To His Peculiar Friend Within-Doors

After R. H.


A strong discomfort in the dress
Dwindling the clothes to nothingness
Saving, for due decorum placed,
A huckaback about the waist,
Or wanton towel-et, whose touch
Haply may spare to chafe o'ermuch:
A languid frame, from head to feet
Prankt in the arduous prickle-heat:
An erring fly, that here and there
Enwraths the crimsoned sufferèr:
An upward toe, whose skill enjoys
The slipper's curious equipoise:
A punkah wantoning, whereby
Papers do flow confoundedly:
By such comportment, and th' offence
Of thy fantastic eloquence,
Dost thou, my WILLIAM, make it known
That thou art warm, and best alone.

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

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John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

Ode To The Time-Gun Of Gurrumbad

John Kendall (Dum-Dum), Simple Poetry

To Mandalay - Greeting

John Kendall (Dum-Dum), Simple Poetry

To An Elephant On His Tonic Qualities

John Kendall (Dum-Dum), Simple Poetry

The Wooin' O' Tummas

John Kendall (Dum-Dum), Simple Poetry

English

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A Sombre Retrospect

Long, long ago, in that heroic time
When I, a coy and modest youth, was shot
Out on this dust-heap of careers and crime
To try and learn what's what,

I had a servitor, a swarthy knave,
Who showed an almost irreligious taste
For wearing nothing but a turban, save
A rag about the waist.

This apparition gave me such a start,
That I endowed him with a cast-off pair
Of inexpressibles, and said, 'Depart,
And be no longer bare.'

He took the offering with broken thanks;
But day succeeded day, and still revealed
Those sombre and attenuated shanks
Intensely unconcealed;

Until at last the climax came when I
Resolved to bring this matter to an end,
And when I saw him passing, shouted, 'Hi!
Where are your trousers, friend?'

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

To An Elephant On His Tonic Qualities

Solace of mine hours of anguish,
Peace-imparting View, when I,
Sick of Hindo-Sturm-und-Drang, wish
I could lay me down and die,

Very present help in trouble,
Never-failing anodyne
For the blows that knock us double,
Here's towards thee, Hathi mine!

As, 'tis said, the dolorous Jack Tar
Turns to view the watery Vast,
When he mourns his frail charàc-tar,
Or deplores his jagged Past,

Climbs a cliff, and breathes his sighs on
That appalling breast until,
Borne from off the far horizon,
Voices whisper, 'Cheer up, Bill!'

So when evil chance or dark as-
persions crush the bosom's lord,
When discomfort rends the car-cass,
When we're sorry, sick, or bored,

When the year is at its hottest,
And our life with sorrow cr...

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

Sairey - Excerpts From An Incongruity

After A. C. S.


In Spring there are lashings of new books,
In Autumn fresh novels are sold,
They are many, but my shelf has few books,
My comrades, the favourites of old;
Tho' the roll of the cata-logues vary,
Thou alone art unchangeably dear,
O bibulous, beautiful Sairey,
Our Lady of Cheer.

By the whites of thine eyes that were yellow,
By the folds of thy duplicate chin,
By thy voice that was husky but mellow
With gin, with the richness of gin,
By thy scorn of the boy that was Bragian,
By thy wealth of perambulate swoons,
O matchless and mystical Magian,
Beguile us with boons.

For thou scatterest the evil before us
With grave humours and exquisite speech,
Till we heed not the 'new men that bore us,'
Nor...

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

Nocturne Written In An Indian Garden

'Where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise.'


The time-gun rolls his nerve-destroying bray;
The toiling moon rides slowly o'er the trees;
The weary diners cast their cares away,
And seek the lawn for coolness and for ease.

Now spreads the gathering stillness like a pall,
And melancholy silence rules the scene,
Save where the bugler sounds his homing call,
And thirsty THOMAS leaves the wet canteen;

Save that from yonder lines in deepest gloom
Th' ambiguous mule does of the stick^[1] bewail,
Whose dunder craft forbids him to consume
His proper blanket, or his neighbour's tail.

Beneath those jagged tiles, that low-built roof
(Whose inmost secret deeps let none divine!),
Each to his master's cry supremely proof,<...

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

Haven

Here, in mine old-time harbourage installed,
Lulled by the murmurous hum of London's traffic
To that full calm which may be justly called
Seraphic,

I praise the gods; and vow, for my escape
From the hard grip of premature Jehannun,
One golden-tissued bottle of the grape
Per annum.

For on this day, from Orient toils enlarged,
Kneeling, I kissed the parent soil at Dover,
Where a huge porter in his orbit charged
Me over;

Flashed in the train by Shorncliffe's draughty camp;
Gazed on the hurrying landscape's pastoral graces,
Old farms, and happy fields (a trifle damp
In places);

Passed the grim suburbs, indigent and bare
Of natural foliage, but bravely flying
Frank garlandry of last week's underwear
Out drying;

And ...

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

To My Lady Of The Hills

'... O she,
To me myself, for some three careless moons,
The summer pilot of an empty heart
Unto the shores of Nothing.' - Tennyson.


'Tis the hour when golden slumbers
Through th' Hesperian portals creep,
And the youth who lisps in numbers
Dreams of novel rhymes to 'sleep';
I shall merely note, at starting,
That responsive Nature thrills
To the twilight hour of parting
From my Lady of the Hills.

Lady, 'neath the deepening umbrage
We have wandered near and far,
To the ludicrously dumb rage
Of your truculent Mamma;
We have urged the long-tailed gallop;
Lightly danced the still night through;
Smacked the ball, and oared the shallop
(In a vis-à-vis canoe);

We have walked this fair Oasis,
Keeping...

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)