Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/138

124 If there be trouble to Herward, and a lie of the blackest can clear,

Lie, while thy lips can move or a man is alive to hear.

16

My Son, if a maiden deny thee and scufflingly bid thee give o'er,

Yet lip meets with lip at the lastward—get out! She has been there before.

They are pecked on the ear and the chin and the nose who are lacking in lore.

17

If we fall in the race, though we win, the hoof-slide is scarred on the course

Though Allah and Earth pardon Sin, remaineth for ever Remorse.

18

"By all I am misunderstood!" if the Matron shall say, or the Maid:—

"Alas! I do not understand," my son, be thou nowise afraid.

In vain in the sight of the Bird is the net of the Fowler displayed.