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Home  »  Rudyard Kipling’s Verse  »  The Story of Uriah

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922.

The Story of Uriah

“Now there were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.”

JACK BARRETT went to Quetta

Because they told him to.

He left his wife at Simla

On three-fourths his monthly screw.

Jack Barrett died at Quetta

Ere the next month’s pay he drew.

Jack Barrett went to Quetta.

He didn’t understand

The reason of his transfer

From the pleasant mountain-land.

The season was September,

And it killed him out of hand.

Jack Barrett went to Quetta

And there gave up the ghost,

Attempting two men’s duty

In that very healthy post;

And Mrs. Barrett mourned for him

Five lively months at most.

Jack Barrett’s bones at Quetta

Enjoy profound repose;

But I shouldn’t be astonished

If now his spirit knows

The reason of his transfer

From the Himalayan snows.

And, when the Last Great Bugle Call

Adown the Hurnai throbs,

And the last grim joke is entered

In the big black Book of Jobs,

And Quetta graveyards give again

Their victims to the air,

I shouldn’t like to be the man

Who sent Jack Barrett there.