Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads | Page 7

go--
"South, down the Cattegat--What's here?
"There--are--no--lights--to
guide!"
The mutter ceased, the spirit passed,
And Anne of Austria
cried
In Fultah Fisher's boarding-house
When Hans the mighty
died.
Thus slew they Hans the blue-eyed Dane,
Bull-throated, bare of arm,

But Anne of Austria looted first
The maid Ultruda's charm--
The
little silver crucifix
That keeps a man from harm.

AS THE BELL CLINKS
As I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of a comely
Maid last
season worshipped dumbly, watched with fervor from afar; And I
wondered idly, blindly, if the maid would greet me kindly.
That was all--the rest was settled by the clinking tonga-bar. Yea, my
life and hers were coupled by the tonga coupling-bar.
For my misty meditation, at the second changin'-station,
Suffered
sudden dislocation, fled before the tuneless jar
Of a Wagner obbligato,
scherzo, doublehand staccato,
Played on either pony's saddle by the
clacking tonga-bar--
Played with human speech, I fancied, by the jigging, jolting bar.
"She was sweet," thought I, "last season, but 'twere surely wild
unreason Such tiny hope to freeze on as was offered by my Star,

When she whispered, something sadly: 'I--we feel your going badly!'"
"And you let the chance escape you?" rapped the rattling tonga-bar.
"What a chance and what an idiot!" clicked the vicious tonga-bar.
Heart of man--oh, heart of putty! Had I gone by Kakahutti,
On the old
Hill-road and rutty, I had 'scaped that fatal car. But his fortune each
must bide by, so I watched the milestones slide by, To "You call on Her
tomorrow!"--fugue with cymbals by the bar--
"You must call on Her tomorrow!"--post-horn gallop by the bar.
Yet a further stage my goal on--we were whirling down to Solon, With
a double lurch and roll on, best foot foremost, ganz und gar-- "She was
very sweet," I hinted. "If a kiss had been imprinted?"-- "'Would ha'
saved a world of trouble!" clashed the busy tonga-bar.
"'Been accepted or rejected!" banged and clanged the tonga-bar.
Then a notion wild and daring, 'spite the income tax's paring, And a

hasty thought of sharing--less than many incomes are, Made me put a
question private, you can guess what I would drive at. "You must work
the sum to prove it," clanked the careless tonga-bar.
"Simple Rule of Two will prove it," lilted back the tonga-bar.
It was under Khyraghaut I mused. "Suppose the maid be haughty--
(There are lovers rich--and rotty)--wait some wealthy Avatar? Answer
monitor untiring, 'twixt the ponies twain perspiring!" "Faint heart never
won fair lady," creaked the straining tonga-bar.
"Can I tell you ere you ask Her?" pounded slow the tonga-bar.
Last, the Tara Devi turning showed the lights of Simla burning, Lit my
little lazy yearning to a fiercer flame by far.
As below the Mall we jingled, through my very heart it tingled-- Did
the iterated order of the threshing tonga-bar--
"Try your luck--you can't do better!" twanged the loosened tonga-bar.
AN OLD SONG
So long as 'neath the Kalka hills
The tonga-horn shall ring,
So long
as down the Solon dip
The hard-held ponies swing,
So long as Tara
Devi sees
The lights of Simla town,
So long as Pleasure calls us up,

Or Duty drives us down,
If you love me as I love you
What pair
so happy as we two?
So long as Aces take the King,
Or backers take the bet,
So long as
debt leads men to wed,
Or marriage leads to debt,
So long as little
luncheons, Love,
And scandal hold their vogue,
While there is sport
at Annandale
Or whisky at Jutogh,
If you love me as I love you

What knife can cut our love in two?
So long as down the rocking floor
The raving polka spins,
So long
as Kitchen Lancers spur
The maddened violins,
So long as through

the whirling smoke
We hear the oft-told tale--
"Twelve hundred in
the Lotteries,"
And Whatshername for sale?
If you love me as I
love you
We'll play the game and win it too.
So long as Lust or Lucre tempt
Straight riders from the course,
So
long as with each drink we pour
Black brewage of Remorse,
So
long as those unloaded guns
We keep beside the bed,
Blow off, by
obvious accident,
The lucky owner's head,
If you love me as I love
you
What can Life kill or Death undo?
So long as Death 'twixt dance and dance
Chills best and bravest blood,

And drops the reckless rider down
The rotten, rain-soaked khud,

So long as rumours from the North
Make loving wives afraid,
So
long as Burma takes the boy
Or typhoid kills the maid,
If you love
me as I love you
What knife can cut our love in two?
By all that lights our daily life
Or works our lifelong woe,
From
Boileaugunge to Simla Downs
And those grim glades below,

Where, heedless of the flying hoof
And clamour overhead,
Sleep,
with the grey langur for guard
Our very scornful Dead,
If you love
me as I love you
All Earth is servant to us two!
By Docket, Billetdoux, and File,
By Mountain, Cliff, and Fir,
By
Fan and Sword and Office-box,
By Corset, Plume, and Spur
By
Riot, Revel, Waltz,