Rejection: A Poem by Rudyard Kipling

"Joseph Rudyard Kipling, 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936, was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work.

"Kipling's works of fiction include the Jungle Book duology (The Jungle Book, 1894; The Second Jungle Book, 1895), Kim (1901), the Just So Stories (1902) and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888).. His poems include "Mandalay" (1890), "Gunga Din" (1890), "The Gods of the Copybook Headings" (1919), "The White Man's Burden" (1899), and "If—" (1910). He is seen as an innovator in the art of the short story.His children's books are classics; one critic noted "a versatile and luminous narrative gift." ~Wikipedia

Kippling in 1895

REJECTION
by Rudyard Kippling

...in which a drowned man is dehumanised and has become a displaced ‘thing’ ~ Carol Rumens, The Guardian, 27 May 2024

‘We will lay this thing here’
Thus spake the voice of the sea,
Murmuring wearily –
In the rock’s ear –

Then the green laver rose,
Shook out her folds and cried,
Before the rising tide
‘Let me repose –

Stir not my rest O sea,
With dead things in these silent deeps,
Surely wave tossed he sleeps
As heavily’ –

The weedhung chambers then
Made answer – ‘O thou sea,
The beasts that feed in me
What need they men’ –

Rock limpets cowering,
Murmured gloom-shaded – ‘There is meat
Enough for all to eat
Bear hence this thing –

In thy strong arms O sea,
Out, even to the quicksands’ brink.
It shall be that he sink –
There, utterly.’

‘We will lay this thing here’
Thus spake the voice of the sea,
Ever persistently
In the rock's ear.

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