Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/13

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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.