How do we know, by the bank-high river, <br />Where the mired and sulky oxen wait, <br />And it looks as though we might wait for ever, <br />How do we know that the floods abate? <br />There is no change in the current's brawling-- <br />Louder and harsher the freshet scolds; <br />Yet we can feel she is falling, falling <br />And the more she threatens the less she holds, <br />Down to the drift, with no word spoken, <br />The wheel-chained wagons slither and slue.... <br />Achtung! The back of the worst is broken! <br />And--lash your leaders!--we're through--we're through! <br /> <br />How do we know, when the port-fog holds us <br />Moored and helpless, a mile from the pier, <br />And the week-long summer smother enfolds us-- <br />How do we know it is going to clear? <br />There is no break in the blindfold weather, <br />But, one and another, about the bay, <br />The unseen capstans clink together, <br />Getting ready to up and away. <br />A pennon whimpers--the breeze has found us-- <br />A headsail jumps through the thinning haze. <br />The whole hull follows, till--broad around us-- <br />The clean-swept ocean says: "Go your ways!" <br /> <br />How do we know, when the long fight rages, <br />On the old, stale front that we cannot shake, <br />And it looks as though we were locked for ages, <br />How do we know they are going to break? <br />There is no lull in the level firing, <br />Nothing has shifted except the sun. <br />Yet we can feel they are tiring, tiring-- <br />Yet we can tell they are ripe to run. <br />Something wavers, and, while we wonder, <br />Their centre-trenches are emptying out, <br />And, before their useless flanks go under, <br />Our guns have pounded retreat to rout!<br /><br />Rudyard Kipling<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-last-lap/
