Monday 9 March 2015

The Vampire by Rudyard Kipling (1897)




A FOOL there was and he made his prayer
(Even as you and I!)
To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair         
(We called her the woman who did not care)
But the fool he called her his lady fair
(Even as you and I!)

Oh, the years we waste and the tears we waste
And the work of our head and hand
Belong to the woman who did not know
(And now we know that she never could know)
And did not understand!

A fool there was and his goods he spent
(Even as you and I!)
Honour and faith and a sure intent
(And it wasn’t the least what the lady meant)
But a fool must follow his natural bent
(Even as you and I!)

Oh, the toil we lost and the spoil we lost
And the excellent things we planned
Belong to the woman who didn’t know why
(And now we know that she never knew why)
And did not understand!

The fool was stripped to his foolish hide
(Even as you and I!)
Which she might have seen when she threw him aside
(But it isn’t on record the lady tried)
So some of him lived but the most of him died
(Even as you and I!)

“And it isn’t the shame and it isn’t the blame
That stings like a white hot brand
It’s coming to know that she never knew why
(Seeing, at last, she could never know why)
And never could understand!”


1 comment:

  1. Be this about some maiden fair, a witch no less, with flowing long hair.
    She has no time for past times, false promises or payments for services rendered.
    She is with her prince, who she knew all along, for thirty years he's been in her life and now they are man and wife.
    she cares not for times gone past, for rebounds that did not last. For groups of people who shunned and belittled her, she is higher than them on the spiritual plane, a follower of the light, not vampires in the shadows like those she knew once before, a past life.

    Yet the prince knows all, that she is with. Everything I may add and the she is glad.

    Glad that he honours her in such a way, no harm will ever darken her day.

    She has risen out of those flames, and has started a new day.

    -A-

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