Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936)
British author and poet, born in India.
‘There is none like to me !' says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill;
But the jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still.
* For heathen heart that puts her trust
in reeking tube and iron shard,
all valiant dust that builds on dust
and guarding calls not thee to guard
for frantic boast and foolish word
thy mercy on thy people lord!
She has no strong white arms to fold you,
But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you—
Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.
We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa—aa—aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!
And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!
When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck,
Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck,
Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck
And march to your front like a soldier.
Front, front, front like a soldier...
'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolouse—soldier an' sailor too.
Call a truce, then, to our labours let us feast with friends and neighbours,
And be merry as the custom of our caste;
For if “faint and forced the laughter,” and if sadness follow after,
We are richer by one mocking Christmas past.
Everyone is more or less mad on one point.
Boots—boots—boots—boots—movin' up and down again!
There's no discharge in the war!
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.
The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool!
'E's all 'ot sand an' ginger when alive
An' 'e's generally shammin' when 'e's dead.
'Take your friend away. He has done with Hanuman, but Hanuman has not done with him.'
A fool there was and he made his prayer
(Even as you and I!)
To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair
We called her the woman who did not care),
But the fool he called her his lady fair
(Even as you and I!)
There rise her timeless capitals of Empires daily born,
Whose plinths are laid at midnight, and whose streets are packed at morn;
And here come hired youths and maids that feign to love or sin
In tones like rusty razor-blades to tunes like smitten tin.
I've taken my fun where I've found it;
I've rogued an' I've ranged in my time;
I've 'ad my pickin' o' sweet'earts,
An' four o' the lot was prime.
One was an 'arf-caste widow,
One was a woman at Prome,
One was the wife of a jemadar-sais,
An' one is a girl at 'ome.
More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies.
So I'll meet 'im later on
At the place where 'e is gone—
Where it's always double drill and no canteen.
'E'll be squattin' on the coals
Givin' drink to poor damned souls,
An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
Yes, Din! Din! Din!
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I've belted you and flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.