Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads/The Explanation

by Rudyard Kipling

For other versions of this work, see The Explanation.

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THE EXPLANATION

Love and Death once ceased their strifeAt the Tavern of Man’s Life.Called for wine, and threw—alas!—Each his quiver on the grass.When the bout was o’er they foundMingled arrows strewed the ground.Hastily they gathered thenEach the loves and lives of men.Ah, the fateful dawn deceived!Mingled arrows each one sheaved;Death’s dread armoury was stored:With the shafts he most abhorred;Love’s light quiver groaned beneathVenom-headed darts of Death.

Thus it was they wrought our woeAt the Tavern long ago.Tell me, do our masters know,Loosing blindly as they fly,Old men love while young men die?