Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads

THE LAST DEPARTMENT

  Twelve hundred million men are spread
   About this Earth, and I and You
  Wonder, when You and I are dead,
   “What will those luckless millions do?”

  None whole or clean,” we cry, “or free from stain
  Of favour.” Wait awhile, till we attain
    The Last Department where nor fraud nor fools,
  Nor grade nor greed, shall trouble us again.

  Fear, Favour, or Affection—what are these
  To the grim Head who claims our services?
    I never knew a wife or interest yet
  Delay that pukka step, miscalled “decease”;

  When leave, long overdue, none can deny;
  When idleness of all Eternity
    Becomes our furlough, and the marigold
  Our thriftless, bullion-minting Treasury

  Transferred to the Eternal Settlement,
  Each in his strait, wood-scantled office pent,
    No longer Brown reverses Smith's appeals,
  Or Jones records his Minute of Dissent.

  And One, long since a pillar of the Court,
  As mud between the beams thereof is wrought;
    And One who wrote on phosphates for the crops
  Is subject-matter of his own Report.

  These be the glorious ends whereto we pass—
  Let Him who Is, go call on Him who Was;
    And He shall see the mallie steals the slab
  For currie-grinder, and for goats the grass.

  A breath of wind, a Border bullet's flight,
  A draught of water, or a horse's fright—
    The droning of the fat Sheristadar
  Ceases, the punkah stops, and falls the night

  For you or Me. Do those who live decline
  The step that offers, or their work resign?
    Trust me, Today's Most Indispensables,
  Five hundred men can take your place or mine.