from dark defile to gethsemane But all the time she talked to me
Iprayed my cup might pass.
The officer sat on the chair,
The men lay on the grass,
And all the time we halted there
I prayed my cup might pass.
It didn’t pass—it didn’t pass—
It didn’t pass from me.
I drank it when we met the gas
Beyond Gethsemane!Beyond Gethsemane lies Calvary. He is English, this soldier-Christ; but no man,
and no nation, claims exclusivity in the Crucifixion. Kipling’s art reaches beyond
its author’s grasp, implying the fellowship his hating soul repudiated. This greatest
of all Kipling’s poems of the War casts a German, because a human, shadow.