|
|
 |
|
|
Arithmetic on the Frontier
|
|
|
|
|
User Rating:
|
|
5.2
/10
(27 votes)
|
|
|
|
| |
A great and glorious thing it is
To learn, for seven years or so,
The Lord knows what of that and this,
Ere reckoned fit to face the foe --
The flying bullet down the Pass,
That whistles clear: "All flesh is grass."
Three hundred pounds per annum spent
On making brain and body meeter
For all the murderous intent
Comprised in "villanous saltpetre!"
And after -- ask the Yusufzaies
What comes of all our 'ologies.
A scrimmage in a Border Station --
A canter down some dark defile --
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail --
The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!
No proposition Euclid wrote,
No formulae the text-books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
Or ward the tulwar's downward blow
Strike hard who cares -- shoot straight who can --
The odds are on the cheaper man.
One sword-knot stolen from the camp
Will pay for all the school expenses
Of any Kurrum Valley scamp
Who knows no word of moods and tenses,
But, being blessed with perfect sight,
Picks off our messmates left and right.
With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,
The troop-ships bring us one by one,
At vast expense of time and steam,
To slay Afridis where they run.
The "captives of our bow and spear"
Are cheap -- alas! as we are dear.
Rudyard Kipling
| Submitted Date |
: |
Tuesday, December 31, 2002 |
|
|
Read poems about / on: education, school, pride, home, dark, running
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Comments about this poem (Arithmetic on the Frontier
by
Rudyard Kipling
) |
|
|
Mark Schulte (6/25/2006 1:07:00 PM)
|
|
|
|
This was relevant in Vietnam. It is also relevant in Iraq. Our govt learned the arithmatic and now has volunteer army army and fights battles with technology that lowers casualties. Alas, however, in a police operation like we are now doing in Iraq, the arithmetic becomes relevant again.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
| People who read Kipling also read
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Poets
