Commissariat Camels
We haven't a camelty tune of our ownTo help us trollop along,But every neck is a hair-trombone(Rtt-ta-ta-ta! is a hair-trombone!)And this is our marching-song:Can't! Don't! Shan't! Won't!Pass it along the line!Somebody's pack has slid from his back,'Wish it were only mine!Somebody's load has tipped off in the road--Cheer for a halt and a row!Urrr! Yarrh! Grr! Arrh!Somebody's catching it now!
Words in this poem
- trollop n.
- A stroller; a loiterer; esp., an idle, untidy woman; a slattern; a slut; a whore. [From Troll to roll, to stroll; but cf. also Trull.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Commissariat Camels is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs from Books, Project Gutenberg ebook #15529; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rudyard Kipling, Commissariat Camels, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/commissariat-camels.html, id L20363.
Form and metre
Commissariat Camels is 13 lines in a single stanza.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABAAB-C-C---- ownA · alongB · tromboneA · tromboneA · songB · won't · lineC · back · mineC · road · row · arrh · now
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| We haven't a camelty tune of our own | 11 | ·/˘······/· |
| To help us trollop along, | 7 | ···/˘˘/ |
| But every neck is a hair-trombone | 9 | ·/˘····˘/ |
| (Rtt-ta-ta-ta! is a hair-trombone!) | 9 | ·······˘/ |
| And this is our marching-song: | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Can't! Don't! Shan't! Won't! | 4 | ···· |
| Pass it along the line! | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| Somebody's pack has slid from his back, | 9 | /˘˘······ |
| 'Wish it were only mine! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Somebody's load has tipped off in the road-- | 10 | /˘˘······· |
| Cheer for a halt and a row! | 7 | ······· |
| Urrr! Yarrh! Grr! Arrh! | 4 | ···· |
| Somebody's catching it now! | 7 | /·˘/˘·· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.