Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads

by Rudyard Kipling

For works with similar titles, see Barrack-Room Ballads and Departmental Ditties.

Departmental Ditties
and Ballads and Bar-
rack Room Ballads

By Rudyard Kipling

Garden City  New York
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1919

Ballads and Barrack Room Ballads

Copyright, 1892,

By MACMILLAN AND CO.

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New Edition, with Additional Poems

Copyright, 1893,

By MACMILLAN AND CO.

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Copyright, 1899,

By RUDYARD KIPLING

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Departmental Ditties and Other Poems,

Revised, April, 1899.

Copyright, 1899,

By RUDYARD KIPLING

CONTENTS

DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES
	PAGE
General Summary	3
Army Headquarters	5
Study of an Elevation, in Indian Ink	8
Delilah	10
A Legend of the Foreign Office	14
The Story of Uriah	17
The Post that Fitted	19
A Code of Morals	22
Public Waste	26
What Happened	29
The Man Who Could Write	32
Pink Dominoes	35
Municipal	38
The Last Department	41
OTHER VERSES
My Rival	45
To the Unknown Goddess	48
The Rupaiyat of Omar Kal'vin	50
Pagett, M. P.	53
La Nuit Blanche	56
The Lovers' Litany	61
A Ballad of Burial	63
The Overland Mail	66
Divided Destinies	68
The Masque of Plenty	71
The Mare's Nest	78
The Ballad of Fisher's Boarding-house	81
Possibilities	86
Arithmetic on the Frontier	89
The Song of the Women	91
The Betrothed	94
A Ballade of Jakko Hill	99
The Plea of the Simla Dancers	101
"As the Bell Clinks"	104
Christmas in India	108
The Grave of the Hundred Head	111
An Old Song	116
Certain Maxims of Hafiz	120
The Moon of Other Days	126
The Fall of Jock Gillespie	128
What the People Said	131
The Undertaker's Horse	134
One Viceroy Resigns	137
The Galley-slave	146
A Tale of Two Cities	151
In Springtime	155
Giffen's Debt	157
Two Months. In June	160
Two Months. In September	161
L'envoi	162
BALLADS
The Ballad of East and West	3
The Last Suttee	12
The Ballad of the King's Mercy	18
The Ballad of the King's Jest	25
With Scindia to Delhi	31
The Ballad of Boh Da Thone	40
The Lament of the Border Cattle Thief	53
The Rhyme of the Three Captains	56
The Ballad of the "Clampherdown"	64
The Ballad of the "Bolivar"	69
The Lost Legion	74
The Sacrifice of Er-Heb	77
The Dove of Dacca	88
The Explanation	90
An Answer	91
The Gift of the Sea	92
Evarra and His Gods	96
The Conundrum of the Workshops	100
In the Neolithic Age	104
The Legend of Evil	107
The English Flag	111
"Cleared"	117
An Imperial Rescript	125
Tomlinson	129
BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS
Danny Deever	143
Tommy	146
"Fuzzy-Wuzzy"	150
Soldier, Soldier	153
Screw-Guns	156
Cells	160
Gunga Din	163
Oonts!	167
Loot	171
"Snarleyow"	175
The Widow at Windsor	179
Belts	182
The Young British Soldier	186
Mandalay	190
Troopin'	194
The Widow's Party	197
Ford o' Kabul River	200
Gentlemen-Rankers	203
Route Marchin'	206
Shillin' a Day	210
L'envoi	212

PRELUDE

I have eaten your bread and salt,

⁠I have drunk your water and wine;

The deaths ye died I have watched beside,

⁠And the lives that ye led were mine.

Was there aught that I did not share

⁠In vigil or toil or ease,—

One joy or woe that I did not know,

⁠Dear hearts across the seas?

I have written the tale of our life

⁠For a sheltered people's mirth,

In jesting guise—but ye are wise,

⁠And ye know what the jest is worth.

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BALLADS

AND

BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS

To

WOLCOTT BALESTIER

Beyond the path of the outmost sun, through utter darkness hurled,
Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled,
Sit such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our world.

They are purged of pride because they died; they know the worth of their bays;
They sit at wine with the Maidens Nine, and the Gods of the Elder Days—
It is their will to serve or be still as fitteth our Father's praise.

'Tis theirs to sweep through the ringing deep where Azrael's outposts are,
Or buffet a path through the Pit's red wrath when God goes out to war,
Or hang with the reckless Seraphim on the rein of a redmaned star.

They take their mirth in the joy of the earth—they dare not grieve for her pain—
For they know of toil and the end of toil—they know God's Law is plain;
So they whistle the Devil to make them sport who know that sin is vain.

And ofttimes cometh our wise Lord God, master of every trade,
And tells them tales of the Seventh Day—of Edens newly made,
And they rise to their feet as He passes by—gentlemen unafraid.

To these who are cleansed of base Desire, Sorrow and Lust and Shame—
Gods, for they knew the heart of Men—men, for they stooped to Fame—
Some on the breath that men call Death, my brother's spirit came.

Scarce had he need to cast his pride or slough the dross of earth.
E'en as he trod that day to God, so walked he from this birth—
In simpleness and gentleness and honour and clean mirth.

So, cup to lip in fellowship, they gave him welcome high
And made him place at the banquet board, the Strong Men ranged thereby,
Who had done his work and held his peace and had no fear to die.

Beyond the loom of the last lone star through open darkness hurled,
Further than rebel comet dared or hiving star-swarm swirled,
Sits he with such as praise our God for that they served his world.

PREFACE

The greater part of the "Barrack-Room Ballads," as well as "Cleared," "Tomlinson," and "The English Flag," have appeared in the "National Observer." Messrs. Macmillan and Co. have kindly given me permission to reproduce four ballads contributed to their Magazine, and I am indebted to the "St. James Gazette" for a like courtesy in regard to the ballads of the "Clampherdown" and "Bolivar," and the "Imperial Rescript." "The Rhyme of the Three Captains" was printed first in the "Athenæum." I fancy that most of the other verses are new.

RUDYARD KIPLING.