Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/103

 ARITHMETIC ON THE FRONTIER

and glorious thing it is

To learn, for seven years or so,

The Lord knows what of that and this,

Ere reckoned fit to face the foe—

The flying bullet down the Pass,

That whistles clear:—"All flesh is grass."

Three hundred pounds per annum spent

On making brain and body meeter

For all the murderous intent

Comprised in "villanous saltpeter!"

And after?—Ask the Yusufzaies

What comes of all our 'ologies.

A scrimmage in a Border Station—

A canter down some dark defile—

Two thousand pounds of education

Drops to a ten-rupee jezail—

The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,

Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

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