Rudyard Kipling, one impatient day, Threw a scrap of manuscript away, -- Since no worthy workman dares to rest With the good, but only with the best. Now, the poet thus should guard his art, But his wife may play a different part. His with critic eye to scan his lays; Hers with cheering flattery to praise. So it chanced -- a lucky chance, indeed! -- Mistress Kipling found the abandoned screed; Drew it from the waste, and praised it well, Till the bard fulfilled the miracle, Till the poem, polished to a t, Shone, the jewel of the Jubilee; Till it glittered to the eyes of all, Kipling's star-conceived Recessional. Now, dear wife, sweet mistress of my home, Who, with vandal dusting-cloth and broom, Oft desire my study to invade, Yes, and sometimes a descent have made, Sorting papers into ordered piles, Clearing pigeon-holes and filling files, Sweeping, dusting, with a woman's grace Putting everything in proper place And where I can never, never find it, -- Come, now, wife, hereafter I'll not mind it! Bring along your weapons of dismay! Re-arrange my study every day! Now no more the littered picturesque: Here's the key and freedom of my desk. And -- I whisper this in modesty -- If some day your vigilance should see -- If, in your acute domestic round, You should find what Mistress Kipling found -- If -- O well, the upshot of it is, My -- waste-basket -- is as good as his! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LOCKED OUT; AS TOLD TO A CHILD by ROBERT FROST I WANT TO LIVE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON LOST ILLUSIONS by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON PENT by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON LOHENGRIN; PROEM by EMMA LAZARUS HERO-WORSHIP; SONNET by AMY LOWELL THE DOLL BELIEVERS by CLARENCE MAJOR THE STORM by KATHERINE MANSFIELD MODERN PARAPHRASE OF SHAKESPEARE'S SONNET 29 by GEORGE SANTAYANA |