Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922.
“For to Admire”
T
So sof’, so bright, so bloomin’ blue;
There aren’t a wave for miles an’ miles
Excep’ the jiggle from the screw.
The ship is swep’, the day is done,
The bugle’s gone for smoke and play;
An’ black ag’in the settin’ sun
The Lascar sings, “Hum deckty hai!”
For to be’old this world so wide—
It never done no good to me,
But I can’t drop it if I tried!
I ’ear the women laugh an’ talk,
I spy upon the quarter-deck
The orficers an’ lydies walk.
I thinks about the things that was,
An’ leans an’ looks acrost the sea,
Till, spite of all the crowded ship,
There’s no one lef’ alive but me.
In barrick, camp, an’ action too,
I tells them over by myself,
An’ sometimes wonders if they’re true;
For they was odd—most awful odd—
But all the same now they are o’er,
There must be ’eaps o’ plenty such,
An’ if I wait I’ll see some more.
An’ frequent broke a barrick-rule,
An’ stood beside an’ watched myself
Be’avin’ like a bloomin’ fool.
I paid my price for findin’ out,
Nor never grutched the price I paid,
But sat in Clink without my boots,
Admirin’ ’ow the world was made.
An’ ’umped above the sea appears
Old Aden, like a barrick-stove
That no one’s lit for years an’ years!
I passed by that when I began,
An’ I go ’ome the road I came,
A time-expired soldier-man
With six years’ service to ’is name.
My mother ’eld me to ’er breast.
They’ve never written none, an’ so
They must ’ave gone with all the rest—
With all the rest which I ’ave seen
An’ found an’ known an’ met along.
I cannot say the things I feel,
And so I sing my evenin’ song:
For to be’old this world so wide—
It never done no good to me,
But I can’t drop it if I tried!