrath.
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