Читать книгу Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads - Rudyard Kipling - Страница 17

  So long as ‘neath the Kalka hills

    The tonga-horn shall ring,

  So long as down the Solon dip

    The hard-held ponies swing,

  So long as Tara Devi sees

    The lights of Simla town,

  So long as Pleasure calls us up,

    Or Duty drives us down,

      If you love me as I love you

      What pair so happy as we two?

  So long as Aces take the King,

    Or backers take the bet,

  So long as debt leads men to wed,

    Or marriage leads to debt,

  So long as little luncheons, Love,

    And scandal hold their vogue,

  While there is sport at Annandale

    Or whisky at Jutogh,

      If you love me as I love you

      What knife can cut our love in two?

  So long as down the rocking floor

    The raving polka spins,

  So long as Kitchen Lancers spur

    The maddened violins,

  So long as through the whirling smoke

    We hear the oft-told tale —

  “Twelve hundred in the Lotteries,”

     And Whatshername for sale?

      If you love me as I love you

      We’ll play the game and win it too.

  So long as Lust or Lucre tempt

    Straight riders from the course,

  So long as with each drink we pour

    Black brewage of Remorse,

  So long as those unloaded guns

    We keep beside the bed,

  Blow off, by obvious accident,

    The lucky owner’s head,

      If you love me as I love you

      What can Life kill or Death undo?

  So long as Death ‘twixt dance and dance

    Chills best and bravest blood,

  And drops the reckless rider down

    The rotten, rain-soaked khud,

  So long as rumours from the North

    Make loving wives afraid,

  So long as Burma takes the boy

    Or typhoid kills the maid,

      If you love me as I love you

      What knife can cut our love in two?

  By all that lights our daily life

    Or works our lifelong woe,

  From Boileaugunge to Simla Downs

    And those grim glades below,

  Where, heedless of the flying hoof

    And clamour overhead,

  Sleep, with the grey langur for guard

    Our very scornful Dead,

      If you love me as I love you

      All Earth is servant to us two!

  By Docket, Billetdoux, and File,

    By Mountain, Cliff, and Fir,

  By Fan and Sword and Office-box,

    By Corset, Plume, and Spur

  By Riot, Revel, Waltz, and War,

    By Women, Work, and Bills,

  By all the life that fizzes in

    The everlasting Hills,

      If you love me as I love you

      What pair so happy as we two?