Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/89

Rh And though there are places not so blessed as others in natural advantages, which, after all, was only to be expected,

Proud and glad are we to congratulate you upon the work you have thus ably effected.

Before the beginning of years

There came to the rule of the State

Men with a pair of shears,

Men with an Estimate—

Strachey with Muir for leaven,

Lytton with locks that fell,

Ripon fooling with Heaven,

And Temple riding like H—ll!

And the bigots took in hand

Cess and the falling of rain,

And the measure of sifted sand

The dealer puts in the grain—

Imports by land and sea,

To uttermost decimal worth,

And registration—free—

In the Houses of Death and of Birth:

And fashioned with pens and paper,