The Years Between. Rudyard KiplingЧитать онлайн книгу.

      Likewise the Lords of Looseness

      That hamper faith and works,

      The Perseverance-Doubters,

      And Present-Comfort shirks,

      With brittle intellectuals

      Who crack beneath a strain —

      John Bunyan met that helpful set

      In Charles the Second's reign.

      Emmanuel's vanguard dying

      For right and not for rights,

      My Lord Apollyon lying

      To the State-kept Stockholmites,

      The Pope, the swithering Neutrals,

      The Kaiser and his Gott —

      Their rôles, their goals, their naked souls —

      He knew and drew the lot.

      Now he hath left his quarters,

      In Bunhill Fields to lie.

      The wisdom that he taught us

      Is proven prophecy —

      One watchword through our armies,

      One answer from our lands —

      'No dealings with Diabolus

      As long as Mansoul stands.

      A pedlar from a hovel,

      The lowest of the low,

      The father of the Novel,

      Salvation's first Defoe,

      Eight blinded generations

      Ere Armageddon came,

      He showed us how to meet it,

      And Bunyan was his name!