A Song in the Ruins
TROUBLED with influenza, a politician said The men that died for India came floating round my bed,
The dead from Chillianwallah, the watchers of Mardan, The ones who held the Khyber against Afghanistan, The victors of Sobraon, the dead from frontier fights, With those that guarded Lucknow for eighty-seven nights. They were side by side and touching, though born so far apart, And with reproaches in their eyes that cut one to the heart. - The men that put down thuggee, the men that bridged the streams And built the roads of India were worrying my dreams.
It was only influenza. I feel all right by day. But by night I'm always dreaming of an empire thrown away. I call and call to Kipling, " What other course had we ? " But he only sees the soldiers and he will not look at me. Last night I questioned one of them, and "Tell me, then," I said, " What could we do but what we did ? " He turned away his head.
Only a dream, I know, and yet it means I must be ill. One thing a soldier said at last that I remember still. He said, " We went to carry on the work begun by Clive ; If you did not want an empire we might have been alive."
DUNSANY.
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