line by line; Charlie parrying every
objection and correction with: "Yes, that may be better, but you don't
catch what I'm driving at.
objection and correction with: "Yes, that may be better, but you don't
catch what I'm driving at.
Kipling - Poems
"
He went, declaring far down the staircase that it was throwing away my
only chance of looking into the future.
This left me unmoved, for I was concerned for the past, and no peering
of hypnotized boys into mirrors and ink-pools would help me do that. But
I recognized Grish Chunder's point of view and sympathized with it.
"What a big black brute that was! " said Charlie, when I returned to
him. "Well, look here, I've just done a poem; dil it instead of playing
dominoes after lunch. May I read it? "
"Let me read it to myself. "
"Then you miss the proper expression. Besides, you always make my things
sound as if the rhymes were all wrong. "
"Read it aloud, then. You're like the rest of 'em. "
Charlie mouthed me his poem, and it was not much worse than the average
of his verses. He had been reading his book faithfully, but he was not
pleased when I told him that I preferred my Longfellow undiluted with
Charlie.
Then we began to go through the MS.
line by line; Charlie parrying every
objection and correction with: "Yes, that may be better, but you don't
catch what I'm driving at. "
Charlie was, in one way at least, very like one kind of poet.
There was a pencil scrawl at the back of the paper and "What's that? " I
said.
"Oh that's not poetry 't all. It's some rot I wrote last night before I
went to bed and it was too much bother to hunt for rhymes; so I made it
a sort of a blank verse instead. "
Here is Charlie's "blank verse":
"We pulled for you when the wind was against us and the sails were low.
"Will you never let us go?
"We ate bread and onions when you took towns or ran aboard quickly when
you were beaten back by the foe,
"The captains walked up and down the deck in fair weather singing songs,
but we were below,
"We fainted with our chins on the oars and you did not see that we were
idle for we still swung to and fro.
"Will you never let us go?
"The salt made the oar handles like sharkskin; our knees were cut to the
bone with salt cracks; our hair was stuck to our foreheads; and our lips
were cut to our gums and you whipped us because we could not row.
"Will you never let us go?
"But in a little time we shall run out of the portholes as the water
runs along the oarblade, and though you tell the others to row after us
you will never catch us till you catch the oar-thresh and tie up the
winds in the belly of the sail. Aho! "Will you never let us go? "
"H'm.
He went, declaring far down the staircase that it was throwing away my
only chance of looking into the future.
This left me unmoved, for I was concerned for the past, and no peering
of hypnotized boys into mirrors and ink-pools would help me do that. But
I recognized Grish Chunder's point of view and sympathized with it.
"What a big black brute that was! " said Charlie, when I returned to
him. "Well, look here, I've just done a poem; dil it instead of playing
dominoes after lunch. May I read it? "
"Let me read it to myself. "
"Then you miss the proper expression. Besides, you always make my things
sound as if the rhymes were all wrong. "
"Read it aloud, then. You're like the rest of 'em. "
Charlie mouthed me his poem, and it was not much worse than the average
of his verses. He had been reading his book faithfully, but he was not
pleased when I told him that I preferred my Longfellow undiluted with
Charlie.
Then we began to go through the MS.
line by line; Charlie parrying every
objection and correction with: "Yes, that may be better, but you don't
catch what I'm driving at. "
Charlie was, in one way at least, very like one kind of poet.
There was a pencil scrawl at the back of the paper and "What's that? " I
said.
"Oh that's not poetry 't all. It's some rot I wrote last night before I
went to bed and it was too much bother to hunt for rhymes; so I made it
a sort of a blank verse instead. "
Here is Charlie's "blank verse":
"We pulled for you when the wind was against us and the sails were low.
"Will you never let us go?
"We ate bread and onions when you took towns or ran aboard quickly when
you were beaten back by the foe,
"The captains walked up and down the deck in fair weather singing songs,
but we were below,
"We fainted with our chins on the oars and you did not see that we were
idle for we still swung to and fro.
"Will you never let us go?
"The salt made the oar handles like sharkskin; our knees were cut to the
bone with salt cracks; our hair was stuck to our foreheads; and our lips
were cut to our gums and you whipped us because we could not row.
"Will you never let us go?
"But in a little time we shall run out of the portholes as the water
runs along the oarblade, and though you tell the others to row after us
you will never catch us till you catch the oar-thresh and tie up the
winds in the belly of the sail. Aho! "Will you never let us go? "
"H'm.
