John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

Clothes and the Man I sing. Reformers, note
These of the Subaltern who owned a Coat.

He was what veterans miscall, for short,
By that objectionable term, a wart:[1]

The Coat an item of the 'sealed' attire
Wrung from his helpless but reluctant sire;

Also the tails were long; and, for the pride
Thereof, were buttons on the after-side;

Majestic orbs, whose gilded obverse bore
The bossy symbol of his future corps.

The youth, ere sailing for a distant land,
Did, in the interval, receive command

To join a 'Course,' where men of grave repute
Instruct the young idea how to shoot.

Thither he sped, and on the opening day
Rose, and, empanoplied in brave array,

(Ample of flowing skirt, and with great craft<...

11.30 P.M., DEC. 31


Friend, when the year is on the wing,
'Tis held a fair and comely thing
To turn reflective glances
Over the days' forbidden Scroll,
See if we're better on the whole,
And average our chances.

Yet 'tis an awful thing to drag
Each separate deed from out the bag
That up till now has hidden 't,
And bring before the shuddering view
All that we swore we wouldn't do,
Or should have done, but didn't.

The broken code, the baffled laws
Our little private faults and flaws,
And every naughty habit,
Come whistling through the Waste of Life,
Until one longs to take a knife,
Feel for his heart, and stab it.

Unchanged, exultant, one and all
Rise up spontaneous to the call,
And bring their stings behind ...

In the dim and distant ages, in the half-forgotten days,
Ere the East became the fashion and an Indian tour the craze,
Lived a certain Major-General, renowned throughout the State
As a soldier of distinction and considerable weight.

But though weightiness of mind is an invaluable trait,
When applied to adiposity it's all the other way;
And our hero was confronted with an ever-growing lack
Of the necessary charger and the hygienic hack.

He had bought them by the dozen, he had tried them by the score,
But not one of them was equal to the burden that he bore;
They were conscious of the honour, they were sound in wind and limb,
They could carry a cathedral, but they drew the line at him.

But he stuck to it, till finally his pressing needs were filled
By ...

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?'

After W. W.

An adventure of the Author's, and one designed to show that grievances may be met with in the cottages of the humblest, and may take the most unexpected forms.


When in my white-washed walls confined
Till eve her freedom brings,
I often turn a musing mind
To think awhile of things,

And thus about the noontide glow
To-day my thoughts recalled
Old Adam, whom I once did know,
A dear old thing, though bald.

A village Gravedigger was he
With Newgate fringe of grey,
The only man that one could see
At work on Saturday!

For on those evenings (which provide
A due release to toil)
He shovelled wearily, and plied
His task upon the soil.

Therein a sorrow Adam had,
And when he knew me well
He t...

Christmas comes but once a year.
Though by nature snappy,
Let us, as we may, appear
Merry, friend, and happy!
Buckle to; and when you meet your
Thunderstricken fellow-creature,
Show the broad, indulgent smile
Of th' ingenuous crocodile!
Look as if you'd backed a winner!
Laugh, you miserable sinner!

Brother, Christmas Day has come.
Can't you seek for inspi-
ration in the turkey, plum-
pudding, beef, and mince-pie?
Brave it out, and tho' you sit on
Tenterhooks, remain a Briton;
You can only do your best;
Boxing Day's a day of rest!
Throw aside your small digestive
Eccentricities. Be festive!

Christmas Day is on the wing.
Are you feeling wroth with
Any one for anything?
Beg his pardon forthwith!
Though th...

Come, let us weep for Begum; he is dead.
Dead; and afar, where Thamis' waters lave
The busy marge, he lies unvisited,
Unsung; above no cypress branches wave,
Nor tributary blossoms fringe his grave;
Only would these poor numbers advertise
His copious charms, and mourn for his demise.

Blithesome was he and beautiful; the Zoo
Hath nought to match with Begum. He was one
Of infinite humour; well indeed he knew
To catch with mobile lips th' impetuous bun
Tossed him-ward by some sire-encouraged son,
Half-fearful, yet of pride fulfilled to note
The dough, swift-homing down th' exultant throat.

Whilom he pensive stood, infoliate
Of comfortable mud, and idly stirred
His tiny caudal, disproportionate
But not ungraceful, while a wanton herd
Of revel...

From the dust, and the drought, and the heat,
I am borne on the pinions of leave,
From the things that are bad to repeat
To the things that are good to receive.

From the glare of the day at its height
On a land that was blinding to see,
From the wearisome hiss of the night,
By a turn of the wheel I am free.

I have passed to the heart of the Hills,
For a season of halcyon hours,
'Mid the music of murmurous rills,
And the delicate odours of flowers;

And I walk in an exquisite shade,
Where the fern-tasselled boughs interlace;
And the verdurous fringe of the glade
Is a marvel of fairylike grace;

And with never an aim or a plan
I can wander in uttermost ease,
Where the only reminders of Man
Are the monkeys aloft in the trees;<...

'Farewell. What a subject! How sweet
It looks to the careless observer!
So simple; so easy to treat
With tenderness, mark you, and fervour.
Farewell. It's a poem; the song
Of nightingales crying and calling!'
O Reader, you're utterly wrong.
It's not. It's appalling!

