Barrack-Room Ballads: Departmental Ditties and Other Verses

Rudyard Kipling's two-part (1892, 1896) BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS is holding up as a good read more than a century after its 38 poems first appeared in book form. *** These are soldier stories, Tommy stories, British GI in India Thomas Adkins stories. The points of view expressed usually come from rankers and non-coms in barracks in cantonments, from little people who put in their six years soldiering abroad for Queen Victoria and then go home to England, Ireland, Wales or Scotland. ***A half dozen of the ballads are still recited or sung today. -- (1) "Tommy": "We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,/ But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you"; -- (2) "Gunga Din": "'E'll be squattin' on the coals/Givin' drink to poor damned souls,/An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!"; -- (3) "The Widow at Windsor"; -- (4) "Mandalay": "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"; -- (5) "Gentlemen-Rankers": "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!"; -- (6) "Cholera Camp": "We've got to die somewhere -- some way -- some'ow --/We might as well begin to do it now!.; *** Other things being equal, buy a scholarly edition of BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS. You will profit from some historical context on the 19th Century British Raj in India, also from a glossary of Hindustani or Anglo-Indian phrases as mauled by common soldiers and from a map or two as well. But even as stand-alone verses, BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS is a strong keeper. -OOO-