In an essay about Kipling by George Orwell he comments on this poem:

"So it's knock out your pipes and follow me!
   And it's finish up your swipes and follow me!
   Oh, hark to the big drum calling
   Follow me - Follow me home..."

"Here I have restored the aitches etc. Kiping ought to have known better. He ought to have seen that the two closing lines of the first of these stanzas are very beautiful lines, and that ought to have overridden his impulse to make fun of a working-man's accent. In the ancient ballads the lord and the peasant speak the same language...However he is more often quoted aloud than read on the printed page, and most people instinctively make the necessary alterations when they quote him."

Actually I don't think "making fun" is a correct way of saying what Kipling is doing here, though I agree with Orwell that this fashion for putting in misspelling as a token way of indicating an accent is a mistake. Much better to use conventional spelling, and leave it to the reader (or singer) and the listener to put in or hear the accent for themselves. The same goes for all the "dis" and "dat" and "de" and "hab" which tend to get in the way of songs by the likes of Stephen Foster.