Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/305

Rh It's sticking to your fist to-day for all your sneer and scoff,

And by the Judge's well-weighed word you cannot wipe it off.

Hold up those hands of innocence—go, scare your sheep together,

The blundering, tripping tups that bleat behind the old bell-wether;

And if they snuff the taint and break to find another pen,

Tell them it's tar that glistens so, and daub them yours again!

"The charge is old"?—As old as Cain—as fresh as yesterday;

Old as the Ten Commandments, have ye talked those laws away?

If words are words, or death is death, or powder sends the ball,

You spoke the words that sped the shot—the curse be on you all.