When I watched Wimbledon on the TV not so long ago, a virtual tour of the clubhouse revealed those words of Kipling’s that the players see before they walk on to the Centre Court: “If you can meet those two imposters, triumph and disaster, and treat them just the same.”
That reminded me of one of my favourite Kipling poems, A Smuggler’s Song.
When Kipling returned from India and settled in Sussex, he saw the English countryside and its history with an outsider’s eye. His two books of historical stories set there are the sort of children’s books that are not really intended just for children. They contain some of his finest poems. A Tree Song, Cities and Thrones and Powers, and A Smuggler’s Song are in Puck of Pook’s Hill. If, The Way Through the Woods, and The Thousandth Man are in Rewards and Fairies.
A Smuggler’s Song poem is wonderfully evocative, with its rhythm capturing the movement of the ponies. It brings a clear picture of the night time activities of the “gentlemen” to mind. The world depicted here is the eighteenth century Dymchurch that Russell Thorndike wrote about in his Doctor Syn stories.
A Smuggler’s Song by Rudyard Kipling
If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet,
Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street;
Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark —
Brandy for the Parson,
Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling,
While the Gentlemen go by!
Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine,
Don’t you shout to come and look, nor use ’em for your play.
Put the brishwood back again — and they’ll be gone next day!
If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining’s wet and warm — don’t you ask no more!
If you meet King George’s men, dressed in blue and red,
You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you “pretty maid,” and chuck you ‘neath the chin,
Don’t you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one’s been!
Knocks and footsteps round the house — whistles after dark —
You’ve no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty’s here, and Pincher’s here, and see how dumb they lie —
They don’t fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by!
If you do as you’ve been told, ‘likely there’s a chance,
You’ll be given a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood —
A present from the Gentlemen, along o’ being good!
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark —
Brandy for the Parson,
‘Baccy for the Clerk;
Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie —
Watch the wall, my darling,
While the Gentlemen go by!
The Good Reader 