Читать книгу Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads - Rudyard Kipling - Страница 20

  Beneath the deep veranda’s shade,

    When bats begin to fly,

  I sit me down and watch – alas! —

    Another evening die.

  Blood-red behind the sere ferash

    She rises through the haze.

  Sainted Diana! can that be

    The Moon of Other Days?

  Ah! shade of little Kitty Smith,

    Sweet Saint of Kensington!

  Say, was it ever thus at Home

    The Moon of August shone,

  When arm in arm we wandered long

    Through Putney’s evening haze,

  And Hammersmith was Heaven beneath

    The Moon of Other Days?

  But Wandle’s stream is Sutlej now,

    And Putney’s evening haze

  The dust that half a hundred kine

    Before my window raise.

  Unkempt, unclean, athwart the mist

    The seething city looms,

  In place of Putney’s golden gorse

    The sickly babul blooms.

  Glare down, old Hecate, through the dust,

    And bid the pie-dog yell,

  Draw from the drain its typhoid-germ,

    From each bazaar its smell;

  Yea, suck the fever from the tank

    And sap my strength therewith:

  Thank Heaven, you show a smiling face

    To little Kitty Smith!

THE OVERLAND MAIL

  (Foot-Service to the Hills)

  In the name of the Empress of India, make way,

    O Lords of the Jungle, wherever you roam.

  The woods are astir at the close of the day —

    We exiles are waiting for letters from Home.

  Let the robber retreat – let the tiger turn tail —