| Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922. | | | | The Craftsman |
| | | ONCE, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid, | |
| He to the overbearing Boanerges | |
| Jonson, uttered (if half of it were liquor, | |
| Blessed be the vintage!) | |
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| Saying how, at an alehouse under Cotswold, | 5 |
| He had made sure of his very Cleopatra, | |
| Drunk with enormous, salvation-contemning | |
| Love for a tinker. | |
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| How, while he hid from Sir Thomas’s keepers, | |
| Crouched in a ditch and drenched by the midnight | 10 |
| Dews, he had listened to gipsy Juliet | |
| Rail at the dawning. | |
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| How at Bankside, a boy drowning kittens | |
| Winced at the business; whereupon his sister— | |
| Lady Macbeth aged seven—thrust ’em under, | 15 |
| Sombrely scornful. | |
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| How on a Sabbath, hushed and compassionate— | |
| She being known since her birth to the townsfolk— | |
| Stratford dredged and delivered from Avon | |
| Dripping Ophelia. | 20 |
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| So, with a thin third finger marrying | |
| Drop to wine-drop domed on the table, | |
| Shakespeare opened his heart till the sunrise— | |
| Entered to hear him. | |
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| London wakened and he, imperturbable, | 25 |
| Passed from waking to hurry after shadows … | |
| Busied upon shows of no earthly importance? | |
| Yes, but he knew it! | | | | |
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