---

Rudyard Kipling - As the Bell Clinks
Work rating: Low

As I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of a comely
Maid last season worshipped dumbly, watched with fervor from afar;
And I wondered idly, blindly, if the maid would greet me kindly.
That was all — the rest was settled by the clinking tonga-bar.
Yea, my life and hers were coupled by the tonga coupling-bar.

For my misty meditation, at the second changing-station,
Suffered sudden dislocation, fled before the tuneless jar
Of a Wagner obbligato, scherzo, doublehand staccato,
Played on either pony`s saddle by the clacking tonga-bar —
Played with human speech, I fancied, by the jigging, jolting bar.

"She was sweet," thought I, "last season, but `twere surely wild unreason
Such tiny hope to freeze on as was offered by my Star,
When she whispered, something sadly: `I — we feel your going badly!`"
"And you let the chance escape you?" rapped the rattling tonga-bar.
"What a chance and what an idiot!" clicked the vicious tonga-bar.

Heart of man — O heart of putty! Had I gone by Kakahutti,
On the old Hill-road and rutty, I had `scaped that fatal car.
But his fortune each must bide by, so I watched the milestones slide by,
To "You call on Her to-morrow!" — no fugue with cymbals by the bar —
"You must call on Her to-morrow!" — post-horn gallop by the bar.

Yet a further stage my goal on — we were whirling down to Solon,
With a double lurch and roll on, best foot foremost, ganz und gar —
"She was very sweet," I hinted. "If a kiss had been imprinted?" —
"Would ha` saved a world of trouble!" clashed the busy tonga-bar.
"`Been accepted or rejected!" banged and clanged the tonga-bar.

Then a notion wild and daring, `spite the income tax`s paring,
And a hasty thought of sharing — less than many incomes are,
Made me put a question private, you can guess what I would drive at.
"You must work the sum to prove it," clanked the careless tonga-bar.
"Simple Rule of Two will prove it," lilted back the tonga-bar.

It was under Khyraghaut I mused. "Suppose the maid be haughty —
There are lovers rich — and forty — wait some wealthy Avatar?
Answer, monitor untiring, `twixt the ponies twain perspiring!"
"Faint heart never won fair lady," creaked the straining tonga-bar.
"Can I tell you ere you ask Her?" pounded slow the tonga-bar.

Last, the Tara Devi turning showed the lights of Simla burning,
Lit my little lazy yearning to a fiercer flame by far.
As below the Mall we jingled, through my very heart it tingled —
Did the iterated order of the threshing tonga-bar —
"Try your luck — you can`t do better!" twanged the loosened tongar-bar.
Source
The script ran 0.001 seconds.