As it Strikes a Contemporary.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XIX, Issue 6045, 10 September 1894, Page 3

As it Strikes a Contemporary.

[by rudyard kipltng.] "; . . . a spectacle for the compassion of the civilised world."—Daily paper. The American Spirit speaks j If the Led Striker call it a strike, Or the papers call it a war, They know not much what I am like, Nor what he is, my Avatar. Through many roads, by me possessed, He shambles forth in cosmic guise ; He is the Jester and the .Test, And he the Text himself applies. The Celt is in his heart and hand, The Gaul is in his brain and nerve, Where, cosmopolitanly planned, He guards the Redskin's dry reserve. An easy unswept hearth he lends From Labrador to Guadeloupe, Till, elbowed out by sloven friends, He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop. Packed through her four-and-forty floors Of groaning beam and bursting till, The Clearing House of Nations roars Above him, and he—foots the bill. Calm-eyed he scoffs at sword and crow, Or panic blinded stabs and slays; Blatant he bids the world bow down Or Cringing begs a crust of praise ; Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart, He dubs his drearybrethren Kings. His hands are black with blood: his heart Leaps, as a babe's, at little things. But, through the shift of mood and mood, Mine ancient humor saves him whole— The doubting devil in his blood That bids him mock his hurrying soul; That bids him flout the Law he makes, That bids him make the Law he flouts, Till, dazed by many doubt, he wakes The drumming guns that—have no doubts; That checks him foolish—hot and fond, That chuckles through his deepest ire, That gilds the slough'of his despond But dims the goal of his desire ; Inopportune, shrill-accented, The acrid Asiatic mirth That leaves him careless 'mid his dead, The scandal of the elder earth. How shall he clear himself, how reach Your bar or weighed defence prefer ? A brother hedged with alien speech And lacking all interpreter. Which knowledge vexes him a space; But while Reproof around him rings, He turns his keen, untroubled face Home to the instant need of things. Enslaved, illogical, elate, He greets th' embarrassed gods, nor fears To shake the iron hand of Fate Or toss with Destiny for beers. Lo ! Imperturbable he rules Unkempt, disreputable, vast— And in the teeth of all the schools I—l Bhall save him at the last!