Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1011 page)

Then ‘ere’s to Bobs Bahadur — little Bobs, Bobs, Bobs,
Pocket-Wellin’ton ‘an
arder —
              Fightin’ Bobs, Bobs, Bobs!
This ain’t no bloomin’ ode,
But you’ve ‘elped the soldier’s load,
An’ for benefits bestowed,
              Bless yer, Bobs!

Boots

(
Infantry Columns)
We’re foot — slog — slog — slog — sloggin’ over Africa —
Foot — foot — foot — foot — sloggin’ over Africa —
(Boots — boots — boots — boots — movin’ up and down again!)
    There’s no discharge in the war!

Seven — six — eleven — five — nine-an’-twenty mile to-day —
Four — eleven — seventeen — thirty-two the day before —
(Boots — boots — boots — boots — movin’ up and down again!)
    There’s no discharge in the war!

Don’t — don’t — don’t — don’t — look at what’s in front of you.
(Boots — boots — boots — boots — movin’ up an’ down again);
Men — men — men — men — men go mad with watchin’ em,
    An’ there’s no discharge in the war!

Try — try — try — try — to think o’ something different —
Oh — my — God — keep — me from goin’ lunatic!
(Boots — boots — boots — boots — movin’ up an’ down again!)
    There’s no discharge in the war!

Count — count — count — count — the bullets in the bandoliers.
If — your — eyes — drop — they will get atop o’ you!
(Boots — boots — boots — boots — movin’ up and down again) —
    There’s no discharge in the war!

We — can — stick — out — ’unger, thirst, an’ weariness,
But — not — not — not — not the chronic sight of ‘em —
Boot — boots — boots — boots — movin’ up an’ down again,
    An’ there’s no discharge in the war!

‘Taint — so — bad — by — day because o’ company,
But night — brings — long — strings — o’ forty thousand million
Boots — boots — boots — boots — movin’ up an’ down again.
    There’s no discharge in the war!

I — ’ave — marched — six — weeks in ‘Ell an’ certify
It — is — not — fire — devils, dark, or anything,
But boots — boots — boots — boots — movin’ up an’ down again,
    An’ there’s no discharge in the war!

The Bother

Clough
 — The Muse Among the Motors (1900-1930)
Hastily Adam our driver swallowed a curse in the darkness —
Petrol nigh at end and something wrong with a sprocket
Made him speer for the nearest town, when lo!  at the crossways
Four blank letterless arms the virginal signpost extended.
“Look!” thundered Hugh the Radical. “This is the England we
      boast of —
Bland, white-bellied, obese, but utterly useless  for business.
They are repainting the signs and have left the job in the middle.
They are repainting  the  signs and traffic may stop till they’ve
      done it,
Which is to say: till the son-of-a-gun of a local contractor,
Having laboriously wiped out every name for
Probably thirty miles round, be minded to finish his labour!
Had not the fool the sense to paint out and paint in together?”

Thus, not seeing his speech belied his Radical Gospel
(Which is to paint out the earth and then write “Damn” on the
          shutter),
Hugh embroidered the theme imperially and stretched it
From some borough in Wales through our Australian possessions,
Making himself, reformer-wise,  a bit of  a nuisance
Till, with the help of Adam, we cast him out on the landscape.

A Boy Scouts’Patrol Song

               1913

These are
our
regulations —
  There’s just one law for the Scout
And the first and the last, and the present and the past,
  And the future and the perfect is “Look out!”
  I, thou and he, look out!
  We, ye and they, look out!
  Though you didn’t or you wouldn’t
  Or you hadn’t or you couldn’t;
  You jolly well
must
look out!

Look out, when you start for the day
  That your kit is packed to your mind;
There is no use going away
  With half of it left behind.
Look out that your laces are tight,
  And your boots are easy and stout,
Or you’ll end with a blister at night.
(Chorus) All
Patrols look out!

Look out for the birds of the air,
  Look out for the beasts of the field —
They’ll tell you how and where
  The other side’s concealed.
When the blackbird bolts from the copse,
  Or the cattle are staring about,
The wise commander stops
  And
(chorus)
All Patrols look out!

Look out when your front is clear,
  And you feel you are bound to win.
Look out for your flank and your rear —
  That’s where surprises begin.
For the rustle that isn’t a rat,
  For the splash that isn’t a trout,
For the boulder that may be a hat
(Chorus)
All Patrols look out!

For the innocent knee-high grass,
  For the ditch that never tells,
Look out!  Look out ere you pass —
  And look out for everything else!
A sign mis-read as you run
  May turn retreat to a rout —
For all things under the sun
(Chorus)
All Patrols look out!

Look out when your temper goes
  At the end of a losing game;
When your boots are too tight for your toes;
  And you answer and argue and blame.
It’s the hardest part of the Law,
  But it has to be learnt by the Scout —
For whining and shirking and “jaw”
(Chorus)
All Patrols look out!

The Braggart

Mat. Prior
 — The Muse Among the Motors (1900-1930)

          Petrolio, vaunting his Mercedes’ power,
          Vows she can cover eighty miles an hour.
          I tried the car of old and know she can.
          But dare he ever make her? Ask his man!

Bridge-Guard in the Karroo

               1901
 
“. . . and will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge.”
 District Orders-Lines of Communication, South African War.
Sudden the desert changes,
  The raw glare softens and clings,
Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges
  Stand up like the thrones of Kings —

Ramparts of slaughter and peril —
  Blazing, amazing, aglow —
‘Twixt the sky-line’s belting beryl
  And the wine-dark flats below.

