| Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922. | | | | The Necessitarian |
| | | I KNOW not in Whose hands are laid | |
| To empty upon earth | |
| From unsuspected ambuscade | |
| The very Urns of Mirth; | |
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| Who bids the Heavenly Lark arise | 5 |
| And cheer our solemn round— | |
| The Jest beheld with streaming eyes | |
| And grovellings on the ground; | |
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| Who joins the flats of Time and Chance | |
| Behind the prey preferred, | 10 |
| And thrones on Shrieking Circumstance | |
| The Sacredly Absurd, | |
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| Till Laughter, voiceless through excess, | |
| Waves mute appeal and sore, | |
| Above the midriff’s deep distress, | 15 |
| For breath to laugh once more. | |
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| No creed hath dared to hail Him Lord, | |
| No raptured choirs proclaim, | |
| And Nature’s strenuous Overword | |
| Hath nowhere breathed His Name. | 20 |
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| Yet, it must be, on wayside jape, | |
| The selfsame Power bestows | |
| The selfsame power as went to shape | |
| His Planet or His Rose. | | | | |
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