Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/46

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THE MAN WHO COULD WRITE

Shun—shun the Bowl! That fatal, facile drink
Has ruined many geese who dipped their quills in't.
Bribe, murder, marry, but steer clear of Ink
Save when you write receipts for paid-up bills in't.
There may be silver in the "blue-black"—all
I know of is the iron and the gall.

Boanerges Blitzen, servant of the Queen,
Is a dismal failure—is a Might-have-been.
In a luckless moment he discovered men
Rise to high position through a ready pen.


Boanerges Blitzen argued therefore—"I,
With the selfsame weapon, can attain as high."
Only he did not possess when he made the trial,
Wicked wit of C-lv-n, irony of L—l.


[Men who spar with Government need, to back their blows,
Something more than ordinary journalistic prose.]


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