Explore "A Dedication" by Rudyard Kipling on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
And they were stronger hands than mine / That digged the Ruby from the earth -- / More cunning brains that made it worth / The large desire of a king, / And stouter hearts that through the brine / Went down the perfect Pearl to bring.
Lo, I have wrought in common clay / Rude figures of a rough-hewn race, / Since pearls strew not the market-place / In this my town of banishment, / Where with the shifting dust I play, / And eat the bread of discontent.
Yet is there life in that I make. / O thou who knowest, turn and see -- / As thou hast power over me / So have I power over these, / Because I wrought them for thy sake, / And breathed in them mine agonies.
Small mirth was in the making -- now / I lift the cloth that cloaks the clay, / And, wearied, at thy feet I lay / My wares, ere I go forth to sell. / The long bazar will praise, but thou -- / Heart of my heart -- have I done well?