Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads

BALLADS AND BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS

THE BALLAD OF FISHER’S BOARDING-HOUSE

That night, when through the mooring-chainsThe wide-eyed corpse rolled free,To blunder down by Garden ReachAnd rot at Kedgeree,The tale the Hughli told the shoalThe lean shoal told to me.  ‘T was Fultah Fisher’s boarding-house,    Where sailor-men reside,  And there were men of all the ports    From Mississip to Clyde,  And regally they spat and smoked,    And fearsomely they lied.  They lied about the purple Sea    That gave them scanty bread,  They lied about the Earth beneath,    The Heavens overhead,  For they had looked too often on    Black rum when that was red.  They told their tales of wreck and wrong,    Of shame and lust and fraud,  They backed their toughest statements with    The Brimstone of the Lord,  And crackling oaths went to and fro    Across the fist-banged board.  And there was Hans the blue-eyed Dane,    Bull-throated, bare of arm,  Who carried on his hairy chest    The maid Ultruda’s charm —  The little silver crucifix    That keeps a man from harm.  And there was Jake Without-the-Ears,    And Pamba the Malay,  And Carboy Gin the Guinea cook,    And Luz from Vigo Bay,  And Honest Jack who sold them slops    And harvested their pay.  And there was Salem Hardieker,    A lean Bostonian he —  Russ, German, English, Halfbreed, Finn,    Yank, Dane, and Portuguee,  At Fultah Fisher’s boarding-house    They rested from the sea.  Now Anne of Austria shared their drinks,    Collinga knew her fame,  From Tarnau in Galicia    To Juan Bazaar she came,  To eat the bread of infamy    And take the wage of shame.  She held a dozen men to heel —    Rich spoil of war was hers,  In hose and gown and ring and chain,    From twenty mariners,  And, by Port Law, that week, men called    her Salem Hardieker’s.  But seamen learnt – what landsmen know —    That neither gifts nor gain  Can hold a winking Light o’ Love    Or Fancy’s flight restrain,  When Anne of Austria rolled her eyes    On Hans the blue-eyed Dane.  Since Life is strife, and strife means knife,    From Howrah to the Bay,  And he may die before the dawn    Who liquored out the day,  In Fultah Fisher’s boarding-house    We woo while yet we may.  But cold was Hans the blue-eyed Dane,    Bull-throated, bare of arm,  And laughter shook the chest beneath    The maid Ultruda’s charm —  The little silver crucifix    That keeps a man from harm.  “You speak to Salem Hardieker;    “You was his girl, I know.  “I ship mineselfs tomorrow, see,    “Und round the Skaw we go,  “South, down the Cattegat, by Hjelm,    “To Besser in Saro.”  When love rejected turns to hate,    All ill betide the man.  “You speak to Salem Hardieker” —    She spoke as woman can.  A scream – a sob – “He called me – names!”     And then the fray began.  An oath from Salem Hardieker,    A shriek upon the stairs,  A dance of shadows on the wall,    A knife-thrust unawares —  And Hans came down, as cattle drop,    Across the broken chairs.* * * * * *  In Anne of Austria’s trembling hands    The weary head fell low: —  “I ship mineselfs tomorrow, straight    “For Besser in Saro;  “Und there Ultruda comes to me    “At Easter, und I go —  “South, down the Cattegat – What’s here?    “There – are – no – lights – to guide!”   The mutter ceased, the spirit passed,    And Anne of Austria cried  In Fultah Fisher’s boarding-house    When Hans the mighty died.  Thus slew they Hans the blue-eyed Dane,    Bull-throated, bare of arm,  But Anne of Austria looted first    The maid Ultruda’s charm —  The little silver crucifix    That keeps a man from harm.

