173 quotes
There's a Legion that never was 'listed,
That carries no colours or crest,
But, split in a thousand detachments,
Is breaking the road for the rest.
The Seven Seas (1896)
Oh, plain black's best for a nigger.
An' I learned about women from 'er.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892)
I speak now from my home and from my heart to you all; to men and women so cut off by the snows, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them.
Men, not children or servants, tempered and taught to the end;
Cleansed of servile panic, slow to dread or despise,
Humble because of knowledge, mighty by sacrifice.
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Departmental Ditties and other Verses (1886)
But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole shrine he came,
And he told me in a vision of the night:—
There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right!
The Seven Seas (1896)
I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
Epitaphs of the War (1914-1918) (1918)
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!
This is the way of the Monkey-kind!
The Jungle Book (1894)
Take of English earth as much
As either hand may rightly clutch.
In the taking of it breathe
Prayer for all who lie beneath.
Rewards and Fairies (1910)
The Liner she's a lady, an' she never looks nor 'eeds—
The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband, an' 'e gives 'er all she needs;
But, oh, the little cargo-boats, that sail the wet seas roun',
They're just the same as you an' me a-plyin' up an' down!
The Seven Seas (1896)
They've taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away,
An' they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892)
Back to the Army again, sergeant,
Back to the Army again:
Out o' the cold an' the rain, sergeant,
Out o' the cold an' the rain.
The Seven Seas (1896)
When you get to a man in the case,
They're like as a row of pins—
For the Colonel's Lady an' Judy O'Grady
Are sisters under their skins!
The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky
The deer to the wholesome wold;
And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid,
As it was in the days of old.
The Gypsy Trail (1892)
There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake,
Or the way of a man with a maid;
But the fairest way to me is a ship's upon the sea
In the heel of the North-East Trade.
"Gold is for the mistress—silver for the maid—
Copper for the craftsman, cunning at his trade."
"Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
"But Iron—Cold Iron—is master of them all."
Cold Iron (1910)
We are not built to comprehend a lie,
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive,
If you make a slip in handling us you die!
She read a little of it. I give her review verbatim:—"Oh, your book? It's all about those how-wid Wajahs. I didn't understand it."
Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)
Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges—
Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!