Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/312

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128
AN IMPERIAL RESCRIPT

They passed one resolution: "Your sub-committee believe
"You can lighten the curse of Adam when you've lightened the curse of Eve.
"But till we are built like angels—with hammer and chisel and pen,
"We'll work for ourself and a woman, for ever and ever. Amen."


Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser held—
The day that they razored the Grindstone, the day that the Cat was belled,
The day of the Figs from Thistles, the day of the Twisted Sands,
The day that the laugh of a maiden made light of the Lords of Their Hands.