I have just come across the following production (in the manner of Hilaire
Belloc's Cautionary Tales) written by me in 1942 at the age of sixteen. I
seem to have been very ignorant, but at least I had read some of Kipling's
Indian stories.. Note that the earliest poem by Kipling printed in Andrew
Rutherford's Early Verse was written when he was only thirteen, which shows
how precocious he was.
I wonder if you've heard about
Lord Marmaduke de Boosey's gout.
It first attacked him while in Poona
(Or possibly a little sooner)
While he was Governor-General there.
The natives howled and tore their hair,
A sign of mourning in the East,
Then held a sacrificial feast.
But Marmaduke grew slowly worse
And every day he'd swear and curse
Till his retainers, one and all,
Sent word to home for his recall.
When next he had a serious bout
Of his "infernal, damme, gout",
He happened to be managing
A war, or some such little thing,
But he became so very wild
That every morning he reviled
The country, climate and the KING.
Now this un-British attitude
Was thought intolerably rude
And thus , when parliament next met,
HE WAS NOT IN THE CABINET !
At this, disgraced in public life,
He took a meek (but wealthy) wife
And went to live at Boosey Towers
Where you may find him at all hours
Sitting beside the fire and tippling
And reading only Rudyard Kipling.
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