Quotes from book
Barrack-Room Ballads

Barrack-Room Ballads

Rudyard Kipling

The Barrack-Room Ballads are a series of songs and poems by Rudyard Kipling, dealing with the late-Victorian British Army and mostly written in a vernacular dialect. The series contains some of Kipling's most well-known work, including the poems "Gunga Din", "Tommy", "Mandalay", and "Danny Deever", helping consolidate his early fame as a poet.

“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.”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

The Ladies, Stanza VII.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“For to admire an' for to see,
For to be'old this world so wide—
It never done no good to me,
But I can't drop it if I tried!”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

For to Admire, Stanza 2.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Gentlemen-Rankers, Stanza 1.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Gentlemen-Rankers, Stanza 4.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan;
You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man.”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Fuzzy-Wuzzy, Stanza 1.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“For you all love the screw-guns the screw-guns they all love you!
So when we take tea with a few guns, o' course you will know what to do—hoo! hoo!
Jest send in your Chief an' surrender it's worse if you fights or you runs:
You may hide in the caves, they'll be only your graves, but you can't get away from the guns!”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Screw-Guns, Stanza 6.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“So I'll meet 'im later on
At the place where 'e is gone—
Where it's always double drill and no canteen.
'E'll be squattin' on the coals
Givin' drink to poor damned souls,
An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
Yes, Din! Din! Din!
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I've belted you and flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Gunga Din, Stanza 5.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck,
Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck,
Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck
And march to your front like a soldier.
Front, front, front like a soldier…”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Young British Soldier, Stanza 9.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“For the colonel's lady an' Judy O'Grady,
Are sisters under their skins.”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

The Ladies, Stanza VIII.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,
Remember it's ruin to run from a fight:
So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,
And wait for supports like a soldier.
Wait, wait, wait like a soldier…”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Young British Soldier, Stanza 12.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints.”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Tommy, Stanza 4.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
“Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!””

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Mandalay, Stanza 1.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“E's all 'ot sand an' ginger when alive
An' 'e's generally shammin' when 'e's dead.”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Fuzzy-Wuzzy.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa—aa—aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Gentlemen-Rankers, refrain
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“Oh the road to Mandalay
Where the flyin'-fishes play
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer
China 'crost the Bay!”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Mandalay.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments, an' a man can raise a thirst.”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Mandalay, Stanza 6.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor
With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead?
She 'as ships on the foam—she 'as millions at 'ome,
An' she pays us poor beggars in red.”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

The Widow at Windsor, Stanza 1.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“But he couldn't lie if you paid him and he'd starve before he stole.”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

The Mary Gloster.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it's “Saviour of 'is country” when the guns begin to shoot.”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

Tommy, Stanza 5.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

“An' I learned about women from 'er.”

Rudyard Kipling book Barrack-Room Ballads

The Ladies, ending line to Stanzas III, IV, and V.
Barrack-Room Ballads (1892, 1896)

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