Dum-Dum

“ Dost thou dream in dim dusk when light lingers,
Of Betsy, the bage, the despiged,
Who with snap of imperious fingers
Hariçina, thy figment, deniged?
Dost thou gasp at the shock of the blow sich
As she, in her tantrum, let fall,
Who 'didn't believe there was no sich
A person' at all?
Fear not! Though the torters be frightful,
Though the words that thou took'st unawares
Be as serpiants that twine and are spiteful,
O thou best of good creeturs, who cares? ”

“ Still will ye pay at the turnstile—thronging the rope-ringed Match,
[101] Where the half-back fumbles the leather, or the deep-field butters the catch?
Will ye thank your gods (being 'umble) that the fool and the oaf are found
In the field, at the goal or the wicket, and not in the seats around?
Not in the Saturday Squallers—men of a higher grade—
That lay down a law they know not, of a game that they have not played?
Holding the folly of flannel, still will ye teach the Schools
That Wisdom is dressed in shoddy, and how should the Wise be fools? ”

“ I know that shock must follow shock,
Until the sole remaining Rock
That all one's hopes exist on,
Crumbles beneath the crushing force
Of Conscience, kicking like a horse,
And pounding like a piston. ”

“ Turns to view the watery Vast,
When he mourns his frail charàc-tar,
Or deplores his jagged Past,
[47]
Climbs a cliff, and breathes his sighs on
That appalling breast until,
Borne from off the far horizon,
Voices whisper, 'Cheer up, Bill!'
So when evil chance or dark as-
persions crush the bosom's lord,
When discomfort rends the car-cass,
When we're sorry, sick, or bored,
When the year is at its hottest,
And our life with sorrow crowned,
Gazing thee-wards, where thou blottest
Out the landscape, pulls us round ”

“ Ere the East became the fashion and an Indian tour the craze,
Lived a certain Major-General, renowned throughout the State
As a soldier of distinction and considerable weight.
But though weightiness of mind is an invaluable trait,
When applied to adiposity it's all the other way ”

“ Deplored the pressing tribute of the toe.
THE MORAL
To you, fresh youths, with round unblushing cheeks,
Some moral tag this closing verse applies;
E'en from the old the voice of Wisdom speaks—
Even the youngest are not always wise! ”

“ Th' ambiguous mule does of the stick [1] bewail,
Whose dunder craft forbids him to consume
His proper blanket, or his neighbour's tail.
[1] The dunder-stick—an ingenious instrument devised to defeat this extraordinary appetite. [2]
Beneath those jagged tiles, that low-built roof
(Whose inmost secret deeps let none divine!) ,
Each to his master's cry supremely proof,
The Aryan Brothers of our household dine.
Let not Presumption mock their joyless pile,—
The cold boiled rice, in native butter greased ”

“ SONG OF BELLS
Allons! Allons! Tra-la-la! Hear my Bellata!
Why do you not return to Mandalay O soldier?
Do you not remember the boats, and the paddles as they chunked outside the boats?
Do you not remember the elephants, the mighty elephants, strong, mysterious, impalpable (no, not impalpable) , pachydermatous, and the extraordinary accuracy with which they succeeded in balancing trees or parts of trees, branches, logs, beams, planks, ... etc., ... ”

“ Loafers and talkers and writers, furtively whispering low—
'Say that it's like 'em—it may be—nobody ever need know.
'Rud.,—would he drive us to Barracks—make of us militant hordes—
Broke to the spit of the pom-pom—trained to the flashing of swords?—
[100] Pooh! It is these that he goes for—Sport is the bubble he pricks—
Doubt not but we are The People—Bricks of an Empire of Bricks!'
What of that maker of verses? ”

“ And will you not then hear my song?
This for prelude.
III
You, O Mandalay, I sing!
For I see the pagoda, the Moulmein and essentially wotto pagoda,
[25] And the pagoda is above the trees,
But the trees are below the pagoda.
IV
I see the flying-fish sitting on the branches, I hear them sing, and they fly and mate and build their nests in the branches ”

“ Loafers and talkers and writers,—Read ye the Verses of Rud.!'
[103]
THE HAPPY ENDING
[105]
STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION
I am tired of the day with its profitless labours,
And tired of the night with its lack of repose,
I am sick of myself, my surroundings, and neighbours,
Especially Aryan Brothers and crows;
O land of illusory hope for the needy,
O centre of soldiering, thirst, and shikar,
When a broken-down exile begins to get seedy,
What a beast of a country you are! ”

“ The tremulous, momentary 'touch.' But she,
Heaving with unaccustomed exercise,
Blinded and baffled, wild with all despair,
Stood sweeping, as a churl that sweeps the scythe
[72] In earlier pastures. Twice he skipped, and poured
The desperate whistle. Once again, and he,
Skipping, diffused the whistle. But at last,
So shrewd a blow she dealt him on the shin,
That had he stood reverse-wise on his head,
Not on his feet, I know not what had chanced. ”

“ Would blindly, stumbling, seek the watery verge
And sink, nor rise again. But when, untaught
In craft, the mourners raised the untimely dirge,
Lo! otherwhere himself would swift emerge
Incontinent, and crisp his tasselled ears ”

“ As Nature provides with a 'head' or a 'skin';
[106] I know that a pig is magnificent sticking;
But good as you are in the matter of sports,
When a person's alive, so to put it, and kicking,
You're a brute when a man's out of sorts. ”

“ I see a dun-coloured aboriginal she-female, mongolianée, petite, squat-faced,
And she has a cast in her sinister optic and a snub nose but her heart is true;
And I gaze into her heart (which is true) , and I find that she is musing (as indeed I often muse) on ME,
Me Prononcè, Me Imperturbe, Me Inconscionabilamente. ”

“ Said he'd stand the beast no longer, and returned him to the ranks.
(An interval of about three years.) [11]
Time has dulled our hero's anguish; time has raised our man of weight
To an even higher office in the service of the State;
And we find him at his yearly tour, inspecting at his ease
A distinguished corps of cavalry, the Someone's Own D. G.'s.
And our fat but famous man of war, accoutred to the nines,
Was engaged in making rude remarks, and going round the lines,
When he suddenly beheld across an intervening space
A Leviathan of horseflesh, the Behemoth of his race. ”

“ Other species come and go; their ancestor remains always. One is to be found in each cantonment: he generally occupies a position of unsheltered and pathetic loneliness in a corner of the local parade-ground. ”

“ I hope that this little volume will find them no less benevolently disposed, and that at the same time it may not be without interest to those whose knowledge of the Shiny East is derived from hearsay.
CONTENTS
[1]
NOCTURNE WRITTEN IN AN INDIAN GARDEN
'Where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.'
The time-gun rolls his nerve-destroying bray ”