Rudyard Kipling

Fastness

    (Tennyson)


THIS is the end whereto men toiled
	Before thy coachman guessed his fate,—
	How thou shouldst leave thy ’scutcheoned gate
On that new wheel which is the oiled—

To see the England Shakespeare saw
	(Oh, Earth, ’tis long since Shallow died!
	Yet by yon farrowed sow may hide
Some blue deep minion of the Law)—

To range from Ashby-de-la-Zouch
	By Lyonnesse to Locksley Hall,
	Or haply, nearer home, appal
Thy father’s sister’s staid barouche.