AS THE BELL CLINKS

  As I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of a comely  Maid last season worshipped dumbly, watched with fervor from afar;  And I wondered idly, blindly, if the maid would greet me kindly.  That was all – the rest was settled by the clinking tonga-bar.  Yea, my life and hers were coupled by the tonga coupling-bar.  For my misty meditation, at the second changin’-station,  Suffered sudden dislocation, fled before the tuneless jar  Of a Wagner obbligato, scherzo, doublehand staccato,  Played on either pony’s saddle by the clacking tonga-bar —  Played with human speech, I fancied, by the jigging, jolting bar.  “She was sweet,” thought I, “last season, but ‘twere surely wild unreason  Such tiny hope to freeze on as was offered by my Star,  When she whispered, something sadly: ‘I – we feel your going badly!’”   “And you let the chance escape you?” rapped the rattling tonga-bar.  “What a chance and what an idiot!” clicked the vicious tonga-bar.  Heart of man – oh, heart of putty! Had I gone by Kakahutti,  On the old Hill-road and rutty, I had ‘scaped that fatal car.  But his fortune each must bide by, so I watched the milestones slide by,  To “You call on Her tomorrow!” – fugue with cymbals by the bar —  “You must call on Her tomorrow!” – post-horn gallop by the bar.  Yet a further stage my goal on – we were whirling down to Solon,  With a double lurch and roll on, best foot foremost, ganz und gar —  “She was very sweet,” I hinted. “If a kiss had been imprinted?” —  “‘Would ha’ saved a world of trouble!” clashed the busy tonga-bar.  “‘Been accepted or rejected!” banged and clanged the tonga-bar.  Then a notion wild and daring, ‘spite the income tax’s paring,  And a hasty thought of sharing – less than many incomes are,  Made me put a question private, you can guess what I would drive at.  “You must work the sum to prove it,” clanked the careless tonga-bar.  “Simple Rule of Two will prove it,” lilted back the tonga-bar.  It was under Khyraghaut I mused. “Suppose the maid be haughty —  (There are lovers rich – and rotty) – wait some wealthy Avatar?  Answer monitor untiring, ‘twixt the ponies twain perspiring!”   “Faint heart never won fair lady,” creaked the straining tonga-bar.  “Can I tell you ere you ask Her?” pounded slow the tonga-bar.  Last, the Tara Devi turning showed the lights of Simla burning,  Lit my little lazy yearning to a fiercer flame by far.  As below the Mall we jingled, through my very heart it tingled —  Did the iterated order of the threshing tonga-bar —  “Try your luck – you can’t do better!” twanged the loosened tonga-bar.

AN OLD SONG

  So long as ‘neath the Kalka hills    The tonga-horn shall ring,  So long as down the Solon dip    The hard-held ponies swing,  So long as Tara Devi sees    The lights of Simla town,  So long as Pleasure calls us up,    Or Duty drives us down,      If you love me as I love you      What pair so happy as we two?  So long as Aces take the King,    Or backers take the bet,  So long as debt leads men to wed,    Or marriage leads to debt,  So long as little luncheons, Love,    And scandal hold their vogue,  While there is sport at Annandale    Or whisky at Jutogh,      If you love me as I love you      What knife can cut our love in two?  So long as down the rocking floor    The raving polka spins,  So long as Kitchen Lancers spur    The maddened violins,  So long as through the whirling smoke    We hear the oft-told tale —  “Twelve hundred in the Lotteries,”     And Whatshername for sale?      If you love me as I love you      We’ll play the game and win it too.  So long as Lust or Lucre tempt    Straight riders from the course,  So long as with each drink we pour    Black brewage of Remorse,  So long as those unloaded guns    We keep beside the bed,  Blow off, by obvious accident,    The lucky owner’s head,      If you love me as I love you      What can Life kill or Death undo?  So long as Death ‘twixt dance and dance    Chills best and bravest blood,  And drops the reckless rider down    The rotten, rain-soaked khud,  So long as rumours from the North    Make loving wives afraid,  So long as Burma takes the boy    Or typhoid kills the maid,      If you love me as I love you      What knife can cut our love in two?  By all that lights our daily life    Or works our lifelong woe,  From Boileaugunge to Simla Downs    And those grim glades below,  Where, heedless of the flying hoof    And clamour overhead,  Sleep, with the grey langur for guard    Our very scornful Dead,      If you love me as I love you      All Earth is servant to us two!  By Docket, Billetdoux, and File,    By Mountain, Cliff, and Fir,  By Fan and Sword and Office-box,    By Corset, Plume, and Spur  By Riot, Revel, Waltz, and War,    By Women, Work, and Bills,  By all the life that fizzes in    The everlasting Hills,      If you love me as I love you      What pair so happy as we two?

