The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #62282   Message #1006827
Posted By: mg
23-Aug-03 - 12:35 AM
Thread Name: BS: to be an infantry pawn
Subject: RE: BS: to be an infantry pawn
here's something by Kipling about some former pawns..I wonder if it has a tune put to it..

Or ever the battered liners sank
with their passengers to the dark
I was head of a Walworth Bank
and you were a grocer's clerk

I was a dealer in stocks and shares
and you in butters and teas
and we both abandoned our own affairs
and took to the dreadful seas

wet and worry about our ways
panic, onset, and flight
had us in charge for a thousand days
and a thousand-year-long night

we saw more than the nights could hide
more than the waves could keep
and certain faces over the side
which do not go from our sleep

we were more tired than words can tell
while the pied craft fled by
nd the swinging mounds of the western swell
hoisted us heavens high

now there is nothing not even our rank
to witness what we have been
and I am returned to my Walworth Bank
and you to your margerine

mg