A Poem For Rudyard Poem by Paul Reed

'If I have given you delight

By aught that I have done,

Let me lie quiet in that night

Which shall be yours anon'



Can I write something as deep as Kipling?

Can I write something Kiplingesque?

With his Indian 'cockney' rippling

Like waves over his writing desk;



My work puny by comparison

A single-nibbed scrawl destined to fail

A single soldier against a mighty garrison

A bobbing sailboat towered over from waterline to rail;



But I still have so much to say

Even in just my own simple sense

Not wanting to enter a glorious affray

Just in my own defence;



Perhaps for that little, little span of time

That Kipling described so well

My sparse and sparing rhyme

Might have a story to tell.