Tomlinson by Rudyard Kipling — Read

Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square, / And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair -- / A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away, / Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way: / Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease, / And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys. / "Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high / The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die -- / The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone! " / And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone. / "O I have a friend on earth," he said, "that was my priest and guide, / And well would he answer all for me if he were by my side. " / -- "For that ye strove in neighbour-love it shall be written fair, / But now ye wait at Heaven's Gate and not in Berkeley Square: / Though we called your friend from his bed this night, / he could not speak for you, / For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two. " / Then Tomlinson looked up and down, and little gain was there, / For the naked stars grinned overhead, and he saw that his soul was bare: / The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife, / And Tomlinson took up his tale and spoke of his good in life.

"This I have read in a book," he said, "and that was told to me, / And this I have thought that another man thought of a Prince in Muscovy. " / The good souls flocked like homing doves and bade him clear the path, / And Peter twirled the jangling keys in weariness and wrath. / "Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought," he said, / "and the tale is yet to run: / By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer -- what ha' ye done? " / Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and little good it bore, / For the Darkness stayed at his shoulder-blade and Heaven's Gate before: -- / "O this I have felt, and this I have guessed, and this I have heard men say, / And this they wrote that another man wrote of a carl in Norroway. " / -- "Ye have read, ye have felt, ye have guessed, good lack! / Ye have hampered Heaven's Gate; / There's little room between the stars in idleness to prate! / O none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin / Through borrowed deed to God's good meed that lies so fair within; / Get hence, get hence to the Lord of Wrong, for doom has yet to run, / And. . .the faith that ye share with Berkeley Square uphold you, Tomlinson!"