Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/118

 "AS THE BELL CLINKS"

I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of a comely

Maid last season worshipped dumbly, watched with fervour from afar;

And I wondered idly, blindly, if the maid would greet me kindly.

That was all—the rest was settled by the clinking tonga-bar.

Ay, my life and hers were coupled by the tonga coupling bar.

For my misty meditation, at the second changing-station,

Suffered sudden dislocation, fled before the tuneless jar

Of a Wagner obbligato, scherzo, double-hand staccato,

Played on either pony's saddle by the clacking tonga-bar—

Played with human speech, I fancied, by the jigging, jolting bar.