When the drums begin to beat Down the street, When the poles are fetched and guyed, When the tight-rope's stretched and tied, When the dance-girls make salaam, When the snake-bag wakes alarm,...
Now Chil the Kite brings home the night That Mang the Bat sets free The herds are shut in byre and hut, For loosed till dawn are we. This is the hour of pride and power, Talon and tush and claw....
Once a pair of savages found a stranded tree. (One-piecee stick -pidgin two piecee man. Straddle-um-paddle-um-push -um off to sea. That way Foleign Debbil-boat began.)...
With them there rode a lustie Engineere Wel skilled to handel everich waie her geere, Hee was soe wise ne man colde showe him naught And out of Paris was hys learnynge brought....
Once on a time was a King anxious to understand What was the wisest thing a man could do for his land. Most of his population hurried to answer the question, Each with a long oration, each with a new suggestion....
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....
One moment past our bodies cast No shadow on the plain; Now clear and black they stride our track, And we run home again. In morning-hush, each rock and bush Stands hard, and high, and raw:...
When that with meat and drink they had fulfilled Not temperately but like him conceived In monstrous jest at Meudon, whose regale Stands for exemplar of Gargantuan greed,...