The Ladies
(Rudyard Kipling)
I've taken my fun where I've found it;
I've rogued an' I've ranged in my time,
I've 'ad my pickin' o' sweethwarts,
An' four o' the lot was prime,
One was an 'arf-caste widow
One was a woman at Prome
One was the wife of a jemadar-sais [1]
An' one is a girl at home.
Now I aren't no 'and with the ladies
For, takin' them all along
You never can say till you've tried 'em
And then you are like to be wrong;
There's times that you think that you mightn't
There's times that you know that you might,
But the things you will learn from the Yellow and Brown
They'll 'elp you a lot with the white!
I was a young un at 'Oogli,
Shy as a girl to begin;
Aggie de Castrer she made me,
An' Aggie was clever as sin;
Older than me, but my first un,
More like a mother she were--
Showed me the way to promotion an' pay,
An' I learned about women from 'er!
Then I was ordered to Burma,
Actin' in charge o' Bazar,
An' I got me a tiddy live 'eathen
Through buyin' supplies off 'er pa.
Funny an' yellow an' faithful-
Doll in a teacup she were-
But we lived on the square, like a true-married pair,
An' I learned about women from 'er!
Then we was shifted to Neemuch
(Or I might ha' been keepin' 'er now),
An' I took with a shiny she-devil,
The wife of a nigger at Mhow;
'Taught me the gipsy-folks' bolee, [2]
Kind o' volcano she were,
For she knifed me one night 'cause I wished she was white,
And I learned about women from 'er!
Then I come 'ome in a trooper,
'Long of a kid o' sixteen-
'Girl from a convent at Meerut
The straightest I ever 'ave seen.
Love at first sight was 'er trouble,
S@e didn't know what it were;
An' I wouldn't do such, 'cause I liked 'er too much,
But I learned about women from 'er!
I've taken my fun where I've found it,
An' now I must pay for my fun,
For the more you 'ave known o' the others
The less will you settle to one;
An' the end of it's sittin' and thinkin',
An' dreamin' Hell-fires to see;
So be warned by my lot (which I know you will not),
And learn about women from me!
What did the Colonel's Lady think?
Nobody ever knew.
Somebody asked the Sergeant's Wife
An' she told 'em true;
When you get to a man in the case
They're as like as a row of pins
For the Colonel's Lady an' Judy O'Grady
Are sisters under their skins!
[1] Head-groom.
[2] Slang
RG
Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!