Explore "The Virginity" by Rudyard Kipling on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Try as he will, no man breaks wholly loose / From his first love, no matter who she be. / Oh, was there ever sailor free to choose, / That didn't settle somewhere near the sea?
Myself, it don't excite me nor amuse / To watch a pack o' shipping on the sea, / But I can understand my neighbour's views / From certain things which have occurred to me.
Men must keep touch with things they used to use / To earn their living, even when they are free; / And so come back upon the least excuse -- / Same as the sailor settled near the sea.
He knows he's never going on no cruise -- / He knows he's done and finished with the sea, / And yet he likes to feel she's there to use -- / If he should ask her -- as she used to be.
Even though she cost him all he had to lose, / Even though she made him sick to hear or see, / Still, what she left of him will mostly choose / Her skirts to sit by. How comes such to be?
_Parsons in pulpits, tax-payers in pews, / Kings on your thrones, you know as well as me, / We've only one virginity to lose, / And where we lost it there our hearts will be! _