Twelve hundred million men are spread <br />About this Earth, and I and You <br />Wonder, when You and I are dead, <br />"What will those luckless millions do?" <br /> <br />None whole or clean, " we cry, "or free from stain <br />Of favour." Wait awhile, till we attain <br />The Last Department where nor fraud nor fools, <br />Nor grade nor greed, shall trouble us again. <br /> <br />Fear, Favour, or Affection -- what are these <br />To the grim Head who claims our services? <br />I never knew a wife or interest yet <br />Delay that pukka step, miscalled "decease"; <br /> <br />When leave, long overdue, none can deny; <br />When idleness of all Eternity <br />Becomes our furlough, and the marigold <br />Our thriftless, bullion-minting Treasury <br /> <br />Transferred to the Eternal Settlement, <br />Each in his strait, wood-scantled office pent, <br />No longer Brown reverses Smith's appeals, <br />Or Jones records his Minute of Dissent. <br /> <br />And One, long since a pillar of the Court, <br />As mud between the beams thereof is wrought; <br />And One who wrote on phosphates for the crops <br />Is subject-matter of his own Report. <br /> <br />These be the glorious ends whereto we pass -- <br />Let Him who Is, go call on Him who Was; <br />And He shall see the mallie steals the slab <br />For currie-grinder, and for goats the grass. <br /> <br />A breath of wind, a Border bullet's flight, <br />A draught of water, or a horse's firght -- <br />The droning of the fat Sheristadar <br />Ceases, the punkah stops, and falls the night <br /> <br />For you or Me. Do those who live decline <br />The step that offers, or their work resign? <br />Trust me, To-day's Most Indispensables, <br />Five hundred men can take your place or mine.<br /><br />Rudyard Kipling<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-last-department/
