Before A Midnight Breaks in Storm [Kipling Poem set to music]
Channel: tobydarling
Date: 2013-07-31

Kipling published this poem in 1903. I have set it to music.

"Before a Midnight Breaks in Storm"
        
Intro: Fmaj7 C x4      [Fmaj7 = xx3555]

Fmaj7                   C
Before a midnight breaks in storm,
  Fmaj7                   C
Or herded sea in wrath,         
Fmaj7                   C
Ye know what wavering gusts inform 
Dm7                          G 
The greater tempest's path;
Dm7                               G
Till the loosed wind  Drive all from mind,
             C                                  Fmaj7
Except Distress, which, so will prophets cry,    
C                       Fmaj7                   G           Fmaj7
O'ercame them, houseless, from the unhinting sky.

Ere rivers league against the land              
In piratry of flood,                                 
Ye know what waters steal and stand
Where seldom water stood.                  
   Yet who will note,                        
   Till fields afloat,                              
And washen carcass and the returning well,
Trumpet what these poor heralds strove to tell?                                                 

Dm                               G
Ye know who use the Crystal Ball    
                      C              F            
  (To peer by stealth on Doom),          
Dm                               G
The Shade that, shaping first of all,        
                   Am
Prepares an empty room.                
Dm                  G    
Then doth It pass                     
             C                 F
    Like breath from glass,
F                               G                     Am
But, on the extorted Vision bowed intent, 
G                 F                   C
No man considers why It came or went.
                                    
Before the years reborn behold            
  Themselves with stranger eye,   
And the sport-making Gods of old,
  Like Samson slaying, die,                         
    Many shall hear                 
    The all-pregnant sphere,                        
Bow to the birth and sweat, but--speech denied-- 
Sit dumb or--dealt in part--fall weak and wide.     
                                                     
Yet instant to fore-shadowed need
  The eternal balance swings;
That winged men, the Fates may breed
  So soon as Fate hath wings.
    These shall possess
    Our littleness,
And in the imperial task (as worthy) lay
Up our lives' all to piece one giant Day.

Outro: Fmaj7 C x3  G C
      

The video was shot on the Isle of Wight ferry around midnight with a full moon.