Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/86

72

Our cattle reel beneath the yoke they bear—

The earth is iron and the skies are brass—

And faint with fervour of the flaming air

The languid hours pass.

Our wells are dry beneath the village tree—

The young wheat withers ere it reach a span,

And belts of blinding sand show cruelly

Where once the river ran.

Pray, brothers, pray, but to no earthly King—

Lift up your hands above the blighted grain,