The Ladies
I’ve taken my fun where I’ve found it;
I’ve rouged an’ I’ve ranged in my time;
I’ve ‘ad my pickin’ o’ seethearts,
An’ four o’ the lot was prime.
One was an ‘arf-caste widow,
One was awoman at Prome,
One was the wife of a jemadar-sais
An’ one is a girl at ‘ome.
Now I aren’t no ‘and with the ladies,
For, takin’ ‘em all along,
You never can say till you’ve tried ‘em,
An’ then you are like to be wrong.
There’s times when you’ll think that you mightn’t,
There’s times when you’ll know that you might;
But the things you will learn from the Yellow an’ Brown,
They’ll ‘elp you a lot with the White!
I was a young un at ‘Oogli,
Shy as a girl to begin;
Aggie de Castrer she made me,
An’ Aggie was clever as sin;
Older than me, but my first un —
More like a mother she were —
Showed me the way to promotion an’ pay,
An’ I learned about women from ‘er!
Then I was ordered to Burma,
Actin’ in charge o’ Bazar,
An’ I got me a tiddy live ‘eathen
Through buyin’ supplies off ‘er pa.
Funny an’ yellow an’ faithful —
Doll in a teacup she were —
But we lived on the square, like a true-married pair,
An’ I learned about women from ‘er!
Then we was shifted to Neemuch
(Or I might ha’ been keepin’ ‘er now),
An’ I took with a shiny she-devil,
The wife of a nigger at Mhow;
‘Taught me the gipsy-folks’ bolee;
Kind o’ volcano she were,
For she knifed me one night ‘cause I wished she was white,
And I learned about women from ‘er!
Then I come ‘ome in a trooper,
‘Long of a kid o’ sixteen —
‘Girl from a convent at Meerut,
The straightest I ever ‘ave seen.
Love at first sight was ‘er trouble,
She didn’t know what it were;
An’ I wouldn’t do such, ‘cause I liked ‘er too much,
But — I learned about women from ‘er!
I’ve taken my fun where I’ve found it,
An’ now I must pay for my fun,
For the more you ‘ave known o’ the others
The less will you settle to one;
An’ the end of it’s sittin’ and thinking’,
An’ dreamin’ Hell-fires to see;
So be warned by my lot (which I know you will not),
An’ learn about women from me!
What did the Colonel’s Lady think?
Nobody never knew.
Somebody asked the Sergeant’s Wife,
An’ she told ‘em true!
When you get to a man in the case,
They’re like as a row of pins —
For the Colonel’s Lady an’ Judy O’Grady
Are sisters under their skins!
Lady Geraldine’s Hardship
E.B. Browning
— The Muse Among the Motors (1900-1930)
I turned — Heaven knows we women turn too much
To broken reeds, mistaken so for pine
That shame forbids confession — a handle I turned
(The wrong one, said the agent afterwards)
And so flung clean across your English street
Through the shrill-tinkling glass of the shop-front-paused,
Artemis mazed ‘mid gauds to catch a man,
And piteous baby-caps and christening-gowns,
The worse for being worn on the radiator.
. . . . . . .
My cousin Romney judged me from the bench:
Propounding one sleek forty-shillinged law
That takes no count of the Woman’s oversoul.
I should have entered, purred he, by the door —
The man’s retort — the open obvious door —
And since I chose not, he — not he — could change
The man’s rule, not the Woman’s, for the case.
Ten pounds or seven days... Just that... I paid!
The Lament of the Border Cattle Thief
O woe is me for the merry life
I led beyond the Bar,
And a treble woe for my winsome wife
That weeps at Shalimar.
They have taken away my long jezail,
My shield and sabre fine,
And heaved me into the Central jail
For lifting of the kine.
The steer may low within the byre,
The Jat may tend his grain,
But there’ll be neither loot nor fire
Till I come back again.
And God have mercy on the Jat
When once my fetters fall,
And Heaven defend the farmer’s hut
When I am loosed from thrall.
It’s woe to bend the stubborn back
Above the grinching quern,
It’s woe to hear the leg-bar clack
And jingle when I turn!
But for the sorrow and the shame,
The brand on me and mine,
I’ll pay you back in leaping flame
And loss of the butchered kine.
For every cow I spared before
In charity set free,
If I may reach my hold once more
I’ll reive an honest three.
For every time I raised the low
That scared the dusty plain,
By sword and cord, by torch and tow
I’ll light the land with twain!