And yet when she asked me to send
Some trifle of verse to remind her
Of days that had come to an end,
And one she was leaving behind her,
It looked, as we stood on the shore,
A theme so entirely delightsome
That I, like a lunatic, swore
(Quite calmly) to write some.

I've toiled with unwavering pluck;
I've struggled if ever a man did;
Infringed every postulate, stuck
At nothing, - nay, once, to be candid,
I shifted the cadence - designed
A fresh but unauth...

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 ...

(=TO-MORROW)

['Never do To-day what can be postponed till To-morrow, save at the dictates of your personal convenience.' - Maxims of the Wicked, No. 3.]


Sweet Word, by whose unwearying assistance
We of the Ruling Race, when sorely tried,
Can keep intrusive persons at a distance,
And let unseasonable matters slide;
Thou at whose blast the powers of irritation
Yield to a soft and gentlemanly lull
Of solid peace and flat Procrastination,
These to thy praise and honour, good old Kal!

For we are greatly plagued by sacrilegious
Monsters in human form, who care for naught
Save with incessant papers to besiege us,
E'en to the solemn hour of silent thought;
They draw no line; the frightful joy of giving
Pain is their guerdon; but for Thee alon...

In Several Keys


We hear the opening refrain,
Marie!
We thought so; here you are again,
Marie!
A simple tune, in simple thirds,
Beloved of after-dinner birds;
A legend, self-condemned as 'words,'
Marie!

She lingers by the flowing tide,
Marie;
A 'fisher-lad' is close beside
Marie;
He gazes in her 'eyes so blue';
Marie, Marie, my heart is true;
And then, - you do, you know you do,
Marie! -

But vain is every mortal wish,
Marie;
And 'fisher-lads' have got to fish,
Marie;
O blinding tears! O cheeks 'so' wet!
Marie, I come again! And yet
I shouldn't feel disposed to bet,
Marie!

A tempest drives across the wave,
Marie;
With triplets in the treble stave,
Marie;
...

'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,<...

After T. G.


Ye distant Hills, ye smiling glades,
In decent foliage drest,
Where green Sylvanus proudly shades
The Sirkar's haughty crest,
And ye, that in your wider reign
Like bold adventurers disdain
The limit set for common clay,
Whose luck, whose pen, whose power of song,
Distinguish from the vulgar throng
To walk the flowery way:

Ah happy Hills! Ah genial sky!
Ah Goal where all would end!
Where once, and only once, did I
Go largely on the bend;
E'en now the tales that from ye flow
A fragmentary bliss bestow,
Till, once again a doedal boy,
In dreaming dimly of the first
I seem to take a second burst,
And snatch a tearful joy.

But tell me, Jakko, dost thou see
The same old sprightly crew
Dispo...

[Time-guns are of invariable pattern and extreme antiquity. Other species come and go; their ancestor remains always. One is to be found in each cantonment: he generally occupies a position of unsheltered and pathetic loneliness in a corner of the local parade-ground. The writer has never seen one herded in the Gun-park with his kind.]


Strong scion of the sturdy past
When simpler methods ruled the fray,
At whose demoralising blast
The stoutest foe recoiled aghast,
How fall'n art thou to-day!

Thy power the little children mock;
Thy voice, that shook the serried line,
But supplements the morning cock
At - roughly speaking - one o'clock,
And - broadly - half-past nine.

(Saving when THOMAS' deep employ
Th' attendant closing hour postpones,
And he, the und...

BY A RENEGADE DISCIPLE


Wake! for Reveillée scatters into flight
The flagging Rearguard of a ruined Night,
And hark! the meagre Champion of the Roost
Has flung a matins to the Throne of Light.

Here, while the first beam smites the sullen Sky,
With silent feet Hajâm comes stealing nigh,
Bearing the Brush, the Vessel, and the Blade,
These sallow cheeks of mine to scarify.

How often, oh, how often have I sworn
Myself myself to shave th' ensuing Morn!
And then - and then comes Guest-night, and Hajâm
Appears unbidden, and is gladly borne.

Come, fill the Cup! The nerve-restoring Ti
Shall woo me with the Leaf of far Bohi;
What matter that to some the Koko makes
Appeal, to some the Cingalese Kofi?

For in a minute Toil, that ever...

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...

Allons! Allons! Tra-la-la! Hear my Bellata!
Why do you not return to Mandalay O soldier?
Do you not remember the boats, and the paddles as they chunked outside the boats?
Do you not remember the elephants, the mighty elephants, strong, mysterious, impalpable (no, not impalpable), pachydermatous, and the extraordinary accuracy with which they succeeded in balancing trees or parts of trees, branches, logs, beams, planks, ... etc., ... with their trunks (the beams carefully supported at their centre of gravity, the logs carefully supported at their centre of gravity, the elephants without a smile at their centre of gravity)
From Rangoon to Mandalay?

For - 

On the road to Mandalay the flying-fishes play,
But there are no omnibuses to ply.
Is there not a thirst here, a...