Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
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 ****** 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!
|
Written by
Marriott Edgar |
When Joe Dove took his elephants out on the road
He made each one hold fast with his trunk
To the tail of the elephant walking in front
To stop them from doing a bunk.
There were fifteen in all, so 'twere rather a job
To get them linked up in a row,
But once he had fixed 'em Joe knew they'd hold on,
For an elephant never lets go.
The pace it was set by the big 'uns in front,
'Twas surprising how fast they could stride,
And poor little Aggie, the one at the back...
Had to run till she very near died.
They were walking one Sunday from Blackpool to Crewe,
They'd started at break of the day,
Joe followed behind with a bagful of buns
In case they got hungry on t'way.
They travelled along at a rattling good pace
Over moorland and valley and plain,
And poor little Aggie the one at the back
Her trunk fairly creaked with the strain.
They came to a place where the railway crossed road,
An ungated crossing it were,
And they wasn't to know as the express was due
At the moment that they landed there.
They was half way across when Joe saw the express-
It came tearing along up the track-
He tried hard to stop, but it wasn't much good,
For an elephant never turns back.
He saw if he didn't do something at once
The train looked like spoiling his troupe,
So he ran on ahead and he waggled tho buns
To show them they'd best hurry up
When they caught sight of buns they all started to run,
And they soon got across at this gait,
Except poor little Aggie-the one at the back,
She were one second too late.
The express came dashing along at full speed,
And caught her end on, fair and square
She bounced off the buffers, turned head over heels,
And lay with her legs in the air.
Joe thought she were dead when he saw her lyin' there,
With the back of her head on the line
He knelt by her side, put his ear to her chest,
And told her to say " ninety-nine."
She waggled her tail and she twiggled her trunk ;
To show him as she were alive;
She hadn't the strength for to say "ninety-nine,"
She just managed a weak "eighty-five."
When driver of th' engine got down from his cab
Joe said "Here's a nice howdedo,
To see fifteen elephants ruined for life
By a clumsy great driver like you."
Said the driver, "There's no need to mak' all this fuss,
There's only one hit as I've seen."
Joe said, "Aye, that's right, but they held on so tight
You've pulled back end off t' other fourteen."
Joe still walks around with his elephant troupe,
He got them patched up at the vet's,
But Aggie won't walk at the back any more,
'Cos an elephant never forgets.
|