“‘Yes. Listen to this. It’s to your address, Lowndes. The man was making a speech to his constituents, and he piled it on. Here’s a sample, “And I assert unhesitatingly that the Civil Service in India is the preserve - the pet preserve - of the aristocracy of England. What does the democracy - what [...]
“They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a [...]
“They had left the incessant
passenger-traffic of the north and west far and far behind them.
Here the people crawled to the side of the train, holding their
little ones in their arms; and a loaded truck would be left
behind, the men and women clustering round it like ants by
spilled honey. Once in the twilight they saw on [...]
“In that hour, luxuriously disposed upon many cushions, she realised nothing more than a woman’s complete contentment with the fact that there was a man in the world to do things for her.”
From “The Naulahka”
Cuckoo Song
Tell it to the locked-up trees,
Cuckoo, bring your song here!
Warrant, Act and Summons, please,
For Spring to pass along here!
Tell old Winder, if he doubt,
Tell him squat and square — a!
Old Woman!
Old Woman!
Old Woman’s let the Cuckoo out
At Heffle Cuckoo Fair — a!
March has searched and April tried –
‘Tisn’t long to Mary now.
Not so far [...]
“Lalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world. Lilith was her very-great-grandmamma, and that was before the days of Eve, as every one knows. In the West, people say rude things about Lalun’s profession, and write lectures about it, and distribute the lectures to young persons in order that Morality may [...]
“Now this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky;
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back –
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, [...]
“When you’ve shouted ‘Rule Britannia’, when you’ve sung ‘God
Save the Queen’,
When you’ve finished killing Kruger with your mouth
Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine
For a gentleman in khaki ordered South?”
From “The Absent-Minded Beggar”