Departmental Ditties and Other Verses

CERTAIN MAXIMS OF HAFIZ 91 13 The ways of man with a maid be strange, yet simple and tame To the ways of a man with a horse, when selling or racing that same. 14 In public Her face turneth to thee, and pleasant Her smile when ye meet. It is ill. The cold rocks of El-Gidar smile thus on the waves at their feet. In public Her face is averted, with anger She nameth thy name. It is well. Was there ever a loser content with the loss of the game? IS If She have spoken a word, remember thy lips are sealed, And the Brand of the Dog is upon him by whom is the secret revealed. If She have written a letter, delay not an instant but burn it. Tear it in pieces, O Fool, and the wind to her mate shall return it! If there be trouble to Herward, and a lie of blackest can clear, Lie, while thy lips can move or a man is alive to hear. 16 My Son, if a maiden deny thee and scuffiingly bid thee give o'er, Yet lip meets with lip at the lastward--get out! She has been there before. They are pecked on the ear and the chin and the nose who are lacking in lore. V If we fall in the race, though we win, the hoofslide is scarred on the course. Though Allah and Earth pardon Sin, remaineth for ever Remorse. '18 "By all I am misunderstood!" if the Matron shall say, or the Maid: -- "Alas! I do not understand," my son, be thou nowise afraid. In vain in the sight of the Bird is the net of the Fowler displayed. 19 My son, if I, Hafiz, thy father, take hold of thy knees in my pain, Demanding thy name on stamped paper, one day or one hour--refrain. Are the links of thy fetters so light that thou cravest another man's chain? THE MOON OF OTHER DAYS Beneath the deep verandah's shade, When bats begin to fly, I sit me down and watch--alas Another evening.die. Blood-red behind the sere ferash She rises through the haze. Sainte...Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 - 18 January 1936) was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in India, which inspired much of his work.Kipling's works of fiction include The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888).His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If-" (1910). He is regarded as a major innovator in the art of the short story; his children's books are classics of children's literature, and one critic described his work as exhibiting "a versatile and luminous narrative gift."Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the British Empire, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius, as distinct from fine intelligence, that I have ever known." In 1907, at the age of 42, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize and its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, both of which he declined.Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed according to the political and social climate of the age and the resulting contrasting views about him continued for much of the 20th century. George Orwell saw Kipling as "a jingo imperialist," who was "morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting." Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote: "[Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with."