Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/165

 A TALE OF TWO CITIES

the sober-coloured cultivator smiles

On his byles;

Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the Crow

Come and go;

Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea,

Hides and ghi;

Where the Babu drops inflammatory hints

In his prints;

Stands a City—Charnock chose it—packed away

Near a Bay—

By the sewage rendered fetid, by the sewer

Made impure,

By the Sunderbunds unwholesome, by the swamp

Moist and damp;

And the City and the Viceroy, as we see,

Don't agree.

Once, two hundred years ago, the trader came

Meek and tame. 151