Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/313

 TOMLINSON

Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square,

And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair—

A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away,

Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way,

Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease,

And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys.

"Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high

"The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die—

"The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!"