Explore "Shillin' a Day" by Rudyard Kipling on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
My name is O'Kelly, I've heard the Revelly / From Birr to Bareilly, from Leeds to Lahore, / Hong-Kong and Peshawur, / Lucknow and Etawah, / And fifty-five more all endin' in "pore". / Black Death and his quickness, the depth and the thickness, / Of sorrow and sickness I've known on my way, / But I'm old and I'm nervis, / I'm cast from the Service, / And all I deserve is a shillin' a day. / (_Chorus_) Shillin' a day, / Bloomin' good pay -- / Lucky to touch it, a shillin' a day!
Oh, it drives me half crazy to think of the days I / Went slap for the Ghazi, my sword at my side, / When we rode Hell-for-leather / Both squadrons together, / That didn't care whether we lived or we died. / But it's no use despairin', my wife must go charin' / An' me commissairin' the pay-bills to better, / So if me you be'old / In the wet and the cold, / By the Grand Metropold, won't you give me a letter? / (_Full chorus_) Give 'im a letter -- / 'Can't do no better, / Late Troop-Sergeant-Major an' -- runs with a letter! / Think what 'e's been, / Think what 'e's seen, / Think of his pension an' -- --