![]() | Rudyard Kipling's Verse | ![]() |
NATURAL THEOLOGY
PRIMITIVE
I ate my fill of a whale that diedAnd stranded after a month at sea. . . .
There is a pain in my inside.
Why have the Gods afflicted me?
344
Wow! I am sick till I cannot see!
What is the sense of Religion and Faith?
Look how the Gods have afflicted me!
PAGAN
How can the skin of rat or mouse holdAnything more than a harmless flea? . . .
The burning plague has taken my household.
Why have my Gods afflicted me?
All my kith and kin are deceased,
Though they were as good as good could be.
I will out and batter the family priest,
Because my Gods have afflicted me!
MEDIÆVAL
My privy and well drain into each otherAfter the custom of Christendie. . . .
Fevers and fluxes are wasting my mother.
Why has the Lord afflicted me?
The Saints are helpless for all I offer—
So are the clergy I used to fee.
Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer,
Because the Lord has afflicted me.
MATERIAL
I run eight hundred hens to the acre.They die by dozens mysteriously. . . .
I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker.
Why has the Lord afflicted me?
What a return for all my endeavour—
Not to mention the L. S. D.!
I am an atheist now and for ever,
Because this God has afflicted me!
PROGRESSIVE
Money spent on an Army or FleetIs homicidal lunacy. . . .
My son has been killed in the Mons retreat.
Why is the Lord afflicting me?
345
And rape allowed by the Deity?
I will write to the Times, deriding our parson,
Because my God has afflicted me.
CHORUS
We had a kettle: we let it leak:Our not repairing it made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week. . . .
The bottom is out of the Universe!
CONCLUSION
This was none of the good Lord's pleasure,For the Spirit He breathed in Man is free;
But what comes after is measure for measure
And not a God that afflicteth thee.
As was the sowing so the reaping
Is now and evermore shall be.
Thou art delivered to thine own keeping.
Only Thyself hath afflicted thee!
![]() | Rudyard Kipling's Verse | ![]() |