Rudyard Kipling

This 'appened in a battle to a batt'ry of the corps

I'm 'ere in a ticky ulster an' a broken billycock 'at,

March! The mud is cakin' good about our trousies.

(In Memory of a Commission)

There was no one like 'im, 'Orse or Foot,

You call yourself a man,

As I was spittin' into the Ditch aboard o' the Crocodile,

The Liner she's a lady, an' she never looks nor 'eeds—

The men that fought at Minden, they was rookies in their time—

Lest you should think this story true

This is the reason why Rustum Beg,

Fair is our lot—O goodly is our heritage!

Where the sober-colored cultivator smiles

If the Led Striker call it a strike,

Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser decreed,

So long as 'neath the Kalka hills

Heh! Walk her round. Heave, ah heave her short again!

A great and glorious thing it is

Old is the song that I sing—

As I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of a comely

There was a row in Silver Street that's near to Dublin Quay,

"'As anybody seen Bill 'Awkins?"

If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai,

We've got the cholerer in camp—it's worse than forty fights;

“What are the bugles blowin' for?” said Files-on-Parade.

We have another viceroy now,—those days are dead and done

The Injian Ocean sets an' smiles

Kabul town's by Kabul river—

We've fought with many men acrost the seas,

We are very slightly changed

You may talk o' gin and beer

The earth is full of anger,

If you've ever stole a pheasant-egg be'ind the keeper's back,

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea,

Lord, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream,

The fear was on the cattle, for the gale was on the sea,

“Why is my District death-rate low?”

(Northern India Transport Train)

“They are fools who kiss and tell”—

I have eaten your bread and salt,

Walpole talks of “a man and his price.”

We're marchin' on relief over Injia's sunny plains,

When the Waters were dried an' the Earth did appear

Smokin' my pipe on the mountings,

Speakin' in general, I 'ave tried 'em all,

“Soldier, soldier come from the wars,

This ditty is a string of lies.

It got beyond all orders an' it got beyond all 'ope;

The 'eathen in 'is blindness bows down to wood an' stone;

This is the ballad of Boh Da Thone,

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall

That night, when through the mooring-chains

Seven men from all the world, back to Docks again,

It was our war-ship Clampherdown

When spring-time flushes the desert grass,

Abdhur Rahman, the Durani Chief,

“You must choose between me and your cigar.”

I was the staunchest of our fleet

Above the portico a flag-staff, bearing the Union Jack,

This fell when dinner-time was done—

Mine was the woman to me, darkling I found her;

Buy my English posies—

There's a widow in sleepy Chester

Through the Plagues of Egyp' we was chasin' Arabi,

"Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said;

I've taken my fun where I've found it;

O woe is me for the merry life

Thus said The Lord in the Vault above the Cherubim,

Twelve hundred million men are spread

The King has called for priest and cup,

Not many years ago a King died in one of the Rajpoot States. His wives,

Shun—shun the Bowl! That fatal, facile drink

I've paid for your sickest fancies; I've humoured your crackedest whim—

King Solomon drew merchantmen,

I sent a message to my dear—

Beneath the deep veranda's shade,

There was Rundle, Station Master,

We've drunk to the Queen—God bless her!—

In the name of the Empress of India, make way,

Though tangled and twisted the course of true love

This ballad appears to refer to one of the exploits of the notorious Paul

Away by the lands of the Japanee,

There dwells a wife by the Northern Gate,

'E was warned agin' 'er—

Sez the Junior Orderly Sergeant

You couldn't pack a Broadwood half a mile—

Once, on a glittering ice-field, ages and ages ago,

“Now there were two men in one city;

Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail.

“To-tschin-shu is condemned to death.

'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor

When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East

I have made for you a song,

The Cities are full of pride,

Thy face is far from this our war,

Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square,

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,

(Our Army in the East)

Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, pride of Bow Bazaar,

By the well, where the bullocks go

When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre,

When Earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried,