Rudyard Kipling asks for one day in England

For all his devotion to India and Empire, Rudyard Kipling might have been amazed at the devotion of international movies and television to these topics in recent years. For all his tales of derring-do that might now be called macho, he had a poet-of-nature side, too. Here, in ``In Springtime'' from almost exactly a century ago, he tells where his heart really lies. My garden blazes brightly with the rose-bush and the peach,

And the k"oil sings above it, in the siris by the well; From the creeper-covered trellis comes the squirrel's

chattering speech,

And the blue jay screams and flutters where the cheery

sat-bhai dwell. But the rose has lost its fragrance, and the k"oil's note

is strange;

I am sick of endless sunshine, sick of blossom-burdened

bough. Give me back the leafless woodlands where the winds of

Springtime range--

Give me back one day in England, for it's Spring in

England now!

Through the pines the gusts are booming, o'er the brown

fields blowing chill,

From the furrow of the ploughshare steams the

fragrance of the loam, And the hawk nests in the cliff-side and the jackdaw on

the hill,

And my heart is back in England 'mid the sights and

sounds of Home.

But the garland of the sacrifice this wealth of rose and

peach is;

Ah! k"oil, little k"oil, singing on the siris-bough, In my ears the knell of exile your ceaseless bell-like

speech is--

Can you tell me aught of England or of Spring in

England now?