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Title: Road-Song Of The Bandar-Log
Author: Rudyard Kipling [
More Titles by Kipling]
Here we go in a flung festoon,
Half-way up to the jealous moon!
Don't you envy our pranceful bands?
Don't you wish you had extra hands?
Wouldn't you like if your tails were--_so_--
Curved in the shape of a Cupid's bow?
Now you're angry, but--never mind,
_Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!_
Here we sit in a branchy row,
Thinking of beautiful things we know;
Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,
All complete, in a minute or two--
Something noble and grand and good,
Won by merely wishing we could.
Now we're going to--never mind,
_Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!_
All the talk we ever have heard
Uttered by bat or beast or bird--
Hide or fin or scale or feather--
Jabber it quickly and all together!
Excellent! Wonderful! Once again!
Now we are talking just like men.
Let's pretend we are ... never mind,
_Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!_
This is the way of the Monkey-kind!
_Then join our leaping lines that scumfish through the pines,
That rocket by where, light and high, the wild-grape swings.
By the rubbish in our wake, and the noble noise we make,
Be sure, be sure, we're going to do some splendid things._
[The end]
Rudyard Kipling's poem: Road-song Of The Bandar-log
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