• Rudyard Kipling - Army Headquarters

  • Aug 25 2023
  • Length: 2 mins
  • Podcast

Rudyard Kipling - Army Headquarters

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  • ARMY HEADQUARTERS   Old is the song that I sing—
          Old as my unpaid bills—
       Old as the chicken that kitmutgars bring
       Men at dak-bungalows—old as the Hills.   Ahasuerus Jenkins of the “Operatic Own”
        Was dowered with a tenor voice of super-Santley tone.   His views on equitation were, perhaps, a trifle queer;
       He had no seat worth mentioning, but oh! he had an ear.   He clubbed his wretched company a dozen times a day,
       He used to quit his charger in a parabolic way,
       His method of saluting was the joy of all beholders,
       But Ahasuerus Jenkins had a head upon his shoulders.   He took two months to Simla when the year was at the spring,
       And underneath the deodars eternally did sing.   He warbled like a bulbul, but particularly at
       Cornelia Agrippina who was musical and fat.   She controlled a humble husband, who, in turn, controlled a Dept.,
       Where Cornelia Agrippina's human singing-birds were kept
       From April to October on a plump retaining fee,
       Supplied, of course, per mensem, by the Indian Treasury.   Cornelia used to sing with him, and Jenkins used to play;
       He praised unblushingly her notes, for he was false as they:
       So when the winds of April turned the budding roses brown,
       Cornelia told her husband: “Tom, you mustn't send him down.”   They haled him from his regiment which didn't much regret him;
       They found for him an office-stool, and on that stool they set him,
       To play with maps and catalogues three idle hours a day,
       And draw his plump retaining fee—which means his double pay.   Now, ever after dinner, when the coffeecups are brought,
       Ahasuerus waileth o'er the grand pianoforte;
       And, thanks to fair Cornelia, his fame hath waxen great,
       And Ahasuerus Jenkins is a power in the State.
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