Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/44

26 They walk beside Her &apos;rickshaw-wheels—

None ever walk by mine;

And that's because I'm seventeen

And She is forty-nine.

She rides with half a dozen men

(She calls them "boys" and "mashes"),

I trot along the Mall alone;

My prettiest frocks and sashes

Don't help to fill my programme-card,

And vainly I repine

From ten to two A.M. Ah me!

Would I were forty-nine.

She calls me "darling," "pet," and "dear,"

And "sweet retiring maid."

I'm always at the back, I know—

She puts me in the shade.

She introduces me to men—

"Cast" lovers, I opine;

For sixty takes to seventeen,

Nineteen to forty-nine.

But even She must older grow

And end Her dancing days,

She can't go on forever so

At concerts, balls and plays.

One ray of priceless hope I see

Before my footsteps shine;

Just think, that She'll be eighty-one

When I am forty-nine!

TO THE UNKNOWN GODDESS

ILL you conquer my heart with your beauty, my soul going out from afar?

Shall I fall to your hand as a victim of crafty and cautious shikar?