Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/46

 THE MAN WHO COULD WRITE

, servant of the Queen,

Is a dismal failure—is a Might-have-been.

In a luckless moment he discovered men

Rise to high position through a ready pen.

Boanerges Blitzen argued therefore—"I,

With the selfsame weapon, can attain as high."

Only he did not possess when he made the trial,

Wicked wit of C-lv-n, irony of L—l.

[Men who spar with Government need, to back their blows,

Something more than ordinary journalistic prose.]