The observations and exchanges on this
subject have been most interesting.
I have tried to match some of the tunes
to RK's poems without total success. The match of 'Screw Guns' and the Eton
Boating Song is perfect. But Spanish Ladies with 'The Destroyers' does not
'fit'. The tune is indelibly etched in my memory - I heard that delightful
yachtsman the late Uffa Fox sing it many years ago.
As for Samuel Wesley's 'The Church's One
Foundation' this tune matches several irreverent parodies written by anonymous
members of the armed forces or Rugby clubs.
The first one to spring to mind ,has as
its first line:
'There is a street in Cairo......' circa
WW2 Western Desert campaign.
An earlier version: 'We are Fred Karno's
Army......' dates back three decades to WW1.
This brings me to the
question:
Did Killing use the manner in which hymns
and popular songs of his 'Indian period' were parodied, sometimes with wit, oft
times with vulgarity by the soldiery, to give a delightful cadence to his
verse?
Michael
Jefferson