CERTAIN MAXIMS OF HAFIZ

I  If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai,  Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy?  If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say?  “Lo! She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me today!”II  Yea, though a Kafir die, to him is remitted Jehannum  If he borrowed in life from a native at sixty per cent. per annum.III  Blister we not for bursati? So when the heart is vexed,  The pain of one maiden’s refusal is drowned in the pain of the next.IV  The temper of chums, the love of your wife, and a new piano’s tune —  Which of the three will you trust at the end of an Indian June?V  Who are the rulers of Ind – to whom shall we bow the knee?  Make your peace with the women, and men will make you L. G.VI  Does the woodpecker flit round the young ferash?  Does grass clothe a new-built wall?  Is she under thirty, the woman who holds a boy in her thrall?VII  If She grow suddenly gracious – reflect. Is it all for thee?  The black-buck is stalked through the bullock, and Man through jealousy.VIII  Seek not for favor of women. So shall you find it indeed.  Does not the boar break cover just when you’re lighting a weed?IX  If He play, being young and unskilful, for shekels of silver and gold,  Take his money, my son, praising Allah. The kid was ordained to be sold.X  With a “weed” among men or horses verily this is the best,  That you work him in office or dog-cart lightly – but give him no rest.XI  Pleasant the snaffle of Courtship, improving the manners and carriage;  But the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible thorn-bit of Marriage.XII  As the thriftless gold of the babul, so is the gold that we spend  On a derby Sweep, or our neighbor’s wife, or the horse that we buy from a  friend.XIII  The ways of man with a maid be strange, yet simple and tame  To the ways of a man with a horse, when selling or racing that same.XIV  In public Her face turneth to thee, and pleasant Her smile when ye meet.  It is ill. The cold rocks of El-Gidar smile thus on the waves at their feet.  In public Her face is averted, with anger. She nameth thy name.  It is well. Was there ever a loser content with the loss of the game?XV  If She have spoken a word, remember thy lips are sealed,  And the Brand of the Dog is upon him by whom is the secret revealed.  If She have written a letter, delay not an instant, but burn it.  Tear it to pieces, O Fool, and the wind to her mate shall return it!  If there be trouble to Herward, and a lie of the blackest can clear,  Lie, while thy lips can move or a man is alive to hear.XVI  My Son, if a maiden deny thee and scufflingly bid thee give o’er,  Yet lip meets with lip at the last word – get out!    She has been there before.  They are pecked on the ear and the chin and the nose who are lacking in lore.XVII  If we fall in the race, though we win, the hoof-slide is scarred on the  course.  Though Allah and Earth pardon Sin, remaineth forever Remorse.XVIII  “By all I am misunderstood!” if the Matron shall say, or the Maid:  “Alas! I do not understand,” my son, be thou nowise afraid.  In vain in the sight of the Bird is the net of the Fowler displayed.XIX  My son, if I, Hafiz, the father, take hold of thy knees in my pain,  Demanding thy name on stamped paper, one day or one hour – refrain.  Are the links of thy fetters so light that thou cravest another man’s chain?

