Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/104

86  Battered chain-gangs of the orlop, grizzled drafts of years gone by, To the bench that broke their manhood, they shall lash themselves and die.

Hale and crippled, young and aged, paid, deserted, shipped away— Palace, cot, and lazaretto shall make up the tale that day, When the skies are black above them, and the decks ablaze beneath, And the top-men clear the raffle with their clasp-knives in their teeth.

It may be that Fate will give me life and leave to row once more— Set some strong man free for fighting as I take awhile his oar. But to-day I leave the galley. Shall I curse her service then? God be thanked! Whate'er comes after, I have lived and toiled with Men! 

 the sober-coloured cultivator smiles On his byles; Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow Come and go; Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea, Hides and ghi; Where the Babu drops inflammatory hints In his prints; Stands a City—Charnock chose it—packed away Near a Bay— By the Sewage rendered fetid, by the sewer Made impure, 