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We poor lads, 't is our turn now
Tc hear such tunes as killed the cow. 1Ο
Pretty friendship 't is to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:

Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad."

Why, if 't is dancing you would be, There's brisker pipes than poetry. Say, for what were hop-yards meant, Or why was Burton built on Trent? Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man. Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink

For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot

To see the world as the world's not.
And faith, 't is pleasant till 't is past:
The mischief is that 't will not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,

I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.

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The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul's stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.

60

There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all that springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white's their
shirt:

Them it was their poison hurt.
-I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.

LIONEL JOHNSON (1867-1902)

OXFORD NIGHTS

70

To Victor Plarr

About the august and ancient Square,
Cries the wild wind; and through the air,
The blue night air, blows keen and chill:
Else, all the night sleeps, all is still.
Now, the lone Square is blind with gloom:
Now, on that clustering chestnut bloom,
A cloudy moonlight plays, and falls
In glory upon Bodley's walls:
Now, wildlier yet, while moonlight pales,
Storm the tumultuary gales.

O rare divinity of Night!

Season of undisturbed delight:

Glad interspace of day and day!

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Without, an world of winds at play: Within, I hear what dead friends say. Blow, winds! and round that perfect

Dome,

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Wail as you will, and sweep, and roam:
Above Saint Mary's carven home,
Struggle, and smite to your desire
The sainted watchers on her spire:
Or in the distance vex your power
Upon mine own New College tower:
You hurt not these! On me and mine,
Clear candlelights in quiet shine:
My fire lives yet! nor have I done
With Smollett, nor with Richardson:
With, gentlest of the martyrs! Lamb,
Whose lover I, long lover, am:
With Gray, whose gracious spirit knew
The sorrows of art's lonely few:
With Fielding, great, and strong, and tall;
Sterne, exquisite, equivocal;
Goldsmith, the dearest of them all:
While Addison's demure delights
Turn Oxford, into Attic, nights.
Still Trim and Parson Adams keep
Me better company, than sleep:
Dark sleep, who loves not me; nor I
Love well her nightly death to die,
And in her haunted chapels lie.
Sleep wins me not: but from his shelf
Brings me each wit his very self:
Beside my chair the great ghosts throng,
Each tells his story, sings his song:
And in the ruddy fire I trace
The curves of each Augustan face.
I sit at Doctor Primrose' board:

I hear Beau Tibbs discuss a lord.
Mine, Matthew

wrath;

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Bramble's pleasant

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Nor lives there, beneath Oxford towers,
More joy, than in my silent hours.
Dream, who love dreams! forget all grief:
Find, in sleep's nothingness, relief:
Better my dreams! Dear, human books,
With kindly voices, winning looks!
Enchaunt me with your spells of art,
And draw me homeward to your heart:
Till weariness and things unkind
Seem but a vain and passing wind:
Till the gray morning slowly creep
Upward, and rouse the birds from sleep:
Till Oxford bells the silence break,
And find me happier, for your sake.
Then, with the dawn of common day,
Rest you! But I, upon my way,
What the fates bring, will cheerlier do,
In days not yours, through thoughts of
you!

RUDYARD KIPLING (1865- >

TOMMY

71

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,

The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no redcoats here."

The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,

I outs into the street again, an' to myself sez I:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy go away"; But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play,

The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,

O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play.

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We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.

Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face The Widow's uniform is not the soldierman's disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"

But it's "Saviour of 'is country"

when the guns begin to shoot; An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy

that, an' anything you please; An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -you bet that Tommy sees!

FUZZY-WUZZY

(Soudan Expeditionary Force)

40

We've fought with many men acrost the

seas,

An' some of 'em was brave an' some

was not:

The Paythan an' the Zulu an' Burmese; But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot. We never got a ha'porth's change of 'im: 'E squatted in the scrub an' 'ocked our 'orses,

'E cut our sentries up at Suakim, An' 'e played the cat an' banjo with our forces.

So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Sowdan; 9 You're a pore benighted 'eathen

but a first-class fightin' man; We gives you your certifikit, an' if you want it signed

We'll come an' 'ave a romp with you whenever you're inclined.

We took our chanst among the Kyber 'ills,

The Boers knocked us silly at a mile,

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, The Burman guv us Irriwaddy chills,

an' fires, an' all:

An' a Zulu impi dished us up in style:

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'E's the on'y thing that doesn't care a damn

For the Regiment o' British Infantree. So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Sowdan; You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man; An' 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ayrick 'ead of 'air

You big black boundin' beggarfor you bruk a British square.

GUNGA DIN

The bhisti, or water-carrier, attached to regiments in India, is often one of the most devoted of the Queen's servants. He is also appreciated by the men.

You may talk o' gin an' beer

When you're quartered safe out 'ere, An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;

But if it comes to slaughter

You will do your work on water,

An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.

Now in Injia's sunny clime,

Where I used to spend my time
A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen,
Of all them black-faced crew
The finest man I knew

Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.
He was "Din! Din! Din!

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I sha'n't forgit the night
When I dropped be'ind the fight
With a bullet where my belt-plate should
'a' been.

I was chokin' mad with thirst,
An' the man that spied me first
Was our good old grinnin', gruntin'
Gunga Din.

'E lifted up my 'ead,

An' 'e plugged me where I bled,

An' 'e guv me 'arf-a-pint o' water-green: It was crawlin' an it stunk,

But of all the drinks I've drunk,

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An' just before 'e died:

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70

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