The Works of Rudyard Kipling: One Volume Edition

THE LAST DEPARTMENT

   Twelve hundred million men are spread
    About this Earth, and I and You
   Wonder, when You and I are dead,
    “What will those luckless millions do?”

   None whole or clean, we cry, “or free from stain
   Of favour.” Wait awhile, till we attain
     The Last Department where nor fraud nor fools,
   Nor grade nor greed, shall trouble us again.

   Fear, Favour, or Affection—what are these
   To the grim Head who claims our services?
     I never knew a wife or interest yet
   Delay that pukka step, miscalled “decease”;

   When leave, long overdue, none can deny;
   When idleness of all Eternity
     Becomes our furlough, and the marigold
   Our thriftless, bullion-minting Treasury

   Transferred to the Eternal Settlement,
   Each in his strait, wood-scantled office pent,
     No longer Brown reverses Smith's appeals,
   Or Jones records his Minute of Dissent.

   And One, long since a pillar of the Court,
   As mud between the beams thereof is wrought;
     And One who wrote on phosphates for the crops
   Is subject-matter of his own Report.

   These be the glorious ends whereto we pass—
   Let Him who Is, go call on Him who Was;
     And He shall see the mallie steals the slab
   For currie-grinder, and for goats the grass.

   A breath of wind, a Border bullet's flight,
   A draught of water, or a horse's fright—
     The droning of the fat Sheristadar
   Ceases, the punkah stops, and falls the night

   For you or Me. Do those who live decline
   The step that offers, or their work resign?
     Trust me, Today's Most Indispensables,
   Five hundred men can take your place or mine.