Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/503

⁠With its best foot first
⁠And the road a-sliding past,
⁠An' every blooming campin'-ground exactly like the last;
⁠While the Big Drum says,
⁠With 'is "rowdy-dowdy-dow!"—
⁠"Kiko kissywarsti don't you hamsher argy jow?"^[1]

Oh, there's them Injian temples to admire when you see.
There's the peacock round the corner an* the monkey up the tree,
An' there's that rummy silver-grass a-wavin* in the wind,
An' the old Grand Trunk a-trailin' like a rifle-sling be'ind.
⁠While it's best foot first, . . .

At half-past five's Revelly, an' our tents they down must come,
Like a lot of button-mushrooms when you pick 'em up at 'ome.
But it's over in a minute, an' at six the column starts,
While the women and the kiddies sit an' shiver in the carts.
⁠An it's best foot first, . . .

Oh, then it's open order, an' we lights our pipes an' sings,
An' we talks about our rations an' a lot of other things,
An' we thinks o' friends in England, an' we wonders what they're at,
An' 'ow they would admire for to hear us sling the bat.^[2]
⁠An' it's best foot first, . . .

It's none so bad o' Sundays, when you're lyin' at your ease,
To watch the kites a-wheelin' round them feather-'eaded trees,

1. Why don't you get on?
2. Language. Thomas's first and firmest conviction is that he is a profound Orientalist and a fluent speaker of Hindustani. As a matter of fact, he depends largely on the sign-language.