Rudyard Kipling Quote
The Three-DeckerThe three-volume novel is extinct.Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail.It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail;But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best—The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest.Fair held the breeze behind us—’twas warm with lovers’ prayers.We’d stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs.They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed,And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest.By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook,Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we tookWith maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed,And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest.We asked no social questions—we pumped no hidden shame—We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came:We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell.We weren’t exactly Yussufs, but—Zuleika didn’t tell.No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared,The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered.’Twas fiddle in the forc’s’le—’twas garlands on the mast,For every one got married, and I went ashore at last.I left ’em all in couples a-kissing on the decks.I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques.In endless English comfort by county-folk caressed,I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest!That route is barred to steamers: you’ll never lift againOur purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.They’re just beyond your skyline, howe’er so far you cruiseIn a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.Swing round your aching search-light—’twill show no haven’s peace.Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray-bearded seas!Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep’s unrest—And you aren’t one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest!But when you’re threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail,At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale,Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed,You’ll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest.You’ll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread;You’ll hear the long-drawn thunder ’neath her leaping figure-head;While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shineUnvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine!Hull down—hull down and under—she dwindles to a speck,With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck.All’s well—all’s well aboard her—she’s left you far behind,With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind.Her crew are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make?You’re manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming’s sake?
The Three-DeckerThe three-volume novel is extinct.Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail.It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail;But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best—The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest.Fair held the breeze behind us—’twas warm with lovers’ prayers.We’d stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs.They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed,And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest.By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook,Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we tookWith maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed,And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest.We asked no social questions—we pumped no hidden shame—We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came:We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell.We weren’t exactly Yussufs, but—Zuleika didn’t tell.No moral doubt assailed us, so when the port we neared,The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered.’Twas fiddle in the forc’s’le—’twas garlands on the mast,For every one got married, and I went ashore at last.I left ’em all in couples a-kissing on the decks.I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques.In endless English comfort by county-folk caressed,I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest!That route is barred to steamers: you’ll never lift againOur purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.They’re just beyond your skyline, howe’er so far you cruiseIn a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.Swing round your aching search-light—’twill show no haven’s peace.Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray-bearded seas!Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep’s unrest—And you aren’t one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest!But when you’re threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail,At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale,Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed,You’ll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest.You’ll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread;You’ll hear the long-drawn thunder ’neath her leaping figure-head;While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shineUnvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine!Hull down—hull down and under—she dwindles to a speck,With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck.All’s well—all’s well aboard her—she’s left you far behind,With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind.Her crew are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make?You’re manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming’s sake?
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About Rudyard Kipling
Kipling's works of fiction include the Jungle Book duology (The Jungle Book, 1894; The Second Jungle Book, 1895), Kim (1901), the Just So Stories (1902) 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 seen as an innovator in the art of the short story. His children's books are classics; one critic noted "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".
Kipling in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was among the United Kingdom's most popular writers. 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, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, as the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and at 41, its youngest recipient to date. He was also sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and several times for a knighthood, but declined both. Following his death in 1936, his ashes were interred at Poets' Corner, part of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey.
Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed with the political and social climate of the age. The contrasting views of him continued for much of the 20th century. 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."