Page:Rewards and Fairies (Kipling, 1910).djvu/143

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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'd 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.


Oh! Stop your ringing and let me be—
Let be, O Brookland bells!
You'll ring Old Goodman[1] out of the sea,
Before I wed one else!


  1. Earl Godwin of the Goodwin Sands?

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