Reflections of a stormy petrel

We have been dazzled too long by the might of inevitability
And certain that that which prevailed should therefore forever prevail;
That History exists as an engine, grinding visible futurity
And that History's justice comes sure as a stamped envelope in the mail.

Yet the world, good and bad, has existed, with truths towering big as the sky,
Without which, as without air and ocean, human history'd simply not be
And to all who pretend to rewrite them, all these truths give one simple reply:
It is certainly not your denial that can dent any of our eternity.

ELEGY FOR HILLSBOROUGH

- and you are dead, and all our little dances
Are nothing; and the voices of the dead
Have made us still. And their terrible faces,
Their poor faces, of pity that breaks hearts,
They speak to us, and we've no words to answer,
They speak of silence. O, will nothing do?
We must reach them, I must reach you, my brothers,
Who raise your hands at me out of your graves;
Your burial places made of human flesh,
Your burial places made of human flesh.

You call. I have no voice to answer
The dead; and stretch my hands at you,
Poor brothers whom I have never met,
Poor bits of joy, shut out before I knew you.
As men love other men, I swear I loved you
When you were dragged out of your sun-lit slaughterhouse,
Lost to us; lost to our love of you.
As men have joy in men, so is my joy
Turned into death in me for all your deaths,
For all the joy I'll never have of you,
For all the joy I'll never have of you.

And words come thick and clotted as the boots
That crashed into your shoulders, as the weight
That bore you down and set you awash with pain
As red as fire, that tore out of you shouts,
Out of you silence. No dignity of death
Was left, but an obscene upstomping.
And words come crowding out of helplessness
To fill the yawning gap within my heart,
The great black hole of you and of my shame;
That I could never even share your pain,
That I could never even share your pain.

All that you had to teach you have now taught me
And spoken out, poor stupid bulks of flesh
Dragged out like Christ's body from the cross,
Brothers of mine. And in this life I never
Shall have any other word from you
Than this, and this is not for speaking;
That if you're dead then I'm with you tonight
If you are dead I am with you tonight.

It's over. Let God's eye remember
How men have become knights before the deaths;
How they tore up the wood to make them stretchers,
Remember that they helped and did not stop.
Let God remember how three and ninety died
And paid to die, because someone was stupid.
The night is fallen, and there is no moon;
The sky is covered. God receives His saints.

Kipling's verse is a never-failing avalanche of pleasure and fun. People remember serious poems such as "If", or moody ones such as "Recessional", or even solemnly amused ones such as "Sestina of the tramp-royal"; but who speaks - as they should - of his dozens of pieces of delightful absurdity, such as this?

'Twas when the rain fell steady an' the Ark was pitched an' ready,
That Noah got his orders for to take the bastes below;
He dragged them all together by the horn an' hide an' feather,
An' all excipt the Donkey was agreeable to go.

Thin Noah spoke him fairly, thin talked to him sevarely,
An' thin he cursed him squarely to the glory av the Lord: --
"Divil take the ass that bred you, and the greater ass that fed you --
Divil go wid you, ye spalpeen!" an' the Donkey went aboard.

But the wind was always failin', an' 'twas most onaisy sailin',
An' the ladies in the cabin couldn't stand the stable air;
An' the bastes betwuxt the hatches, they tuk an' died in batches,
Till Noah said: -- "There's wan av us that hasn't paid his fare!"

For he heard a flusteration 'mid the bastes av all creation --
The trumpetin' av elephints an' bellowin' av whales;
An' he saw forninst the windy whin he wint to stop the shindy
The Divil wid a stable-fork bedivillin' their tails.

The Divil cursed outrageous, but Noah said umbrageous: --
"To what am I indebted for this tenant-right invasion?"
An' the Divil gave for answer: -- "Evict me if you can, sir,
For I came in wid the Donkey -- on Your Honour's invitation."