Departmental Ditties E-Book

Rudyard Kipling

• Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 23

Beschreibung

Rudyard Kipling was a prolific British writer and poet.  Kipling’s children fiction, specifically The Jungle Books and Just So Stories, are some of the most famous in English literature.  This edition of Departmental Ditties includes a table of contents.

Leseprobe

DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES

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Rudyard Kipling

KYPROS PRESS

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This book is a work of poetry; its contents are wholly imagined.

All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

Copyright © 2015 by Rudyard Kipling

Interior design by Pronoun

Distribution by Pronoun

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Departmental Ditties

GENERAL SUMMARY

ARMY HEADQUARTERS

STUDY OF AN ELEVATION, IN INDIAN INK

THE STORY OF URIAH

THE POST THAT FITTED

PUBLIC WASTE

DELILAH

WHAT HAPPENED

PINK DOMINOES

THE MAN WHO COULD WRITE

MUNICIPAL

A CODE OF MORALS

THE LAST DEPARTMENT

DEPARTMENTAL DITTIES

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I have eaten your bread and salt,

I have drunk your water and wine,

The deaths ye died I have watched beside,

And the lives that ye led were mine.

Was there aught that I did not share

In vigil or toil or ease,

One joy or woe that I did not know,

Dear hearts across the seas?

I have written the tale of our life

For a sheltered people’s mirth,

In jesting guise—but ye are wise,

And ye know what the jest is worth.

GENERAL SUMMARY

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We are very slightly changed

From the semi-apes who ranged

India’s prehistoric clay;

Whoso drew the longest bow,

Ran his brother down, you know,

As we run men down today.

“Dowb,” the first of all his race,

Met the Mammoth face to face

On the lake or in the cave,

Stole the steadiest canoe,

Ate the quarry others slew,

Died—and took the finest grave.

When they scratched the reindeer-bone

Someone made the sketch his own,

Filched it from the artist—then,

Even in those early days,

Won a simple Viceroy’s praise

Through the toil of other men.

Ere they hewed the Sphinx’s visage

Favoritism governed kissage,

Even as it does in this age.

Who shall doubt the secret hid

Under Cheops’ pyramid

Was that the contractor did

Cheops out of several millions?

Or that Joseph’s sudden rise

To Comptroller of Supplies

Was a fraud of monstrous size

On King Pharoah’s swart Civilians?

Thus, the artless songs I sing

Do not deal with anything

New or never said before.

As it was in the beginning,

Is today official sinning,

And shall be forevermore.

ARMY HEADQUARTERS

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Old is the song that I sing—