Fuess and Stearns, comps. The Little Book of Society Verse. 1922.
By. Rudyard KiplingMy Rival
I
What profit is in these?
I sit alone against the wall,
And strive to look at ease.
The incense that is mine by right
They burn before Her shrine;
And that’s because I’m seventeen
And She is forty-nine.
My colour comes and goes;
I redden to my finger-tips,
And sometimes to my nose;
But She is white where white should be
And red where red should shine—
The blush that flies at seventeen
Is fixed at forty-nine.
I wish that I could sing
All sorts of funny little songs,
Not quite the proper thing.
I’m very gauche and very shy;
Her jokes are n’t in my line;
And, worst of all, I’m seventeen,
While she is forty-nine.
Each pink and white and neat,
She’s older than their mothers, but
They grovel at Her feet;
They walk beside Her ’rickshaw wheels—
They never walk by mine;
And that’s because I’m seventeen
And She is forty-nine.
(She calls them “boys” and “mashers”);
I trot along the Mall alone.
My prettiest frocks and sashes
Don’t help to fill my programme-card,
And vainly I repine
From 10 to 2
Would I were forty-nine!
And “sweet retiring maid.”
I’m always at the back, I know;
She puts me in the shade.
She introduces me to men,
“Cast” lovers, I opine,
For sixty takes to seventeen,
Nineteen to forty-nine.
And end Her dancing days;
She can’t go on forever so
At concerts, balls, and plays!
One ray of priceless hope I see
Before my footsteps shine:
Just think that she’ll be eighty-one
When I am forty-nine.