Ride hard, ride hard to Abazai,
Young Sahib with the yellow hair —
Lie close, lie close as khuttucks lie,
Fat herds below Bonair!
The one I’ll shoot at twilight-tide,
At dawn I’ll drive the other;
The black shall mourn for hoof and hide,
The white man for his brother.
‘Tis war, red war, I’ll give you then,
War till my sinews fail;
For the wrong you have done to a chief of men,
And a thief of the Zukka Kheyl.
And if I fall to your hand afresh
I give you leave for the sin,
That you cram my throat with the foul pig’s flesh,
And swing me in the skin!
The Land
“Friendly book” — A Diversity of Creatures
When Julius Fabricius, Sub-Prefect of the Weald,
In the days of Diocletian owned our Lower River-field,
He called to him Hobdenius-a Briton of the Clay,
Saying: “What about that River-piece for layin’’ in to hay?”
And the aged Hobden answered: “I remember as a lad
My father told your father that she wanted dreenin’ bad.
An’ the more that you neeglect her the less you’ll get her clean.
Have it jest as you’ve a mind to, but, if I was you, I’d dreen.”
So they drained it long and crossways in the lavish Roman style —
Still we find among the river-drift their flakes of ancient tile,
And in drouthy middle August, when the bones of meadows
show,
We can trace the lines they followed sixteen hundred years ago.
Then Julius Fabricius died as even Prefects do,
And after certain centuries, Imperial Rome died too.
Then did robbers enter Britain from across the Northern main
And our Lower River-field was won by Ogier the Dane.
Well could Ogier work his war-boat — well could Ogier wield his
brand —
&
nbsp; Much he knew of foaming waters — not so much of farming land.
So he called to him a Hobden of the old unaltered blood,
Saying: “What about that River-piece; she doesn’t look no good?”
And that aged Hobden answered “‘Tain’t for me not interfere.
But I’ve known that bit o’ meadow now for five and fifty year.
Have it jest as you’ve a mind to, but I’ve proved it time on ‘ time,
If you want to change her nature you have got to give her lime!”
Ogier sent his wains to Lewes, twenty hours’ solemn walk,
And drew back great abundance of the cool, grey, healing chalk.
And old Hobden spread it broadcast, never heeding what was
in’t. —
Which is why in cleaning ditches, now and then we find a flint.
Ogier died. His sons grew English-Anglo-Saxon was their name —
Till out of blossomed Normandy another pirate came;
For Duke William conquered England and divided with his men,
And our Lower River-field he gave to William of Warenne.
But the Brook (you know her habit) rose one rainy autumn night
And tore down sodden flitches of the bank to left and right.
So, said William to his Bailiff as they rode their dripping rounds:
“Hob, what about that River-bit — the Brook’s got up no bounds? “
And that aged Hobden answered: “‘Tain’t my business to advise,
But ye might ha’ known ‘twould happen from the way the valley
lies.
Where ye can’t hold back the water you must try and save the
sile.
Hev it jest as you’ve a mind to, but, if I was you, I’d spile!”
They spiled along the water-course with trunks of willow-trees,
And planks of elms behind ‘em and immortal oaken knees.
And when the spates of Autumn whirl the gravel-beds away
You can see their faithful fragments, iron-hard in iron clay.
. . . . . . . . . .
Georgii Quinti Anno Sexto, I, who own the River-field,
Am fortified with title-deeds, attested, signed and sealed,
Guaranteeing me, my assigns, my executors and heirs
All sorts of powers and profits which-are neither mine nor theirs,
I have rights of chase and warren, as my dignity requires.
I can fish-but Hobden tickles — I can shoot — but Hobden wires.
I repair, but he reopens, certain gaps which, men allege,
Have been used by every Hobden since a Hobden swapped a
hedge.
Shall I dog his morning progress o’er the track-betraying dew?
Demand his dinner-basket into which my pheasant flew?
Confiscate his evening faggot under which my conies ran,
And summons him to judgment? I would sooner summons Pan.
His dead are in the churchyard — thirty generations laid.
Their names were old in history when Domesday Book was made;
And the passion and the piety and prowess of his line
Have seeded, rooted, fruited in some land the Law calls mine.
Not for any beast that burrows, not for any bird that flies,
Would I lose his large sound council, miss his keen amending
eyes.
He is bailiff, woodman, wheelwright, field-surveyor, engineer,
And if flagrantly a poacher — ’tain’t for me to interfere.
