Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/151

 ONE VICEROY RESIGNS



here's your Empire. No more wine, then? Good.

We'll clear the Aides and khitmatgars away.

(You'll know that fat old fellow with the knife—

He keeps the Name Book, talks in English, too,

And almost thinks himself the Government.)

O Youth, Youth, Youth! Forgive me, you're so young.

Forty from sixty—twenty years of work

And power to back the working. Ay de mi!

You want to know, you want to see, to touch

And, by your lights, to act. It's natural.

I wonder can I help you. Let me try.

You saw—what did you see from Bombay east?

Enough to frighten any one but me?

Near that! It frightened Me in Eighty-Four!

You shouldn't take a man from Canada

And bid him smoke in powder-magazines;

Nor with a Reputation such as ... Bah!

That ghost has haunted me for twenty years, 137