Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/242

58 "He would not fly the Rovers' flag—the bloody or the black,

"But now he floated the Gridiron and now he flaunted the Jack.

"He spoke of the Law as he crimped my crew—he swore it was only a loan;

"But when I would ask for my own again, he swore it was none of my own.

"He has taken my little parrakeets that nest beneath the Line,

"He has stripped my rails of the shaddock-frails and the green unripened pine;

"He has taken my bale of dammer and spice I won beyond the seas,

"He has taken my grinning heathen gods—and what should he want o' these?

"My foremast would not mend his boom, my deck-house patch his boats;

"He has whittled the two this Yank Yahoo, to peddle for shoepeg-oats.

"I could not fight for the failing light and a rough beam-sea beside,

"But I hulled him once for a clumsy crimp and twice because he lied.