Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/50

32 Then a Creature, skinned and crimson,

Ran about the floor and cried,

And they said that I had the "jims" on,

And they dosed me with bromide,

And they locked me in my bedroom—

Me and one wee Blood Red Mouse—

Though I said:—"To give my head room

"You had best unroof the house."

But my words were all unheeded,

Though I told the grave M.D.

That the treatment really needed

Was a dip in open sea

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 warder

Would not let me sit 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 tangle story—

"What she said you said I said"—

Till the Moon arose in glory,

And I found her ... in my head;