Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/17

 GENERAL SUMMARY

are very slightly changed

From the semi-apes who ranged

India's prehistoric clay;

Whoso drew the longest bow

Ran his brother down, you know,

As we run men down to-day.

"Dowb," the first of all his race,

Met the Mammoth face to face

On the lake or in the cave,

Stole the steadiest canoe,

Ate the quarry others slew,

Died—and took the finest grave.

When they scratched the reindeer-bone,

Some one made the sketch his own,

Filched it from the artist—then,

Even in those early days,

Won a simple Viceroy's praise

Through the toil of other men. 3