The Absent-Minded Beggar

[archie777]

The Daily Mail: 
"A Gentleman in Kharki" and "The Absent-Minded Beggar" 
Daily Mail Kipling War Fun 
The jingle of "The Absent-Minded Beggar" is a poem composed by Rudyard Kipling in 1899 and set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan. It is often accompanied by an illustrationof a wounded but defiant British soldier, "A Gentleman in Kharki", by Richard Caton Woodville.

 

The song was written as part of an appeal by The Daily Mail to raise money for soldiers fighting in the Second Boer War and their families. The fund was the first such charitable effort for a war. 

 

The first and final stanza of Kipling’s famous jingle which illustrates his literary genius is set out below: 
When you've shouted "Rule Britannia," when you've sung "God Save the Queen," 
 When you've finished killing Kruger with your mouth, 
Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine 
 For a gentleman in khaki ordered South? 
He's an absent-minded beggar and his weaknesses are great— 
 But we and Paul must take him as we find him— 
He is out on active service, wiping something off a slate— 
 And he's left a lot of little things behind him! 
Duke's son—cook's son—son of a hundred kings—  (Fifty thousand horse and foot going to Table Bay!) 
Each of 'em doing his country's work 
 (and who's to look after the things?) 
Pass the hat for your credit's sake, 
 and pay—pay—pay! 
…
Let us manage so as, later, we can look him in the face,
 And tell him—what he'd very much prefer— 
That, while he saved the Empire, his employer saved his place, 
 And his mates (that's you and me) looked out for her. 
He's an absent-minded beggar, and he may forget it all, 
 But we do not want his kiddies to remind him 
That we sent 'em to the workhouse while their daddy hammered Paul, 
 So we'll help the homes that Tommy left behind him! 
Cook's home—Duke's home—home of a millionaire, 
 (Fifty thousand horse and foot going to Table Bay!) 
Each of 'em doing his country's work 
 (and what have you got to spare?) 
Pass the hat for your credit's sake, 
 and pay—pay—pay

Edited June 12 by archie777