The Man Who Could Write
Rudyard Kipling 1865 (Mumbai) – 1936 (London)
Shun -- shun the Bowl! That fatal, facile drink
Has ruined many geese who dipped their quills in 't;
Bribe, murder, marry, but steer clear of Ink
Save when you write receipts for paid-up bills in 't.
There may be silver in the "blue-black" -- all
I know of is the iron and the gall.
Boanerges Blitzen, servant of the Queen,
Is a dismal failure -- is a Might-have-been.
In a luckless moment he discovered men
Rise to high position through a ready pen.
Boanerges Blitzen argued therefore -- "I,
With the selfsame weapon, can attain as high."
Only he did not possess when he made the trial,
Wicked wit of C-lv-n, irony of L--l.
[Men who spar with Government need, to back their blows,
Something more than ordinary journalistic prose.]
Never young Civilian's prospects were so bright,
Till an Indian paper found that he could write:
Never young Civilian's prospects were so dark,
When the wretched Blitzen wrote to make his mark.
Certainly he scored it, bold, and black, and firm,
In that Indian paper -- made his seniors squirm,
Quated office scandals, wrote the tactless truth --
Was there ever known a more misguided youth?
When the Rag he wrote for praised his plucky game,
Boanerges Blitzen felt that this was Fame;
When the men he wrote of shook their heads and swore,
Boanerges Blitzen only wrote the more:
Posed as Young Ithuriel, resolute and grim,
Till he found promotion didn't come to him;
Till he found that reprimands weekly were his lot,
And his many Districts curiously hot.
Till he found his furlough strangely hard to win,
Boanerges Blitzen didn't care to pin:
Then it seemed to dawn on him something wasn't right --
Boanerges Blitzen put it down to "spite";
Languished in a District desolate and dry;
Watched the Local Government yearly pass him by;
Wondered where the hitch was; called it most unfair.
. . . . .
That was seven years ago -- and he still is there!
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:41 min read
- 193 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABABCC XDEE FFXX GG HHII JJKK LLMM NNOO DDHH FFP P |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,846 |
Words | 333 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 4, 4, 2, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5 |
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"The Man Who Could Write" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 Sep. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/33492/the-man-who-could-write>.
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