Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/72

58 That was lapping just below me,

Smooth as silver, white as snow,

And it took three men to throw me

When I found I could not go.

Half the night I watched the Heavens

Fizz like '81 champagne—

Fly to sixes and to sevens,

Wheel and thunder back again;

And when all was peace and order

Save one planet nailed askew,

Much I wept because my warden

Would not let me set it true.

After frenzied hours of waiting,

When the Earth and Skies were dumb,

Pealed an awful voice dictating

An interminable sum,

Changing to a tangled story—

"What she said you said I said—"

Till the Moon arose in glory,

And I found her ... in my head;