THE GRAVE OF THE HUNDRED HEAD

  There’s a widow in sleepy Chester    Who weeps for her only son;  There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,    A grave that the Burmans shun,  And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri    Who tells how the work was done.  A Snider squibbed in the jungle,    Somebody laughed and fled,  And the men of the First Shikaris    Picked up their Subaltern dead,  With a big blue mark in his forehead    And the back blown out of his head.  Subadar Prag Tewarri,    Jemadar Hira Lal,  Took command of the party,    Twenty rifles in all,  Marched them down to the river    As the day was beginning to fall.  They buried the boy by the river,    A blanket over his face —  They wept for their dead Lieutenant,    The men of an alien race —  They made a samadh in his honor,    A mark for his resting-place.  For they swore by the Holy Water,    They swore by the salt they ate,  That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib    Should go to his God in state;  With fifty file of Burman    To open him Heaven’s gate.  The men of the First Shikaris    Marched till the break of day,  Till they came to the rebel village,    The village of Pabengmay —  A jingal covered the clearing,    Calthrops hampered the way.  Subadar Prag Tewarri,    Bidding them load with ball,  Halted a dozen rifles    Under the village wall;  Sent out a flanking-party    With Jemadar Hira Lal.  The men of the First Shikaris    Shouted and smote and slew,  Turning the grinning jingal    On to the howling crew.  The Jemadar’s flanking-party    Butchered the folk who flew.  Long was the morn of slaughter,    Long was the list of slain,  Five score heads were taken,    Five score heads and twain;  And the men of the First Shikaris    Went back to their grave again,  Each man bearing a basket    Red as his palms that day,  Red as the blazing village —    The village of Pabengmay,  And the “drip-drip-drip” from the baskets    Reddened the grass by the way.  They made a pile of their trophies    High as a tall man’s chin,  Head upon head distorted,    Set in a sightless grin,  Anger and pain and terror    Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.  Subadar Prag Tewarri    Put the head of the Boh  On the top of the mound of triumph,    The head of his son below,  With the sword and the peacock-banner    That the world might behold and know.  Thus the samadh was perfect,    Thus was the lesson plain  Of the wrath of the First Shikaris —    The price of a white man slain;  And the men of the First Shikaris    Went back into camp again.  Then a silence came to the river,    A hush fell over the shore,  And Bohs that were brave departed,    And Sniders squibbed no more;      For the Burmans said      That a kullah’s head  Must be paid for with heads five score.  There’s a widow in sleepy Chester    Who weeps for her only son;  There’s a grave on the Pabeng River,    A grave that the Burmans shun,  And there’s Subadar Prag Tewarri    Who tells how the work was done.

THE MOON OF OTHER DAYS

  Beneath the deep veranda’s shade,    When bats begin to fly,  I sit me down and watch – alas! —    Another evening die.  Blood-red behind the sere ferash    She rises through the haze.  Sainted Diana! can that be    The Moon of Other Days?  Ah! shade of little Kitty Smith,    Sweet Saint of Kensington!  Say, was it ever thus at Home    The Moon of August shone,  When arm in arm we wandered long    Through Putney’s evening haze,  And Hammersmith was Heaven beneath    The Moon of Other Days?  But Wandle’s stream is Sutlej now,    And Putney’s evening haze  The dust that half a hundred kine    Before my window raise.  Unkempt, unclean, athwart the mist    The seething city looms,  In place of Putney’s golden gorse    The sickly babul blooms.  Glare down, old Hecate, through the dust,    And bid the pie-dog yell,  Draw from the drain its typhoid-germ,    From each bazaar its smell;  Yea, suck the fever from the tank    And sap my strength therewith:  Thank Heaven, you show a smiling face    To little Kitty Smith!THE OVERLAND MAIL  (Foot-Service to the Hills)  In the name of the Empress of India, make way,    O Lords of the Jungle, wherever you roam.  The woods are astir at the close of the day —    We exiles are waiting for letters from Home.  Let the robber retreat – let the tiger turn tail —  In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail!  With a jingle of bells as the dusk gathers in,    He turns to the foot-path that heads up the hill —  The bags on his back and a cloth round his chin,    And, tucked in his waist-belt, the Post Office bill:  “Despatched on this date, as received by the rail,  Per runner, two bags of the Overland Mail.”  Is the torrent in spate? He must ford it or swim.    Has the rain wrecked the road? He must climb by the cliff.  Does the tempest cry “Halt”? What are tempests to him?    The Service admits not a “but” or and “if.”   While the breath’s in his mouth, he must bear without fail,  In the Name of the Empress, the Overland Mail.  From aloe to rose-oak, from rose-oak to fir,    From level to upland, from upland to crest,  From rice-field to rock-ridge, from rock-ridge to spur,    Fly the soft sandalled feet, strains the brawny brown chest.  From rail to ravine – to the peak from the vale —  Up, up through the night goes the Overland Mail.  There’s a speck on the hillside, a dot on the road —    A jingle of bells on the foot-path below —  There’s a scuffle above in the monkey’s abode —    The world is awake, and the clouds are aglow.  For the great Sun himself must attend to the hail:  “In the name of the Empress the Overland Mail!”WHAT THE PEOPLE SAIDJune 21st, 1887  By the well, where the bullocks go  Silent and blind and slow —  By the field where the young corn dies  In the face of the sultry skies,  They have heard, as the dull Earth hears  The voice of the wind of an hour,  The sound of the Great Queen’s voice:  “My God hath given me years,  Hath granted dominion and power:  And I bid you, O Land, rejoice.”  And the ploughman settles the share  More deep in the grudging clod;  For he saith: “The wheat is my care,  And the rest is the will of God.  “He sent the Mahratta spear  As He sendeth the rain,  And the Mlech, in the fated year,  Broke the spear in twain.  “And was broken in turn. Who knows  How our Lords make strife?  It is good that the young wheat grows,  For the bread is Life.”  Then, far and near, as the twilight drew,  Hissed up to the scornful dark  Great serpents, blazing, of red and blue,  That rose and faded, and rose anew.  That the Land might wonder and mark  “Today is a day of days,” they said,  “Make merry, O People, all!”   And the Ploughman listened and bowed his head:  “Today and tomorrow God’s will,” he said,  As he trimmed the lamps on the wall.  “He sendeth us years that are good,  As He sendeth the dearth,  He giveth to each man his food,  Or Her food to the Earth.  “Our Kings and our Queens are afar —  On their peoples be peace —  God bringeth the rain to the Bar,  That our cattle increase.”  And the Ploughman settled the share  More deep in the sun-dried clod:  “Mogul Mahratta, and Mlech from the North,  And White Queen over the Seas —  God raiseth them up and driveth them forth  As the dust of the ploughshare flies in the breeze;  But the wheat and the cattle are all my care,  And the rest is the will of God.”

