Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/656

 638 RUDYARD KIPLING'S VERSE

'Less you want your toes trod off you'd better get back at

once,

For the bullocks are walking two by two, The byles are walking two by two, And the elephants bring the guns. Ho! Yuss!

Great big long black forty-pounder guns. Jiggery-jolty to and fro, Each as big as a launch in tow

Blind dumb broad-breeched beggars o' battering-guns.

My Lord the Elephant.

All the world over, nursing their scars, Sit the old fighting-men broke in the wars Sit the old fighting men, surly and grim Mocking the lilt of the conquerors' hymn.

Dust of the battle o'erwhelmed them and hid, Fame never found them for aught that they did. Wounded and spent to the lazar they drew, Lining the road where the Legions roll through.

Sons of the Laurel who press to your meed, (Worthy God's pity most ye who succeed!) Ere you go triumphing, crowned, to the stars, Pity poor fighting men, broke in the wars!

Collected.

PUT forth to watch, unschooled, alone,

'Twixt hostile earth and sky; The mottled lizard 'neath the stone Is wiser here than I.