Royal the pageant closes,
  Lit by the last of the sun —
Opal and ash-of-roses,
  Cinnamon, umber, and dun.

The twilight swallows the thicket,
  The starlight reveals the ridge.
The whistle shrills to the picket —
  We are changing guard on the bridge.

(Few, forgotten and lonely,
  Where the empty metals shine —
No, not combatants-only
  Details guarding the line.)

We slip through the broken panel
  Of fence by the ganger’s shed;
We drop to the waterless channel
  And the lean track overhead;

We stumble on refuse of rations,
  The beef and the biscuit-tins;
We take our appointed stations,
  And the endless night begins.

We hear the Hottentot herders
  As the sheep click past to the fold —
And the click of the restless girders
  As the steel contracts in the cold —

Voices of jackals calling
  And, loud in the hush between,
A morsel of dry earth falling
  From the flanks of the scarred ravine.

And the solemn firmament marches,
  And the hosts of heaven rise
Framed through the iron arches —
  Banded and barred by the ties,

Till we feel the far track humming,
  And we see her headlight plain,
And we gather and wait her coming —
  The wonderful north-bound train.

(Few, forgotten and lonely,
  Where the white car-windows shine —
No, not combatants-only
  Details guarding the line.)

Quick, ere the gift escape us!
  Out of the darkness we reach
For a handful of week-old papers
  And a mouthful of human speech.

And the monstrous heaven rejoices,
  And the earth allows again,
Meetings, greetings, and voices
  Of women talking with men.

So we return to our places,
  As out on the bridge she rolls;
And the darkness covers our faces,
  And the darkness re-enters our souls.

More than a little lonely
  Where the lessening tail-lights shine.
No - not combatants - only
  Details guarding the line!

A British-Roman Song

(A. D. 406)
“A Centurion of the Thirtieth” — Puck of Pook’s Hill
My father’s father saw it not,
  And I, belike, shall never come
To look on that so-holy spot —
              That very Rome —

Crowned by all Time, all Art, all Might,
  The equal work of Gods and Man,
City beneath whose oldest height —
               The Race began!

 Soon to send forth again a brood,
   Unshakable, we pray, that clings
 To Rome’s thrice-hammered hardihood —
              In arduous things.

 Strong heart with triple armour bound,
   Beat strongly, for thy life-blood runs,
 Age after Age, the Empire round —
              In us thy Sons

 Who, distant from the Seven Hills,
      Loving and serving much, require
 Thee —
thee
to guard ‘gainst home-born ills
             The  Imperial Fire!

The Broken Men

1902
For things we never mention,
  For Art misunderstood —
For excellent intention
  That did not turn to good;
From ancient tales’ renewing,
  From clouds we would not clear —
Beyond the Law’s pursuing
  We fled, and settled here.

We took no tearful leaving,
  We bade no long good-byes.
Men talked of crime and thieving,
  Men wrote of fraud and lies.
To save our injured feelings
  ‘Twas time and time to go —
Behind was dock and Dartmoor,
  Ahead lay Callao!

The widow and the orphan
  That pray for ten per cent,
They clapped their trailers on us
  To spy the road we went.
They watched the foreign sailings
  (They scan the shipping still),
And that’s your Christian people
  Returning good for ill!

God bless the thoughtful islands
  Where never warrants come;
God bless the just Republics
  That give a man a home,
That ask no foolish questions,
  But set him on his feet;
And save his wife and daughters
  From the workhouse and the street!

On church and square and market
  The noonday silence falls;
You’ll hear the drowsy mutter
  Of the fountain in our halls.
Asleep amid the yuccas
  The city takes her ease —
Till twilight brings the land-wind
  To the clicking jalousies.

Day long the diamond weather,
  The high, unaltered blue —
The smell of goats and incense
  And the mule-bells tinkling through.
Day long the warder ocean
  That keeps us from our kin,
And once a month our levee
  When the English mail comes in.

You’ll find us up and waiting
  To treat you at the bar;
You’ll find us less exclusive
  Than the average English are.
We’ll meet you with a carriage,
  Too glad to show you round,
But — we do not lunch on steamers,
  For they are English ground.

We sail o’ nights to England
  And join our smiling Boards —
Our wives go in with Viscounts
  And our daughters dance with Lords,
But behind our princely doings,
  And behind each coup we make,
We feel there’s Something Waiting,
  And — we meet It when we wake.

Ah, God! One sniff of England —
  To greet our flesh and blood —
To hear the traffic slurring
  Once more through London mud!
Our towns of wasted honour —
  Our streets of lost delight!
How stands the old Lord Warden?
  Are Dover’s cliffs still white?

Brookland Road

I was very well pleased with what I knowed,
I reckoned myself no fool —
Till I met with a maid on the Brookland Road,
That turned me back to school.             

 
Low down-low down!
  Where the liddle green lanterns shine —
  O maids, I’ve done with ‘ee all but one,
  And she can never be mine!

‘Twas right in the middest of a hot June night,
With thunder duntin’ round,
And I see her face by the fairy-light
That beats from off the ground.

She only smiled and she never spoke,
She smiled and went away;
But when she’d gone my heart was broke
 And my wits was clean astray.