Explore "The Ballad of the King's Jest" by Rudyard Kipling on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When spring-time flushes the desert grass, / Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass. / Lean are the camels but fat the frails, / Light are the purses but heavy the bales, / As the snowbound trade of the North comes down / To the market-square of Peshawur town.
In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill, / A kafila camped at the foot of the hill. / Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose, / And tent-peg answered to hammer-nose; / And the picketed ponies, shag and wild, / Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled; / And the bubbling camels beside the load / Sprawled for a furlong adown the road; / And the Persian pussy-cats, brought for sale, / Spat at the dogs from the camel-bale; / And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food; / And the camp-fires twinkled by Fort Jumrood; / And there fled on the wings of the gathering dusk / A savour of camels and carpets and musk, / A murmur of voices, a reek of smoke, / To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke.