Poetry Revisited: Two Months by Rudyard Kipling

Two Months

(Verse No. 198A in the Civil and Military Gazette of 14 September 1886)

June

No hope, no change! The clouds have shut us in,
And through the cloud the sullen Sun strikes down
Full on the bosom of the tortured Town,
Till Night falls heavy as remembered sin
That will not suffer sleep or thought of ease,
And, hour on hour, the dry-eyed Moon in spite
Glares through the haze and mocks with watery light
The torment of the uncomplaining trees.

Far off, the Thunder bellows her despair
To echoing Earth, thrice parched. The lightnings fly
In vain. No help the heaped-up clouds afford,
But wearier weight of burdened, burning air.

What truce with Dawn? Look, from the aching sky,
Day stalks, a tyrant with a flaming sword!

September

At dawn there was a murmur in the trees,
A ripple on the tank, and in the air
Presage of coming coolness -- everywhere
A voice of prophecy upon the breeze.

Up leapt the Sun and smote the dust to gold,
And strove to parch anew the heedless land,
All impotently, as a King grown old
Wars for the Empire crumbling 'neath his hand.

One after one the lotos-petals fell,
Beneath the onslaught of the rebel year,
In mutiny against a furious sky;
And far-off Winter whispered: -- "It is well!
"Hot Summer dies. Behold your help is near,
"For when men's need is sorest, then come I."

Rudyard Kipling
(1865-1936)