Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads | Page 4

summer sun was setting, and the summer air was still,
The
couple went a-walking in the shade of Summer Hill.
The wasteful
sunset faded out in Turkish-green and gold,
Ulysses pleaded softly,
and-- that bad Delilah told!
Next morn, a startled Empire learnt the all-important news; Next week,
the Aged Councillor was shaking in his shoes.
Next month, I met
Delilah and she did not show the least
Hesitation in affirming that
Ulysses was a "beast."

We have another Viceroy now, those days are dead and done-- Of
Delilah Aberyswith and most mean Ulysses Gunne!

WHAT HAPPENED
Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, pride of Bow Bazaar,
Owner of a native
press, "Barrishter-at-Lar,"
Waited on the Government with a claim to
wear
Sabres by the bucketful, rifles by the pair.
Then the Indian Government winked a wicked wink,
Said to Chunder
Mookerjee: "Stick to pen and ink.
They are safer implements, but, if
you insist,
We will let you carry arms wheresoe'er you list."
Hurree Chunder Mookerjee sought the gunsmith and
Bought the
tubes of Lancaster, Ballard, Dean, and Bland,
Bought a shiny
bowie-knife, bought a town-made sword,
Jingled like a carriage-horse
when he went abroad.
But the Indian Government, always keen to please,
Also gave
permission to horrid men like these--
Yar Mahommed Yusufzai,
down to kill or steal,
Chimbu Singh from Bikaneer, Tantia the Bhil;
Killar Khan the Marri chief, Jowar Singh the Sikh,
Nubbee Baksh
Punjabi Jat, Abdul Huq Rafiq--
He was a Wahabi; last, little Boh
Hla-oo
Took advantage of the Act--took a Snider too.
They were unenlightened men, Ballard knew them not.
They
procured their swords and guns chiefly on the spot;
And the lore of
centuries, plus a hundred fights,
Made them slow to disregard one
another's rights.
With a unanimity dear to patriot hearts
All those hairy gentlemen out
of foreign parts
Said: "The good old days are back--let us go to war!"

Swaggered down the Grand Trunk Road into Bow Bazaar,
Nubbee Baksh Punjabi Jat found a hide-bound flail;
Chimbu Singh
from Bikaneer oiled his Tonk jezail;
Yar Mahommed Yusufzai spat
and grinned with glee
As he ground the butcher-knife of the

Khyberee.
Jowar Singh the Sikh procured sabre, quoit, and mace,
Abdul Huq,
Wahabi, jerked his dagger from its place,
While amid the jungle-grass
danced and grinned and jabbered Little Boh Hla-oo and cleared his
dah-blade from the scabbard.
What became of Mookerjee? Soothly, who can say?
Yar Mahommed
only grins in a nasty way,
Jowar Singh is reticent, Chimbu Singh is
mute.
But the belts of all of them simply bulge with loot.
What became of Ballard's guns? Afghans black and grubby
Sell them
for their silver weight to the men of Pubbi;
And the shiny
bowie-knife and the town-made sword are
Hanging in a Marri camp
just across the Border.
What became of Mookerjee? Ask Mahommed Yar
Prodding Siva's
sacred bull down the Bow Bazaar.
Speak to placid Nubbee
Baksh--question land and sea--
Ask the Indian Congressmen--only
don't ask me!
PINK DOMINOES
"They are fools who kiss and tell"--
Wisely has the poet sung.
Man
may hold all sorts of posts
If he'll only hold his tongue.
Jenny and Me were engaged, you see,
On the eve of the Fancy Ball;

So a kiss or two was nothing to you
Or any one else at all.
Jenny would go in a domino--
Pretty and pink but warm;
While I
attended, clad in a splendid
Austrian uniform.
Now we had arranged, through notes exchanged
Early that afternoon,

At Number Four to waltz no more,
But to sit in the dusk and
spoon.

I wish you to see that Jenny and Me
Had barely exchanged our troth;

So a kiss or two was strictly due
By, from, and between us both.
When Three was over, an eager lover,
I fled to the gloom outside;

And a Domino came out also
Whom I took for my future bride.
That is to say, in a casual way,
I slipped my arm around her;
With a
kiss or two (which is nothing to you),
And ready to kiss I found her.
She turned her head and the name she said
Was certainly not my own;

But ere I could speak, with a smothered shriek
She fled and left me
alone.
Then Jenny came, and I saw with shame
She'd doffed her domino;

And I had embraced an alien waist--
But I did not tell her so.
Next morn I knew that there were two
Dominoes pink, and one
Had
cloaked the spouse of Sir Julian House,
Our big Political gun.
Sir J. was old, and her hair was gold,
And her eye was a blue cerulean;

And the name she said when she turned her head
Was not in the
least like "Julian."
THE MAN WHO COULD WRITE
Shun--shun the Bowl! That fatal, facile drink
Has ruined many geese
who dipped their quills in 't;
Bribe, murder, marry, but steer clear of
Ink
Save when you write receipts for paid-up bills in 't.
There may be silver in the "blue-black"--all
I know of is the iron and
the gall.
Boanerges Blitzen, servant of the Queen,
Is a dismal failure--is a
Might-have-been.
In a luckless moment he discovered men
Rise to
high position through a ready pen.
Boanerges Blitzen argued
therefore--"I,
With