THE UNDERTAKER’S HORSE

  “To-tschin-shu is condemned to death.  How can he drink tea with the Executioner?”   Japanese Proverb.  The eldest son bestrides him,  And the pretty daughter rides him,  And I meet him oft o’ mornings on the Course;  And there kindles in my bosom  An emotion chill and gruesome  As I canter past the Undertaker’s Horse.  Neither shies he nor is restive,  But a hideously suggestive  Trot, professional and placid, he affects;  And the cadence of his hoof-beats  To my mind this grim reproof beats: —  “Mend your pace, my friend, I’m coming. Who’s the next?”  Ah! stud-bred of ill-omen,  I have watched the strongest go – men  Of pith and might and muscle – at your heels,  Down the plantain-bordered highway,  (Heaven send it ne’er be my way!)  In a lacquered box and jetty upon wheels.  Answer, sombre beast and dreary,  Where is Brown, the young, the cheery,  Smith, the pride of all his friends and half the Force?  You were at that last dread dak  We must cover at a walk,  Bring them back to me, O Undertaker’s Horse!  With your mane unhogged and flowing,  And your curious way of going,  And that businesslike black crimping of your tail,  E’en with Beauty on your back, Sir,  Pacing as a lady’s hack, Sir,  What wonder when I meet you I turn pale?  It may be you wait your time, Beast,  Till I write my last bad rhyme, Beast —  Quit the sunlight, cut the rhyming, drop the glass —  Follow after with the others,  Where some dusky heathen smothers  Us with marigolds in lieu of English grass.  Or, perchance, in years to follow,  I shall watch your plump sides hollow,  See Carnifex (gone lame) become a corse —  See old age at last o’erpower you,  And the Station Pack devour you,  I shall chuckle then, O Undertaker’s Horse!  But to insult, jibe, and quest, I’ve  Still the hideously suggestive  Trot that hammers out the unrelenting text,  And I hear it hard behind me  In what place soe’er I find me: —  “‘Sure to catch you sooner or later. Who’s the next?”

