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Rudyard Kipling - An American
Work rating: Low

The American Spirit speaks:
  "If the Led Striker call it a strike,
 Or the papers call it a war,
They know not much what I am like,
 Nor what he is, my Avatar."
 
Through many roads, by me possessed,
 He shambles forth in cosmic guise;
He is the Jester and the Jest,
 And he the Text himself applies.
 
The Celt is in his heart and hand,
 The Gaul is in his brain and nerve;
Where, cosmopolitanly planned,
 He guards the Redskin`s dry reserve.
 
His easy unswept hearth he lends
 From Labrador to Guadeloupe;
Till, elbowed out by sloven friends,
 He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop.
 
Calm-eyed he scoffs at sword and crown,
 Or panic-blinded stabs and slays:
Blatant he bids the world bow down,
 Or cringing begs a crust of praise;
 
Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart,
 He dubs his dreary brethren Kings.
His hands are black with blood — his heart
 Leaps, as a babe`s, at little things.
 
But, through the shift of mood and mood,
 Mine ancient humour saves him whole —
The cynic devil in his blood
 That bids him mock his hurrying soul;
 
That bids him flout the Law he makes,
 That bids him make the Law he flouts,
Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes
 The drumming guns that — have no doubts;
 
That checks him foolish — hot and fond,
 That chuckles through his deepest ire,
That gilds the slough of his despond
 But dims the goal of his desire;
 
Inopportune, shrill-accented,
 The acrid Asiatic mirth
That leaves him, careless `mid his dead,
 The scandal of the elder earth.
 
How shall he clear himself, how reach
 Your bar or weighed defence prefer?
A brother hedged with alien speech
 And lacking all interpreter.
 
Which knowledge vexes him a space;
 But while Reproof around him rings,
He turns a keen untroubled face
 Home, to the instant need of things.
 
Enslaved, illogical, elate,
 He greets th` embarrassed Gods, nor fears
To shake the iron hand of Fate
 Or match with Destiny for beers.
 
Lo, imperturbable he rules,
 Unkempt, disreputable, vast —
And, in the teeth of all the schools,
 I — I shall save him at the last!
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