John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

Come, let us quaff the brimming cup
Of sorrow, bitterness, and pain;
For clearly, things are warming up
Again.

Observe with what awakened powers
The vulgar Sun resumes the right
Of rising in the hallowed hours
Of night.

Bound to the village water-wheel,
The motive bullock bows his crest,
And signals forth a mute appeal
For rest.

His neck is galled beneath the yoke:
His patient eyes are very dim:
Life is a dismal sort of joke
To him.

Yet one there is, to whom the ox
Is kin; who knows, as habitat,
The cold, unsympathetic box,
Or mat;

Who urges on, with wearied arms,
The punkah's rhythmic, laboured sweep,
Nor dares to contemplate the charms
Of sleep.

Now 'mid a host of lesser thing...

Why do you sit in the churchyard weeping?
Why do you cling to the dear old graves,
When the dim, drear mists of the dusk are creeping
Out of the marshes in wan, white waves?
Darling, I know you're a slave to sorrow;
Dearie, I know that the world is cruel;
But you'll be in bed with a cold to-morrow,
I shall be running upstairs with gruel.

Why do you weep on a tombstone, Mammy,
Sobbing alone in the drizzling sleet,
When the chill mists rise, and the wind strikes clammy?
Think of your bones, and your poor old feet!
Darling, I know that you feel lugubrious;
Dearie, I know you must work this off;
But graveyards are not, as a rule, salubrious,
Whence the expression, a 'churchyard cough.'

[The Old Lady explains her eccentric...

Away, away! The plains of Ind
Have set their victim free;
I give my sorrows to the wind,
My sun-hat to the sea;
And, standing with a chosen few,
I watch a dying glow,
The passing of the Finest View
That all the world can show.

It would not fire an artist's eye,
This View whereof I sing;
Poets, no doubt, would pass it by
As quite a common thing;
The Tourist with belittling sniff
Would find no beauties there -
He couldn't if he would, and if
He could he wouldn't care.

Only for him that turns the back
On dark and evil days
It throws a glory down his track
That sets his heart ablaze;
A charm to make the wounded whole,
Which wearied eyes may draw
Luxuriously through the soul,
Like cocktails through a straw.

...

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!

There are many, I know, that have honestly drawn a
Most moving description of pleasures to win
By the exquisite carnage of such of your fauna
As Nature provides with a 'head' or a 'skin';
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.

'The Government of India has been pleased to sanction the infliction of a fine of ..., etc.'


To him that reads with careless eyes
My present theme affords
But little scope for enterprise
In buttering one's lords:
Fines, he would urge, have always bulked
Largely to Those that rule,
For, plainly, every man They mulct
Contributes to the pool.

But when in ages dead and gone
Our fathers fought with Sin,
However hard they laid it on,
They didn't rub it in;
While These not only bring to bear
Their dark prerogatives,
But diabolically air
The pleasure that it gives!

Here is the Iron Hand that builds
Our realms beyond the sea;
No suaviter in modo gilds
Their fortiter in re;
Here is no washy velvet glo...

After A. T.


So for the last great Hockey of the Hills,
- Damsel v. Dame - by ruder cynics called
The Tournament of the Dead Dignities,
We gained the lists, and I, thro' humorous lens,
Perused the revels. Here on autumn grass
Leapt the lithe-elbowed Spin, and strongly merged
In scrimmage with the comfortable Wife
And temporary Widow, - know you not,
Such trifles are the merest commonplace
In loftier contours? - Twenty-two in all
They numbered, and none other trod the field
Save one, the bold Sir Referee, whose charge
It was to keep fair order in the lists,
And peace 'twixt Dame and Damsel: married, he.

O brothers, had ye seen them! O the games!
Fleet-footed some: lightly they leapt, and drave
Or missed the pellet; then, perc...

There's a little lake that lies
In a valley, where the skies
Kiss the mountains, as they rise,
On the crown;
And the heaven-born élite
Are accustomed to retreat
From the pestilential heat
Lower down.

Where the Mighty, for a space,
Mix with Beauty, Rank, and Grace,
(I myself was in the place,
At my best!)
And the atmosphere's divine,
While the deodar and pine
Are particularly fine
For the chest.

And a little month ago,
When the sun was lying low,
And the water lay aglow
Like a pearl,
I, remarkably arrayed,
Dipped an unobtrusive blade
In the lake - and in the shade -
With a girl.

O 'twas pleasant thus to glide
On the 'softly-flowing tide'
(Which it's not!) and, undescried,
Take a hand
...

Once for a tight little Island, fonder of ha'pence than kicks,
Rud., a maker of verses, sang of an Empire of Bricks,
Sang of the Sons of that Empire - told them they came of the Blood -
Rubbing it under their noses. Read ye the Story of Rud!

Pleased was the Public to hear it - rose in their hundreds to sing -
Swallowed it, chewed it, and gurgled: 'Verily, this is the thing!
Thus do we wallop our foemen - roll 'em away in the mud -
This is the People that we are. Glory and laurels for Rud.!'