“Hob, what about that River-bit?” I turn to him again,
With Fabricius and Ogier and William of Warenne.
“Hev it jest as you’ve a mind to, but”-and here he takes com-
mand.
For whoever pays the taxes old Mus’ Hobden owns the land.
The Landau
Praed
— The Muse Among the Motors (1900-1930)
There was a landau deep and wide,
Cushioned for Sleep’s own self to sit on —
The glory of the country-side
From Tanner’s End to Marlow Ditton.
John of the broad and brandied cheek
(Well I recall its eau-de-vie hues! )
Drove staid Sir Ralph five days a week
At speeds which we considered Jehu’s....
But now’ poor John sleeps very sound,
And neither hears nor smells the fuss
Of the young Squire’s nine-hundred-pound —
Er-Mors communis omnibus.
And I who in my daily stroll
Observe the reckless chauffeur crowd her,
Laudator temporis, extol
The times before the Act allowed her.
The Last Chantey
“And there was no more sea.”
Thus said The Lord in the Vault above the Cherubim
Calling to the Angels and the Souls in their degree:
“Lo! Earth has passed away
On the smoke of Judgment Day.
That Our word may be established shall We gather up the sea?”
Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners:
“Plague upon the hurricane that made us furl and flee!
But the war is done between us,
In the deep the Lord hath seen us —
Our bones we’ll leave the barracout’, and God may sink the sea!”
Then said the soul of Judas that betray]ed Him:
“Lord, hast Thou forgotten Thy covenant with me?
How once a year I go
To cool me on the floe?
And Ye take my day of mercy if Ye take away the sea!”
Then said the soul of the Angel of the Off-shore Wind:
(He that bits the thunder when the bull-mouthed breakers flee):
“I have watch and ward to keep
O’er Thy wonders on the deep,
And Ye take mine honour from me if Ye take away the sea!”
Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners:
“Nay, but we were angry, and a hasty folk are we!
If we worked the ship together
Till she foundered in foul weather,
Are we babes that we should clamour for a vengeance on the sea?”
Then said the souls of the slaves that men threw overboard:
“Kennelled in the picaroon a weary band were we;
But Thy arm was strong to save,
And it touched us on the wave,
And we drowsed the long tides idle till Thy Trumpets tore the sea.”
Then cried the soul of the stout Apostle Paul to God:
“Once we frapped a ship, and she laboured woundily.
There were fourteen score of these,
And they blessed Thee on their knees,
When they learned Thy Grace and Glory under Malta by the sea!”
Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners,
Plucking at their harps, and they plucked unhandily:
“Our thumbs are rough and tarred,
And the tune is something hard —
May we lift a Deep-sea Chantey such as seamen use at sea?”
Then said the souls of the gentlemen-adventurers —
Fettered wrist to bar all for red iniquity:
“Ho, we revel in our chains
O’er the sorrow that was Spain’s;
Heave or sink it, leave or drink it, we were masters of the sea!”
Up spake the soul of a gray Gothavn ‘speckshioner —
(He that led the flinching in the fleets of fair Dundee):
“Oh, the ice-blink white and near,
And the bowhead breaching clear!
Will Ye whelm them all for wantonness that wallow in the sea?”
Loud sang the souls of the jolly, jolly mariners,
Crying: “Under Heaven, here is neither lead nor lee!
Must we sing for evermore
On the windless, glassy floor?
Take back your golden
fiddles and we’ll beat to open sea!”
Then stooped the Lord, and He called the good sea up to Him,
And ‘stablished his borders unto all eternity,
That such as have no pleasure
For to praise the Lord by measure,
They may enter into galleons and serve Him on the sea.
Sun, wind, and cloud shall fail not from the face of it,
Stinging, ringing spindrift, nor the fulmar flying free;
And the ships shall go abroad
To the Glory of the Lord
Who heard the silly sailor-folk and gave them back their sea!
The Last Department
Twelve hundred million men are spread
About this Earth, and I and You
Wonder, when You and I are dead,
“What will those luckless millions do?”
None whole or clean, “ we cry, “or free from stain
Of favour.” Wait awhile, till we attain
The Last Department where nor fraud nor fools,
Nor grade nor greed, shall trouble us again.
Fear, Favour, or Affection — what are these
To the grim Head who claims our services?
I never knew a wife or interest yet
Delay that pukka step, miscalled “decease”;
When leave, long overdue, none can deny;
When idleness of all Eternity
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 779