When ’Omer Smote ’Is Bloomin’ Lyre

From Kipling's Lost World by Rudyard Kipling. The book is part of an ENCORE Series by Tabb House, reviving work from famous authors.

In this case, these are not lost pieces now found. They are known pieces now neglected. Poems and prose pieces in chronological order across five decades of writing, the 1880s through the 1930s. Kipling is always marvelous, but this provides a sense of his scope and his evolution.

I liked this:

When ’Omer Smote ’Is Bloomin’ Lyre
by Rudyard Kipling

WHEN ’Omer smote ’is bloomin’ lyre,
He’d ’eard men sing by land an’ sea;
An’ what he thought ’e might require,
’E went an’ took—the same as me!

The market-girls an’ fishermen,
The shepherds an’ the sailors, too,
They ’eard old songs turn up again,
But kep’ it quiet—same as you!

They knew ’e stole; ’e knew they knowed.
They didn’t tell, nor make a fuss,
But winked at ’Omer down the road,
An’ ’e winked back—the same as us!