Poem by Rudyard Kipling

Justice

Across a world where all men grieve
	And grieving strive the more,
The great days range like tides and leave
	Our dead on every shore.
Heavy the load we undergo,
	And our own hands prepare,
If we have parley with the foe,
	The load our sons must bear.

Before we loose the word
	That bids new worlds to birth,
Needs must we loosen first the sword
	Of Justice upon earth;
Or else all else is vain
	Since life on earth began,
And the spent world sinks back again
	Hopeless of God and Man.

A People and their King
	Through ancient sin grown strong,
Because they feared no reckoning
	Would set no bound to wrong;
But now their hour is past,
	And we who bore it find
Evil Incarnate held at last
	To answer to mankind.

For agony and spoil
	Of nations beat to dust,
For poisoned air and tortured soil
	And cold, commanded lust,
And every secret woe
	The shuddering waters saw—
Willed and fulfilled by high and row—
	Let them relearn the Law.

That when the dooms are read,
	Not high nor low shall say:—
“My haughty or my humble head
	Has saved me in this day.”
That, till the end of time,
	Their remnant shall recall
Their fathers’ old, confederate crime
	Availed them not at all.

That neither schools nor priests,
	Nor Kings may build again
A people with the heart of beasts
	Made wise concerning men.
Whereby our dead shall sleep
	In honour, unbetrayed,
And we in faith and honour keep
	That peace for which they paid. 

1. The First Chantey
2. The Last of the Light Brigade
3. London Stone
4. Lady Geraldine's Hardship
5. The Last Lap

Ella Wilcox Justice ("However inexplicable may seem")

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