Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/72

This page has been validated.
58
LA NUIT BLANCHE

That was lapping just below me,
Smooth as silver, white as snow,
And it took three men to throw me
When I found I could not go.


Half the night I watched the Heavens
Fizz like '81 champagne—
Fly to sixes and to sevens,
Wheel and thunder back again;
And when all was peace and order
Save one planet nailed askew,
Much I wept because my warden
Would not let me set it true.


After frenzied hours of waiting,
When the Earth and Skies were dumb,
Pealed an awful voice dictating
An interminable sum,
Changing to a tangled story—
"What she said you said I said—"
Till the Moon arose in glory,
And I found her ... in my head;