Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/132

In the silence of the camp before the fight,
    When it's good to make your will and say your prayer,
You can hear my strumpty-tumpty overnight,
    Explaining ten to one was always fair.
I'm the Prophet of the Utterly Absurd,
    Of the Patently Impossible and Vain—
And when the Thing that Couldn't has occurred,
    Give me time to change my leg and go again.
    
          With my "Tumpa-tumpa-tumpa-tumpa-tump!"
              In the desert where the dung-fed camp-smoke curled.
          There was never voice before us till I fed our lonely chorus,
              I—the war-drum of the White Man round the world!
             
By the bitter road the Younger Son must tread,
    Ere he win to hearth and saddle of his own,—
'Mid the riot of the shearers at the shed,
    In the silence of the herder's hut alone—
    Hear me babble what the weakest won't confess—
I am Memory and Torment—I am Town!
     I am all that ever went with evening dress!
     
          With my "Tunka-tunka-tunka-tunka-tunk!"
              [So the lights—the London Lights—grow near and plain!]
          So I rowel'em afresh towards the Devil and the Flesh
              Till I bring my broken rankers home again.
             
In desire of many marvels over sea,
    Where the new-raised tropic city sweats and roars,
I have sailed with Young Ulysses from the quay
    Till the anchor rumbled down on stranger shores.