Category Rudyard Kipling

This is the reason why Rustum Beg,Rajah of Kolazai,Drinketh the “simpkin” and brandy peg,Maketh the money to fly,Vexeth a Government, tender and kind,Also – but this is a detail – blind. Rustum Beg of Kolazai – slightly backward Native State…

This ditty is a string of lies. But — how the deuce did Gubbins rise ?    Potiphar Gubbins, C. E,   Stands at the top of the tree;And I muse in my bed on the reasons that led   To the…

Old is the song that I sing —Old as my unpaid bills —Old as the chicken that kitmutgars bringMen at dak-bungalows — old as the Hills.   Ahasuerus Jenkins of the “Operatic Own,”Was dowered with a tenor voice of super-Santley…

We are very slightly changedFrom the semi-apes who ranged India’s Prehistoric clay;He that drew the longest bowRan his brother down, you know, As we run men down to-tday. “Dowb,” the first of all his race,Met the Mammoth face to face…

There was a row in Silver Street that’s near to Dublin Quay,Between an Irish regiment an’ English cavalree;It started at Revelly an’ it lasted on till dark:The first man dropped at Harrison’s, the last forninst the Park.   For it was:…

Smokin my pipe on the mountings, sniffin’ the mornin’ cool,I walks in my old brown gaiters along o’ my old brown mule,With seventy gunners be’ind me, an’ never a beggar forgetsIt’s only the pick of the Army that handles the…

When the ‘arf-made recruity goes out to the East‘E acts like a babe an’ ‘e drinks like a beast,An’ ‘e wonders because ‘e is frequent deceased   Ere ‘e’s fit for to serve as a soldier.      Serve, serve, serve…

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ lazy at the sea,There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, and I know she thinks o’ me;For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:“Come you back, you British soldier; come you back…

You may talk o’ gin and beer    When you’re quartered safe out ’ere,    An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it; But when it comes to slaughter    You will do your work on water, An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots…

Troopin’, troopin’, troopin’ to the sea:‘Ere’s September come again — the six-year men are free.O leave the dead be’ind us, for they cannot come awayTo where the ship’s a-coalin’ up that takes us ‘ome to-day. We’re goin’ ‘ome, we’re goin’…