Many Inventions

'Less you want your toes trod of you'd better get back at once,
For the bullocks are walking two by two,
The byles are walking two by two,                                    
And the elephants bring the guns.
Ho! Yuss!
Great-big-long-black-forty-pounder guns.
Jiggery-jolty to and fro,
Each as big as a launch in tow
Blind-dumb-broad-breeched beggars o' battering-guns!


- My Lord the Elephant.

Rudyard

Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. His notable works include the novels 'The Jungle Book,' 'Kim,' and the poem 'If—.' Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907, making him the youngest recipient of the award.

Rudyard

My New-Cut Ashler

Rudyard , Simple Poetry

Chapter Headings

Rudyard , Simple Poetry

The Fires

Rudyard , Simple Poetry

The Master-Cook

Rudyard , Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Chapter Headings - Many Inventions

Less you want your toes trod off youd better get back at once,
For the bullocks are walking two by two,
The byles are walking two by two,
And the elephants bring the guns.
Ho! Yuss!
Great, big, long, black, forty-pounder guns.
Jiggery jolty to and fro,
Each as big as a launch in tow,
Blind, dumb, broad-breeched, beggars o battering-guns.
My Lord the Elephant.

Rudyard

Beast And Man In India

Written for John Lockwood Kipling's

They killed a Child to please the Gods
In Earth's young penitence,
And I have bled in that Babe's stead
Because of innocence.

I bear the sins of sinful men
That have no sin of my own,
They drive me forth to Heaven's wrath
Unpastured and alone.

I am the meat of sacrifice,
The ransom of man's guilt,
For they give my life to the altar-knife
Wherever shrine is built.

The Goat.

Between the waving tufts of jungle-grass,
Up from the river as the twilight falls,
Across the dust-beclouded plain they pass
On to the village walls.

Great is the sword and mighty is the pen,
But over all the labouring ploughman's blade,
For on its oxen and its husbandmen
An Empire's strength is ...

Rudyard

Parade-Song Of The Camp-Animals

- Elephants of the Gun-Teams

We lent to Alexander the strength of Hercules,
The wisdom of our foreheads, the cunning of our knees.
We bowed our necks to service, they ne'er were loosed again,
Make way there, way for the ten-foot teams
Of the Forty-Pounder train!

- Gun-Bullocks

Those heroes in their harnesses avoid a cannon-ball,
And what they know of powder upsets them one and all;
Then we come into action and tug the guns again,
Make way there, way for the twenty yoke
Of the Forty-Pounder train!

- Cavalry Horses

By the brand on my withers, the finest of tunes
Is played by the Lancers, Hussars, and Dragoons,
And it's sweeter than "Stables" or "Water" to me,
The Cavalry Canter of "Bonnie Dundee!"

Then feed us and break u...

Rudyard

Elephant And Bookseller.

        The traveller whose undaunted soul
        Sails o'er the seas from pole to pole
        Sees many wonders, which become
        So wonderful they strike one dumb,
        When we in their description view
        Monsters which Adam never knew.
        Yet, on the other hand, the sceptic
        Supplies his moral antiseptic;
        Denying unto truths belief,
        With groans which give his ears relief:
        But truth is stranger far than fiction,
        And outlives sceptic contradiction.
        Read Pliny or old Aldrovandus,
        If - they would say - you understand us.
        Let other monsters stand avaunt,
        And read we of the elephant.

        As one of these, in days of yore,
        Rummaged a stall of antique lo...

John Gay

Route Marchin'

We're marchin' on relief over Injia's sunny plains,
A little front o' Christmas-time an' just be'ind the Rains;
Ho! get away you bullock-man, you've 'eard the bugle blowed,
There's a regiment a-comin' down the Grand Trunk Road;
With its best foot first
And the road a-sliding past,
An' every bloomin' campin'-ground exactly like the last;
While the Big Drum says,
With 'is "rowdy-dowdy-dow!"
"Kiko kissywarsti don't you hamsher argy jow?"*

Why don't you get on?

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...

Rudyard

The Legends Of Evil

I

This is the sorrowful story
Told when the twilight fails
And the monkeys walk together
Holding their neighbours' tails:

"Our fathers lived in the forest,
Foolish people were they,
They went down to the cornland
To teach the farmers to play.

"Our fathers frisked in the millet,
Our fathers skipped in the wheat,
Our fathers hung from the branches,
Our fathers danced in the street.

"Then came the terrible farmers,
Nothing of play they knew,
Only. . .they caught our fathers
And set them to labour too!

"Set them to work in the cornland
With ploughs and sickles and flails,
Put them in mud-walled prisons
And, cut off their beautiful tails!

"Now, we can watch our fathers,
Sullen and bowed and old,

Rudyard