Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/96

78 With your mane unhogged and flowing,

And your curious way of going,

And that businesslike black crimping of your tail,

E'en with Beauty on your back, Sir,

Pacing as a lady's hack, Sir,

What wonder when I meet you I turn pale?

It may be you wait your time, Beast,

Till I write my last bad rhyme, Beast—

Quit the sunlight, cut the rhyming, drop the glass—

Follow after with the others,

Where some dusky heather smothers

Us with marigold in lieu of English grass.

Or, perchance, in years to follow,

I shall watch your plump sides hollow,

See Carnifex (gone lame) become a corse—

See old age at last o'erpower you,

And the Station Pack devour you,

I shall chuckle then, O Undertaker's Horse!

But to insult, jibe, and quest, I've

Still the hideously suggestive

Trot the hammers out the unrelenting text,

And I hear it hard behind me

In what place soe'er I find me:—

"'Sure to catch you sooner or later. Who's the next?"



One Viceroy Resigns



O here's your Empire. No more wine, then? Good.

We'll clear the Aides and khitmutgars away.

(You'll know that fat old fellow with the knife—

He keeps the Name Book, talks in English, too, 