Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936)
British author and poet, born in India.
When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre,
He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea;
An' what he thought 'e might require,
'E went an' took—the same as me!
Fiction is Truth's elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till some one had told a story.
It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world,
Which you can read and care for just so long,
But presently you feel that you will die
Unless you get the page you're readin' done,
An' turn another—likely not so good;
But what you're after is to turn 'em all.
I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you!
So when we take tea with a few guns, o' course you will know what to do—hoo! hoo!
Jest send in your Chief an' surrender it's worse if you fights or you runs:
You may hide in the caves, they'll be only your graves, but you can't get away from the guns!
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, border, nor breed, nor birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!
For the colonel's lady an' Judy O'Grady,
Are sisters under their skins.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss.
If I were damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine.
Back to the Army again, sergeant,
Back to the Army again:
Out o' the cold an' the rain, sergeant,
Out o' the cold an' the rain.
She read a little of it. I give her review verbatim:—"Oh, your book? It's all about those how-wid Wajahs. I didn't understand it."
Of all the trees that grow so fair,
Old England to adorn,
Greater are none beneath the Sun,
Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.
San Francisco is a mad city—inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people, whose women are of a remarkable beauty.
A scrimmage in a Border Station—
A canter down some dark defile—
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail—
The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!
'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor
With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead?
She 'as ships on the foam—she 'as millions at 'ome,
An' she pays us poor beggars in red.
To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
An' I learned about women from 'er.
The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool!
He did his best to interest the girl in himself—that is to say, his work—and she, after the manner of women, did her best to appear interested in, what behind his back, she called "Mr. Wressley's Wajahs"; for she lisped very prettily. She did not understand one little thing about them, but she acted as if she did. Men have married on that sort of error before now.
Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up and down again!
There's no discharge in the war!