Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/25

Rh He wrote for divers papers, which, as everybody knows,

Is worse than serving in a shop or scaring off the crows.

He praised her queenly beauty first; and, later on, he hinted

At the vastness of her intellect with compliment unstinted;

He went with her a-riding, and his love for her was such

That he lent her all his horses and—she galled them very much.

One day brewed a secret of a fine financial sort;

It related to Appointments, to a Man and a Report.

'Twas almost worth the keeping [only seven people knew it],

So Gunne rose up to seek the truth and patiently ensue it.

It was a Viceroy's Secret, but—perhaps the wine was red—

Perhaps an Aged Councillor had lost his aged head—