Читать книгу Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads - Rudyard Kipling - Страница 3

  Old is the song that I sing —

     Old as my unpaid bills —

  Old as the chicken that kitmutgars bring

  Men at dak-bungalows – old as the Hills.

  Ahasuerus Jenkins of the “Operatic Own”

   Was dowered with a tenor voice of super-Santley tone.

  His views on equitation were, perhaps, a trifle queer;

  He had no seat worth mentioning, but oh! he had an ear.

  He clubbed his wretched company a dozen times a day,

  He used to quit his charger in a parabolic way,

  His method of saluting was the joy of all beholders,

  But Ahasuerus Jenkins had a head upon his shoulders.

  He took two months to Simla when the year was at the spring,

  And underneath the deodars eternally did sing.

  He warbled like a bulbul, but particularly at

  Cornelia Agrippina who was musical and fat.

  She controlled a humble husband, who, in turn, controlled a Dept.,

  Where Cornelia Agrippina’s human singing-birds were kept

  From April to October on a plump retaining fee,

  Supplied, of course, per mensem, by the Indian Treasury.

  Cornelia used to sing with him, and Jenkins used to play;

  He praised unblushingly her notes, for he was false as they:

  So when the winds of April turned the budding roses brown,

  Cornelia told her husband: “Tom, you mustn’t send him down.”

  They haled him from his regiment which didn’t much regret him;

  They found for him an office-stool, and on that stool they set him,

  To play with maps and catalogues three idle hours a day,

  And draw his plump retaining fee – which means his double pay.

  Now, ever after dinner, when the coffeecups are brought,

  Ahasuerus waileth o’er the grand pianoforte;

  And, thanks to fair Cornelia, his fame hath waxen great,

  And Ahasuerus Jenkins is a power in the State.