Later he pictured a Panic - later he pictured a Scare,
Pictured the burning of coast towns - skies in a reddening glare -
Pictured the Mafficking Million - collared, abortive, alone -
Out of the duty he owed them, pictured them down to the bone.

Sick was the Pub...

After R. B.


Tummas Katt cam' roun' to woo,
Ha, ha, the wooin' o't;
Lichtly sang ta lang nicht thro',
Ha, ha, the mewin' o't;
Tabbie, winsome, tim'rous beast,
Speakit: 'Tummas, hand tha' weist!
Girt auld Tummas 'gan inseest;
Ha, ha, the doin' o't!

Tabbie laucht, an' brawly fleired,
Ha, ha, the fleirin' o't;
Tummas, - ech! but Tummas speired
Ha, ha, the speirin' o't;
Sic an awesome, fearfu' screep,
Wakin' a' aroun' frae sleep;
Fegs, it gar'd the Gudeman weep!
Ha, ha, the hearin' o't!

Quoth the Gudeman: 'Dairm his een!'
Ha, ha, the swearin' o't;
'Muckle fasht was I yestreen,
A' thro' the bearin' o't!
Ere the sonsie moon was bricht,
Clean awa' till mornin' licht,
Mickle sleep was mine the nicht;

Solace of mine hours of anguish,
Peace-imparting View, when I,
Sick of Hindo-Sturm-und-Drang, wish
I could lay me down and die,

Very present help in trouble,
Never-failing anodyne
For the blows that knock us double,
Here's towards thee, Hathi mine!

As, 'tis said, the dolorous Jack Tar
Turns to view the watery Vast,
When he mourns his frail charàc-tar,
Or deplores his jagged Past,

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 cr...

After R. H.


A strong discomfort in the dress
Dwindling the clothes to nothingness
Saving, for due decorum placed,
A huckaback about the waist,
Or wanton towel-et, whose touch
Haply may spare to chafe o'ermuch:
A languid frame, from head to feet
Prankt in the arduous prickle-heat:
An erring fly, that here and there
Enwraths the crimsoned sufferèr:
An upward toe, whose skill enjoys
The slipper's curious equipoise:
A punkah wantoning, whereby
Papers do flow confoundedly:
By such comportment, and th' offence
Of thy fantastic eloquence,
Dost thou, my WILLIAM, make it known
That thou art warm, and best alone.

(BY WALTYARD WHIPMING)


I

A song of Mandalay!
Allons, Camerados, Desperadoes, Amontillados!
Hear my Recitative, my Romanza, my Spring Onion!


II

You three-striped sergeants, you corporals, non-commissioned officers,
and men with one or more good-conduct badges,
You indifferent and bad characters, am I not also one with you?
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,
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;
I see a dun...

'... O she,
To me myself, for some three careless moons,
The summer pilot of an empty heart
Unto the shores of Nothing.' - Tennyson.


'Tis the hour when golden slumbers
Through th' Hesperian portals creep,
And the youth who lisps in numbers
Dreams of novel rhymes to 'sleep';
I shall merely note, at starting,
That responsive Nature thrills
To the twilight hour of parting
From my Lady of the Hills.

Lady, 'neath the deepening umbrage
We have wandered near and far,
To the ludicrously dumb rage
Of your truculent Mamma;
We have urged the long-tailed gallop;
Lightly danced the still night through;
Smacked the ball, and oared the shallop
(In a vis-à-vis canoe);

We have walked this fair Oasis,
Keeping...

Now the busy screw is churning,
Now the horrid sirens blow;
Now are India's guests returning
Home from India's Greatest Show;
Now the gleeful Asiatic
Speeds them on their wild career,
And, though normally phlegmatic,
Gives a half-unconscious cheer.

India's years were years of leanness,
Till the Late Performance drew
These, whose confidential greenness
She has run for all she knew.
Gladly rose the land to bid them
Welcome for a fleeting spell -
Nobly took them in and did them -
And has done extremely well.

Peace be theirs, important Packet,
Genial skies and happy calms -
No derogatory racket,
No humiliating qualms!
Gales, I charge you, shun to rouse and
Lash the seas to angry foam,
While Britannia's Great Ten Thousand

It is told, in Buddhi-theosophic Schools
There are rules
By observing which when mundane matter irks,
Or the world has gone amiss, you
Can incontinently issue
From the circumscribing tissue
Of your Works.

That the body and the gentleman inside
Can divide,
And the latter, if acquainted with the plan,
Can alleviate the tension
By remaining 'in suspension'
As a kind of fourth dimension
Bogie man.

And to such as mourn an Indian Solar Crime
At its prime,
'Twere a stratagem so luminously fit,
That tho' doctrinaires deny it,
And Academicians guy it,
I, for one, would like to try it
For a bit.

Just to leave one's earthly tenement asleep
In a heap,
And detachedly to watch it as it lies,
With an epidermis pickled...