Cool green almond and watercress soup

For the heavens are red hot iron and the earth is burning brass,

And the river glares in the sun like a torrent of molten glass,

And the quivering heat haze rises, the pitiless sunlight glows

Till my cart reins blister my fingers as my spectacles blisters my nose.

Rudyard Kipling, “Dear Auntie, Your Parboiled Nephew,” verse-letter to Edith Macdonald, 12 June 1883, Karly Verse by Rudyard Kipling