When I was a King and a Mason - a Master proven and skilled -
I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build.
I decreed and dug down to my levels. Presently, under the silt,
I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built.

There was no worth in the fashion - there was no wit in the plan -
Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran -
Masonry, brute, mishandled, but carven on every stone:
"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him, I too have known."

Swift to my use in my trenches, where my well-planned groundworks grew,
I tumbled his quoins and his ashlars, and cut and reset them anew.
Lime I milled of his marbles; burned it, slacked it, and spread;
Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead.

Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet, as we wrenched them apart,
I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder's heart.
As he had risen and pleaded, so did I understand
The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned.

* * * * * * *

When I was a King and a Mason - in the open noon of my pride,
They sent me a Word from the Darkness - They whispered and called me aside.
They said - "The end is forbidden." They said - "Thy use is fulfilled.
"Thy Palace shall stand as that other's - the spoil of a King who shall build."

I called my men from my trenches, my quarries, my wharves, and my sheers.
All I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faithless years.
Only I cut on the timber - only I carved on the stone:
After me cometh a Builder. Tell him, I too have known!
















I read this poem some time ago. I recalled the phrase "I too have known" and that it was by Kipling.

Google "i too have known kipling".

Fifth result:
http://skirret.com/papers/kipling/kipling-vogt.html

This article included the text of the poem. I used this text as my starting text.

The article included a source reference:
{ Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition, Doubleday and Company, Inc., New York, 1940, pp.383-384. }

I browsed to
http://archive.org
and searched for "kipling verse".

I chose one of the first few results.

Details:
{

Collected verse of Rudyard Kipling
by Kipling, Rudyard, 1865-1936

Publication date: 1907
Publisher: New York : Doubleday, Page & Co.
Collection: internetarchivebooks; americana
Digitizing sponsor: Internet Archive
Contributor: Internet Archive
Language: English

Stewart, J.M. Kipling

Bookplateleaf: 0010
Boxid: IA104521
Camera Canon: 5D
Donor: alibris
Identifier: collectedverseof00kipl
Identifier-ark: ark:/13960/t00z7rz74
Ocr: ABBYY FineReader 8.0
Page-progression: lr
Pages: 404
Ppi: 400
Scandate: 20091208164950
Scanner: scribe6.la.archive.org
Scanningcenter: la

}


Right-click "PDF" in the list of Download Option links and choose "Save Link As...".

Result:
collectedverseof00kipl.pdf

Size is about 15 MB.




Open collectedverseof00kipl.pdf in Preview.

Details from the first few pages:
- Collected Verse of Rudyard Kipling
- Garden City, New York
- Doubleday, Page & Company
- 1914

Read table of contents.

"The Palace" is listed as starting on page 257.

Go to page 257.

The poem is on pages 257-258.
- The Palace
- 1902

I'll treat this source as authoritative. Alter the starting text to match it as much as possible.

Rename file to
rudyard_kipling_collected_verse_of_rudyard_kipling_[1914,_doubleday].pdf
and store it in archives.



Changes from the original text:

- I have not preserved page divisions or page numbers.
- I have substituted a hyphen with a space either side of it ( - ) for the dash used in the original text.
- I have replaced double spaces after a period with a single space.
- In the original text, the double quotation marks were curled to indicate whether they were positioned at the start or end of a phrase / sentence / sentence_group. I have replaced them with straight quotation marks.
- I have replaced curled apostrophes with straight single quotation marks.
- I have treated indentation as indicating the continuation of a line.
- The title was originally entirely capitalised.
- The first letter "W" of the first word "When" was originally set in a much larger font size than the default.
- The last three letters "hen" of the first word "When" were originally all capitalised.
- "groundworks" was originally "ground-works". The hyphen occurred at the page border, so I don't think it was used deliberately.
- The seven asterisks (* * * * * * *) were originally spaced much farther apart and were centred on the middle of the page.



Note:
- The semicolon in "spread;" had faded to become two dots, but by the irregular position of the two dots I could see that it was originally a semicolon, not a colon.