hi all, i am a new person looking for a lost poem. i was made to memorise and recite this poem about 38 years ago as a young boy in jamaica at my school prize-giving ceremony, i have never come across it since and i have only remembered a couple lines

" whats that that hurtles by my side?
the foe that you must fight my lord.
that rides as fast as i can ride?
the shadow of your might my lord."

Heriot's Ford by Rudyard Kipling


"What's that that hirples at my side?"
The foe that you must fight, my lord.
"That rides as fast as I can ride?"
The shadow of your might, my lord.

"Then wheel my horse against the foe!"
He's down and overpast, my lord.
You war against the sunset-glow,
The judgment follows fast, my lord!

"Oh who will stay the sun's descent?"
King Joshua he is dead, my lord.
"I need an hour to repent!"
'Tis what our sister said, my lord.

"Oh do not slay me in my sins!"
You're safe awhile with us, my lord.
"Nay, kill me ere my fear begins!"
We would not serve you thus, my lord.

"Where is the doom that I must face?"
Three little leagues away, my lord.
"Then mend the horses' laggard pace!"
We need them for next day, my lord.

"Next day -- next day! Unloose my cords!"
Our sister needed none, my lord.
You had no mind to face our swords,
And -- where can cowards run, my lord?

"You would not kill the soul alive?"
'Twas thus our sister cried, my lord.
"I dare not die with none to shrive."
But so our sister died, my lord.

"Then wipe the sweat from brow and cheek."
It runnels forth afresh, my lord.
"Uphold me -- for the flesh is weak."
You've finished with the Flesh, my lord!



hirples I imagine is Scots dialect for 'hurtles'

thanks much, i guess my teacher back then changed hirple to hurtle. do you have any idea of the event he was describing or was it just a poets fancy

It's an imitation of a border ballad. Hirple means to limp or hobble. The reference to "King Joshua" is to Joshua in the Bible holding up his arms and stopping the sun.
It's a deliberately obscure poem: some possibilities.
A nobleman has seduced and killed or driven to suicide the sister of the other characters in the dialogue and they take revenge. Dying unshriven, in popular belief, meant the soul went straight to to hell.
More complex, and more horrible, is the fact that some of the border ballads in dialogue form- Lizzie Wan, Sheath and Knife, for example- involve brother and sister incest and the man killing the woman, or fratricide- Edward and others. The ballad could be about brother-sister incest and the brother or brothers [does "our" and "we" refer to one speaker and a silent companion, or to both speakers in the dialogue?] of both taking revenge. The devil, according to legend, was lame, so the "lord's" hirpling companion could be the devil, come to take him to hell, with it all perhaps happening in his imagination, as in James Hogg's Justified Sinner. I don't know if Kipling had read that book, but he quotes Hogg's poetry elsewhere, so he could well have.



Post Edited (12-15-03 11:57)

The poem is enlarged from one of the chapter endings in "The light that failed". I don't have access to a copy of the book at the moment to see how the story and poem relate. I'll see if I can find it in the next few days. Unless Pam can help us.

Thanks Linda and all Allen for the feedback, i had picked up the King Joshua reference but was at a loss to figure out the rest of what was going on, i guess i will go on mulling it over until something definitive comes along, all i can say is that it resonates within me and the tone and the words make you think that something terrible is happening.

It's at the heading for Chapter 10- where Dick's blindness starts to return. A good site for Kipling text is this one. [whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au] />
I tend to think of the ballad as pretty straightforward- brothers getting revenge for the loss of their sister, and stretching it out to make the guilty man suffer more.

pam