Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/315

Rh "And this I have thought that another man thought of a Prince in Muscovy."

The good souls flocked like homing doves and bade him clear the path,

And Peter twirled the jangling keys in weariness and wrath.

"Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought," he said, "and the tale is yet to run:

"By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer—what ha' ye done?"

Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and little good it bore,

For the Darkness stayed at his shoulder-blade and Heaven's Gate before:

"Oh, this I have felt, and this I have guessed, and this I have heard men say,

"And this they wrote that another man wrote of a carl in Norroway."

"Ye have read, ye have felt, ye have guessed, good lack! Ye have hampered Heaven's Gate;

"There's little room between the stars in idleness to prate!

"Oh, none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin,