Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/248

226 I see the sergeants pitchin' quoits,

I 'ear the women laugh an' talk,

I spy upon the quarter-deck

The orficers an' lydies walk.

I thinks about the things that was,

An' leans an' looks acrost the sea,

Till spite of all the crowded ship

There's no one lef' alive but me.

The things that was which I 'ave seen,

In barrick, camp, an' action too,

I tells them over by myself,

An' sometimes wonders if they're true;

For they was odd—most awful odd—

But all the same now they are o'er,

There must be 'eaps o' plenty such,

An' if I wait I'll see some more.

Oh, I 'ave come upon the books,

An' frequent broke a barrick rule,

An' stood beside an' watched myself

Be'avin' like a bloomin' fool.