T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
The Ladies
By Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)(From The Seven Seas, 1896) I’VE taken my fun where I’ve found it; | |
| I’ve rogued an’ I’ve ranged in my time; | |
| I’ve ’ad my pickin’ o’ sweet’earts, | |
| An’ four o’ the lot was prime. | |
| One was an ’arf-caste widow, | 5 |
| One was a woman at Prome, | |
| One was the wife of a jemadar-sais, | |
| An’ one is a girl at ’ome. | |
| Now I aren’t no ’and with the ladies, | |
| For, takin’ ’em all along, | 10 |
| You never can say till you’ve tried ’em, | |
| An’ then you are like to be wrong. | |
| There’s times when you’ll think that you mightn’t, | |
| There’s times when you’ll know that you might; | |
| But the things you will learn from the Yellow an’ Brown, | 15 |
| They’ll ’elp you an ’eap with the White! | |
| I was a young un at ’Oogli, | |
| Shy as a girl to begin; | |
| Aggie de Castrer she made me, | |
| An’ Aggie was clever as sin; | 20 |
| Older than me, but my first un— | |
| More like a mother she were— | |
| Showed me the way to promotion an’ pay, | |
| An’ I learned about women from ’er! | |
| Then I was ordered to Burma, | 25 |
| Actin’ in charge o’ Bazar, | |
| An’ I got me a tiddy live ’eathen | |
| Through buyin’ supplies off ’er pa. | |
| Funny an’ yellow an’ faithful— | |
| Doll in a teacup she were, | 30 |
| But we lived on the square, like a true-married pair, | |
| An’ I learned about women from ’er! | |
| Then we was shifted to Neemuch | |
| (Or I might ha’ been keepin’ ’er now), | |
| An’ I took with a shiny she-devil, | 35 |
| The wife of a nigger at Mhow; | |
| ’Taught me the gipsy-folks’ bolee; | |
| Kind o’ volcano she were, | |
| For she knifed me one night ’cause I wished she was white, | |
| And I learned about women from ’er! | 40 |
| Then I come ’ome in a trooper, | |
| ’Long of a kid o’ sixteen— | |
| Girl from a convent at Meerut, | |
| The straightest I ever ’ave seen. | |
| Love at first sight was ’er trouble, | 45 |
| She didn’t know what it were; | |
| An’ I wouldn’t do such, ’cause I liked ’er too much, | |
| But—I learned about women from ’er! | |
| I’ve taken my fun where I’ve found it, | |
| An’ now I must pay for my fun, | 50 |
| For the more you ’ave known o’ the others | |
| The less will you settle to one; | |
| An’ the end of it’s sittin’ and thinkin’, | |
| An’ dreamin’ Hell-fires to see; | |
| So be warned by my lot (which I know you will not), | 55 |
| An’ learn about women from me! | |
| What did the Colonel’s Lady think? | |
| Nobody never knew. | |
| Somebody asked the Sergeant’s Wife, | |
| An’ she told ’em true! | 60 |
| When you get to a man in the case, | |
| They’re like as a row of pins— | |
| For the Colonel’s Lady an’ Judy O’Grady | |
| Are sisters under their skins! | |