Transcriber’s Notes Italic text is enclosed in _underscores_; small-caps text has been changed to all-caps. Bracketed page numbers, such as [Page 18], at the beginning of each Poem, were added as a Search aid by Transcriber, as the Table of Contents is in alphabetical, rather than page number sequence. THE SERVICE EDITION OF THE WORKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING THE FIVE NATIONS VOL. I THE FIVE NATIONS BY RUDYARD KIPLING IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I [Illustration] METHUEN AND CO., LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. _First Published_ _September 1903_ _Second Edition_ _1903_ _Third Edition_ _1907_ _Fourth Edition_ _1908_ _Fifth and Sixth Editions_ _1909_ _Seventh Edition_ _1910_ _Eighth Edition_ _1911_ _Ninth Edition_ _1912_ _Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Editions_ _1913_ _Fourteenth Edition_ _1914_ _Fifteenth Edition (2 vols.)_ _1914_ DEDICATION [Page vii] _Before a midnight breaks in storm, Or herded sea in wrath, Ye know what wavering gusts inform The greater tempest’s path; Till the loosed wind Drive all from mind, Except Distress, which, so will prophets cry, O’ercame them, houseless, from the unhinting sky._ _Ere rivers league against the land In piratry of flood, Ye know what waters slip and stand Where seldom water stood. Yet who will note, Till fields afloat, And washen carcass and the returning well, Trumpet what these poor heralds strove to tell?_ _Ye know who use the Crystal Ball (To peer by stealth on Doom), The Shade that, shaping first of all, Prepares an empty room. Then doth It pass Like breath from glass, But, on the extorted vision bowed intent, No man considers why It came or went._ _Before the years reborn behold Themselves with stranger eye, And the sport-making Gods of old, Like Samson slaying, die, Many shall hear The all-pregnant sphere, Bow to the birth and sweat, but--speech denied-- Sit dumb or--dealt in part--fall weak and wide._ _Yet instant to fore-shadowed need The eternal balance swings; That wingèd men the Fates may breed So soon as Fate hath wings. These shall possess Our littleness, And in the imperial task (as worthy) lay Up our lives’ all to piece one giant day._ CONTENTS PAGE DEDICATION vii THE FIVE NATIONS