Читать книгу Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads - Rudyard Kipling - Страница 5

  “Now there were two men in one city;

  the one rich and the other poor.”

  Jack Barrett went to Quetta

     Because they told him to.

  He left his wife at Simla

     On three-fourths his monthly screw:

  Jack Barrett died at Quetta

     Ere the next month’s pay he drew.

  Jack Barrett went to Quetta.

     He didn’t understand

  The reason of his transfer

     From the pleasant mountain-land:

  The season was September,

     And it killed him out of hand.

  Jack Barrett went to Quetta,

     And there gave up the ghost,

  Attempting two men’s duty

     In that very healthy post;

  And Mrs. Barrett mourned for him

     Five lively months at most.

  Jack Barrett’s bones at Quetta

     Enjoy profound repose;

  But I shouldn’t be astonished

     If now his spirit knows

  The reason of his transfer

     From the Himalayan snows.

  And, when the Last Great Bugle Call

     Adown the Hurnal throbs,

  When the last grim joke is entered

     In the big black Book of Jobs,

  And Quetta graveyards give again

     Their victims to the air,

  I shouldn’t like to be the man

     Who sent Jack Barrett there.