Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/88

70 VIII

Seek not for favour of women. So shall you find it indeed.

Does not the boar break cover just when you're lighting a weed?

IX

If He play, being young and unskilful, for shekels of silver and gold,

Take His money, my son, praising Allah. The kid was ordained to be sold.

X

With a "weed" among men or horses verily this is the best,

That you work him in office or dog-cart lightly—but give him no rest.

XI

Pleasant the snaffle of Courtship, improving the manners and carriage;

But the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible thorn-bit of Marriage.

XII

As the thiftless gold of the babul so is the gold that we spread

On a Derby Sweep, or our neighbour's wife, or the horse that we buy from a friend.

XIII

The ways of man with a maid be strange, yet simple and tame

To the ways of a man with a horse, when selling or racing that same.