Explore "A Charm" by Rudyard Kipling on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Take of English earth as much / As either hand may rightly clutch. / In the taking of it breathe / Prayer for all who lie beneath. / Not the great nor well-bespoke, / But the mere uncounted folk / Of whose life and death is none / Report or lamentation. / Lay that earth upon thy heart, / And thy sickness shall depart!
It shall sweeten and make whole / Fevered breath and festered soul. / It shall mightily restrain / Over-busy hand and brain. / It shall ease thy mortal strife / 'Gainst the immortal woe of life, / Till thyself restored shall prove / By what grace the Heavens do move.
Take of English flowers these -- / Spring's full-faced primroses, / Summer's wild wide-hearted rose, / Autumn's wall-flower of the close, / And, thy darkness to illume, / Winter's bee-thronged ivy-bloom. / Seek and serve them where they bide / From Candlemas to Christmas-tide, / For these simples, used aright, / Can restore a failing sight.
These shall cleanse and purify / Webbed and inward-turning eye; / These shall show thee treasure hid, / Thy familiar fields amid; / And reveal (which is thy need) / Every man a King indeed!