Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/249

Rh I paid my price for findin' out,

Nor never grutched the price I paid,

But sat in Clink without my boots,

Admirin' 'ow the world was made.

Be'old a crowd upon the beam,

An' 'umped above the sea appears

Old Aden, like a barrick-stove

That no one's lit for years an' years!

I passed by that when I began,

An' I go 'ome the road I came,

A time-expired soldier-man

With six years' service to 'is name.

My girl she said, 'Oh, stay with me!'

My mother 'eld me to 'er breast.

They've never written none, an' so

They must 'ave gone with all the rest—

With all the rest which I 'ave seen

An' found an' known an' met along.

I cannot say the things I feel,

And so I sing my evenin' song: