Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922.
The Ballad of Boh Da Thone
(Burma War, 1883–85)
B
His sword and his rifle were bossed with gold,
Was stiff with bullion, but stiffer with gore.
From the Salween scrub to the Chindwin teak:
He filled old ladies with kerosene:
“The patriot fights for his countryside!”
The worn white soldiers in khaki dress,
Who died in the swamp and were tombed in the mire,
For the Pride of their Race and the Peace of the Land.
Was Captain O’Neil of the Black Tyrone,
Who hustled that dissolute Chief along.
Who went to their death with a joke in their teeth,
The mud on the boot-heels of “Crook” O’Neil.
And ever their quarry would vanish away,
Took a brotherly interest in Boh Da Thone,
The Boh and his trackers were best of friends.
A rush through the mist—a scattering fight—
A glimpse of a loin-cloth and heavy jade earring—
And … the Boh was abroad on the raid again!
They gave him credit for cunning and skill,
And started anew on the track of the thief,
“When Crook and his darlings come back with the head.”
He doubled and broke for the hills again:
They had routed him out of his pet stockade,
To a camp deserted—a village fired.
But the body upon it was stark and cold.
The high grass bowed her plumes to the blast.
A spirtle of fire, a whorl of smoke—
Was blessed with a slug in the ulnar-bone—
The gift of his enemy Boh Da Thone.
Is a thorn in the flesh and a rankling fire.)
The shot-wound festered—as shot-wounds may
In a steaming barrack at Mandalay.
“I’d like to be after the Boh once more!”
“I’d give a hundred to look at his head!”
But Babu Harendra (Gomashta) heard.
That girdled his home by the Dacca tank.
He thought—but abandoned the thought—of a gun.
Of a shining Boh with a silver head.
And swindled the cartmen of half their pay.
And the months went on, as the worst must do,
And the Boh returned to the raid anew.
And in far Simoorie had taken a wife;
With hair like the sunshine and heart of gold,
Had cloven a man from the brow to the waist:
Had ordered a quivering life’s eclipse,
Had glared unawed in the Gates of Death.
As a general rule, from an innocent Bride.)
And, of all men, Babu Harendra last.
But slow, in the sludge of the Kathun road,
The Government Bullock Train toted its load.
In the rearmost cart sat the Babu-jee;
Of a scowling Boh with a silver head.
And the cartmen flogged and the escort raved,
Pranced Boh Da Thone, and his gang at his heels!
The Snider’s snarl and the carbine’s crack,
To the blade that twanged on the locking-ring,
As the steel shot back with a wrench and a twist,
Watched the souls of the dead arise,
The Peacock Banner staggered and swayed.
And girded his ponderous loins for flight,
On a lone-hand raid of the rearmost cart,
The Babu fell—flat on the top of the Boh!
To the growth of his purse and the girth of his pêt.
On the broad of the chest of this best of Bohs.
Are bad for a Boh with a spleen enlarged.
He dropped like a bullock—he lay like a block;
Heard the labouring life-breath hissed out in his ear.
The princely pest of the Chindwin died.
Turn now to Simoorie, where, all at his ease,
The Captain is petting the Bride on his knees,
Are mixed as the mist of some devilish dream—
Where the hill-daisy blooms and the grey monkey gambols,
The Peace of the Lord is on Captain O’Neil!
The bags on his shoulder, the mail-runner trudges.
“Rupees to collect on delivery.”
Then
Tore waxcloth, split teak-wood, and chipped out the dammer;)
With a crash and a thud, rolled—the Head of the Boh!
“I
“Encampment,
“10th Jan.
“For final approval (see under) Boh’s Head;
“By High Education brought pressure to bear.
“To mail V. P. P. (rupees hundred) Please add
“Much cheap at one hundred, and children want food;
“True love and affection for Govt. Bullock Train,
“I am,
“Graceful Master,
“Your
“H. M
As the rabbit is drawn to the rattlesnake’s power,
As the smoker’s eye fills at the opium hour,
As the waiting ear yearns for the whisper of love,
The Captain bent down to the Head of the Boh.
’Twixt the winking new spoons and the napkins’ array,
The hand-to-hand scuffle—the smoke and the blaze—
The banjo at twilight, the burial ere morn—
When the overhand stabbing-cut silenced the yell—
Where the black crosses hung o’er the Kuttamow flood.
The Captain went out on the Past from his Bride,
When he hunted the Boh from Maloon to Tsaleer.
In his eye lit the passionless passion of slaughter,
Had gazed on his face with less dread than his wife.
Though a four-month Eternity should have controlled him!—
The scowling, scarred Black, and the flushed savage Red—
Some grim hidden Past she had never a clue to.
And muttered aloud, “So you kept that jade earring!”
“Old man, you fought well, but you lost in the end.”
The visions departed, and Shame followed Passion:—
“He took what I said in this horrible fashion?
The Captain came back to the Bride … who had fainted.
And this is a fiction? No. Go to Simoorie
And look at their baby, a twelve-month old Houri,
She’s always about on the Mall of a mornin’—
This: Gules upon argent, a Boh’s Head, erased!