Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads | Page 6

the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise-- But,
howsoever Love be blind, the world at large hath eyes.] With
damnatory dot and dash he heliographed his wife
Some interesting
details of the General's private life.
The artless Aide-de-camp was mute, the shining Staff were still, And
red and ever redder grew the General's shaven gill.
And this is what he said at last (his feelings matter not):-- "I think
we've tapped a private line. Hi! Threes about there! Trot!"
All honour unto Bangs, for ne'er did Jones thereafter know
By word
or act official who read off that helio.
But the tale is on the Frontier, and from Michni to Mooltan They know
the worthy General as "that most immoral man."
THE LAST DEPARTMENT
Twelve hundred million men are spread
About this Earth, and I and
You
Wonder, when You and I are dead,
"What will those luckless
millions do?"
None whole or clean," we cry, "or free from stain
Of favour." Wait
awhile, till we attain
The Last Department where nor fraud nor fools,

Nor grade nor greed, shall trouble us again.
Fear, Favour, or Affection--what are these
To the grim Head who
claims our services?
I never knew a wife or interest yet
Delay that
pukka step, miscalled "decease";
When leave, long overdue, none can deny;
When idleness of all
Eternity
Becomes our furlough, and the marigold
Our thriftless,

bullion-minting Treasury
Transferred to the Eternal Settlement,
Each in his strait,
wood-scantled office pent,
No longer Brown reverses Smith's appeals,

Or Jones records his Minute of Dissent.
And One, long since a pillar of the Court,
As mud between the beams
thereof is wrought;
And One who wrote on phosphates for the crops

Is subject-matter of his own Report.
These be the glorious ends whereto we pass--
Let Him who Is, go call
on Him who Was;
And He shall see the mallie steals the slab
For
currie-grinder, and for goats the grass.
A breath of wind, a Border bullet's flight,
A draught of water, or a
horse's fright--
The droning of the fat Sheristadar
Ceases, the
punkah stops, and falls the night
For you or Me. Do those who live decline
The step that offers, or
their work resign?
Trust me, Today's Most Indispensables,
Five
hundred men can take your place or mine.
BALLADS AND BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS
BALLADS
THE BALLAD OF FISHER'S BOARDING-HOUSE
That night, when through the mooring-chains
The wide-eyed corpse rolled free,
To blunder down by Garden Reach

And rot at Kedgeree,
The tale the Hughli told the shoal
The lean
shoal told to me.
'T was Fultah Fisher's boarding-house,
Where sailor-men reside,

And there were men of all the ports
From Mississip to Clyde,
And

regally they spat and smoked,
And fearsomely they lied.
They lied about the purple Sea
That gave them scanty bread,
They
lied about the Earth beneath,
The Heavens overhead,
For they had
looked too often on
Black rum when that was red.
They told their tales of wreck and wrong,
Of shame and lust and
fraud,
They backed their toughest statements with
The Brimstone of
the Lord,
And crackling oaths went to and fro
Across the
fist-banged board.
And there was Hans the blue-eyed Dane,
Bull-throated, bare of arm,

Who carried on his hairy chest
The maid Ultruda's charm--
The
little silver crucifix
That keeps a man from harm.
And there was Jake Without-the-Ears,
And Pamba the Malay,
And
Carboy Gin the Guinea cook,
And Luz from Vigo Bay,
And Honest
Jack who sold them slops
And harvested their pay.
And there was Salem Hardieker,
A lean Bostonian he--
Russ,
German, English, Halfbreed, Finn,
Yank, Dane, and Portuguee,
At
Fultah Fisher's boarding-house
They rested from the sea.
Now Anne of Austria shared their drinks,
Collinga knew her fame,

From Tarnau in Galicia
To Juan Bazaar she came,
To eat the bread
of infamy
And take the wage of shame.
She held a dozen men to heel--
Rich spoil of war was hers,
In hose
and gown and ring and chain,
From twenty mariners,
And, by Port
Law, that week, men called
her Salem Hardieker's.
But seamen learnt--what landsmen know--
That neither gifts nor gain

Can hold a winking Light o' Love
Or Fancy's flight restrain,

When Anne of Austria rolled her eyes
On Hans the blue-eyed Dane.

Since Life is strife, and strife means knife,
From Howrah to the Bay,

And he may die before the dawn
Who liquored out the day,
In
Fultah Fisher's boarding-house
We woo while yet we may.
But cold was Hans the blue-eyed Dane,
Bull-throated, bare of arm,

And laughter shook the chest beneath
The maid Ultruda's charm--

The little silver crucifix
That keeps a man from harm.
"You speak to Salem Hardieker;
"You was his girl, I know.
"I ship mineselfs tomorrow, see,
"Und round the Skaw we go,

"South, down the Cattegat, by Hjelm,
"To Besser in Saro."
When love rejected turns to hate,
All ill betide the man.
"You speak to Salem Hardieker"--
She spoke as woman can.
A
scream--a sob--"He called me--names!"
And then the fray began.
An oath from Salem Hardieker,
A shriek upon the stairs,
A dance of
shadows on the wall,
A knife-thrust unawares--
And Hans came
down, as cattle drop,
Across the broken chairs.

In Anne of Austria's trembling hands
The weary head fell low:--
"I
ship mineselfs tomorrow, straight
"For Besser in Saro;
"Und there
Ultruda comes to me
"At Easter, und I