THE FALL OF JOCK GILLESPIE

  This fell when dinner-time was done —    ‘Twixt the first an’ the second rub —  That oor mon Jock cam’ hame again    To his rooms ahist the Club.  An’ syne he laughed, an’ syne he sang,    An’ syne we thocht him fou,  An’ syne he trumped his partner’s trick,    An’ garred his partner rue.  Then up and spake an elder mon,    That held the Spade its Ace —  “God save the lad! Whence comes the licht    “That wimples on his face?”  An’ Jock he sniggered, an’ Jock he smiled,    An’ ower the card-brim wunk: —  “I’m a’ too fresh fra’ the stirrup-peg,    “May be that I am drunk.”  “There’s whusky brewed in Galashils    “An’ L. L. L. forbye;  “But never liquor lit the lowe    “That keeks fra’ oot your eye.  “There’s a third o’ hair on your dress-coat breast,    “Aboon the heart a wee?”   “Oh! that is fra’ the lang-haired Skye    “That slobbers ower me.”  “Oh! lang-haired Skyes are lovin’ beasts,    “An’ terrier dogs are fair,  “But never yet was terrier born,    “Wi’ ell-lang gowden hair!  “There’s a smirch o’ pouther on your breast,    “Below the left lappel?”   “Oh! that is fra’ my auld cigar,    “Whenas the stump-end fell.”  “Mon Jock, ye smoke the Trichi coarse,    “For ye are short o’ cash,  “An’ best Havanas couldna leave    “Sae white an’ pure an ash.  “This nicht ye stopped a story braid,    “An’ stopped it wi’ a curse.  “Last nicht ye told that tale yoursel’ —    “An’ capped it wi’ a worse!  “Oh! we’re no fou! Oh! we’re no fou!    “But plainly we can ken  “Ye’re fallin’, fallin’ fra the band    “O’ cantie single men!”  An’ it fell when sirris-shaws were sere,    An’ the nichts were lang and mirk,  In braw new breeks, wi’ a gowden ring,    Oor Jock gaed to the Kirk!

ARITHMETIC ON THE FRONTIER

  A great and glorious thing it is    To learn, for seven years or so,  The Lord knows what of that and this,    Ere reckoned fit to face the foe —  The flying bullet down the Pass,  That whistles clear: “All flesh is grass.”  Three hundred pounds per annum spent    On making brain and body meeter  For all the murderous intent    Comprised in “villainous saltpetre!”   And after – ask the Yusufzaies  What comes of all our ‘ologies.  A scrimmage in a Border Station —    A canter down some dark defile —  Two thousand pounds of education    Drops to a ten-rupee jezail —  The Crammer’s boast, the Squadron’s pride,  Shot like a rabbit in a ride!  No proposition Euclid wrote,    No formulae the text-books know,  Will turn the bullet from your coat,    Or ward the tulwar’s downward blow  Strike hard who cares – shoot straight who can —  The odds are on the cheaper man.  One sword-knot stolen from the camp    Will pay for all the school expenses  Of any Kurrum Valley scamp    Who knows no word of moods and tenses,  But, being blessed with perfect sight,  Picks off our messmates left and right.  With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,    The troop-ships bring us one by one,  At vast expense of time and steam,    To slay Afridis where they run.  The “captives of our bow and spear”   Are cheap – alas! as we are dear.

THE BETROTHED

“You must choose between me and your cigar.”

– BREACH OF PROMISE CASE, CIRCA 1885.  Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,  For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.  We quarrelled about Havanas – we fought o’er a good cheroot,  And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.  Open the old cigar-box – let me consider a space;  In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie’s face.  Maggie is pretty to look at – Maggie’s a loving lass,  But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.  There’s peace in a Larranaga, there’s calm in a Henry Clay;  But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away —  Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown —  But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o’ the talk o’ the town!  Maggie, my wife at fifty – grey and dour and old —  With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!  And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are,  And Love’s torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar —  The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket —  With never a new one to light tho’ it’s charred and black to the socket!  Open the old cigar-box – let me consider a while.  Here is a mild Manila – there is a wifely smile.  Which is the better portion – bondage bought with a ring,  Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?  Counsellors cunning and silent – comforters true and tried,  And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride?  Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,  Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close,  This will the fifty give me, asking nought in return,  With only a Suttee’s passion – to do their duty and burn.  This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead,  Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.  The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main,  When they hear my harem is empty will send me my brides again.  I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal,  So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.  I will scent ‘em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides,  And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.  For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between  The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o’ Teen.  And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear,  But I have been Priest of Cabanas a matter of seven year;  And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light  Of stumps that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work and Fight.  And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove,  But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o’-the-Wisp of Love.  Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire?  Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?  Open the old cigar-box – let me consider anew —  Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?  A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;  And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.  Light me another Cuba – I hold to my first-sworn vows.  If Maggie will have no rival, I’ll have no Maggie for Spouse!