Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922.
A Code of Morals
N
And hied away to the Hurrum Hills above the Afghan border,
To sit on a rock with a heliograph; but ere he left he taught
His wife the working of the Code that sets the miles at naught.
So Cupid and Apollo linked, per heliograph, the pair.
At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise—
At e’en, the dying sunset bore her husband’s homilies.
As much as ’gainst the blandishments paternal of the old;
But kept his gravest warnings for (hereby the ditty hangs)
That snowy-haired Lothario, Lieutenant-General Bangs.
When they beheld a heliograph tempestuously at play.
They thought of Border risings, and of stations sacked and burnt—
So stopped to take the message down—and this is what they learnt—
“Was ever General Officer addressed as ‘dear’ before?
“‘My Love,’ i’ faith! ‘My Duck,’ Gadzooks! ‘My darling popsy-wop!’
“Spirit of great Lord Wolseley, who is on the mountain-top?”
As, dumb with pent-up mirth, they booked that message from the hill;
For clear as summer lightning-flare, the husband’s warning ran:—
“Don’t dance or ride with General Bangs—a most immoral man.”
But, howsoever Love be blind, the world at large hath eyes.]
With damnatory dot and dash he heliographed his wife
Some interesting details of the General’s private life.
And red and ever redder grew the General’s shaven gill.
And this is what he said at last (his feelings matter not):—
“I think we’ve tapped a private line. Hi! Threes about there! Trot!”
By word or act official who read off that helio;
But the tale is on the Frontier, and from Michni to Mooltan
They know the worthy General as “that most immoral man.”