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Title: To Mandalay--Greeting
Author: John Kendall [
More Titles by Kendall]
(BY WALTYARD WHIPMING)
I
A song of Mandalay!
Allons, Camerados, Desperadoes, Amontillados!
Hear my Recitative, my Romanza, my Spring Onion!
II
You three-striped sergeants, you corporals, non-commissioned officers,
and men with one or more good-conduct badges,
You indifferent and bad characters, am I not also one with you?
And will you not then hear my song?
This for prelude.
III
You, O Mandalay, I sing!
For I see the pagoda, the Moulmein and essentially wotto pagoda,
And the pagoda is above the trees,
But the trees are below the pagoda.
IV
I see the flying-fish sitting on the branches, I hear them sing,
and they fly and mate and build their nests in the branches;
I see a dun-coloured aboriginal she-female, mongolianée, petite,
squat-faced,
And she has a cast in her sinister optic and a snub nose but her
heart is true;
And I gaze into her heart (which is true), and I find that she is
musing (as indeed I often muse) on ME,
Me Prononcè, Me Imperturbe, Me Inconscionabilamente.
V
I see [a page or so unavoidably omitted for lack of space,--refer
to guide-book] and ... the wind, and the palm-trees idly swaying
to and fro in the wind (now to, now fro), and I hear the bells of
a temple, and I know that they are singing, and what it is that
they would say.
VI
What is it that they would say do you ask Me?
VII
How shall I tell you, how shall I make you understand?
For I know that you do not love Me, you do not comprehend Me, you
say that this sort of thing does you harm;
But I will even now do my darndest (as indeed I always do more or
less), and if you do not like it,
Waal, Soldados?
VIII
Behold, I will write it as a song and put it in italics, so that
even you will know that it is a song;
So listen, listen, Camerados! for I am about to spout and my song
shall be masculine and virile. A bas your metre, _à la lanterne
your rhyme, conspuez your punctuation,
I say pooh-pooh!
[The end]
John Kendall's poem: To Mandalay--Greeting
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