Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/477

They sends us along where the roads are, but mostly we goes where they ain't.
We'd climb up the side of a sign-board an' trust to the stick o' the paint:
We've chivied the Naga an' Looshai, we've give the Afreedeeman fits,
For we fancies ourselves at two thousand, we guns that are built in two bits—'Tss! 'Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns . . .

If a man doesn't wofK, why, we drills 'im an' teaches 'im 'ow to behave;
If a beggar can't march, why, we kills 'im an' rattles 'im into 'is grave.
You've got to stand up to our business an' spring without snatchin' or fuss.
D' you say that you sweat with the field-guns? By God, you must lather with us—'Tss! 'Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns . . .

The eagles is screamin* around us, the river's a-moanin* below,
We're clear o* the pine an' the oak-scrub, we're out on the rocks an' the snow,
An' the wind is as thin as a whip-lash what carries away to the plains
The rattle an' stamp o' the lead-mules the jinglety-jink o' the chains—'Tss! 'Tss!
For you all love the screw-guns . . .

There's a wheel on the Horns o' the Mornin', an' a wheel on the edge o' the Pit,
An* a drop into nothin' beneath you as straight as a beggar can spit: