To James Whitcomb Riley
Rudyard Kipling 1865 (Mumbai) – 1936 (London)
Your trail runs to the westward,
And mine to my own place;
There is water between our lodges,
And I have not seen your face.
But since I have read your verses
'Tis easy to guess the rest,--
Because in the hearts of the children
There is neither East nor West.
Born to a thousand fortunes
Of good or evil hap,
Once they were kings together,
Throned in a mother's lap.
Surely they know that secret--
Yellow and black and white--
When they meet as kings together
In innocent dreams at night.
By a moon they all can play with--
Grubby and grimed and unshod,
Very happy together,
And very near to God.
Your trail runs to the westward,
And mine to my own place:
There is water between our lodges,
And you cannot see my face.--
And that is well--for crying
Should neither be written nor seen,
But if I call you Smoke-in-the-Eyes,
I know you will know what I mean.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 50 sec read
- 65 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABCb cdxd xefe xgfg xafx ABCb xhxh |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 887 |
Words | 166 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"To James Whitcomb Riley" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/33620/to-james-whitcomb-riley>.
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