On the Road to Mandalay

By the Old Mulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea

There is a little girl in Burma

And I Know, she thinks on me

For the wind is in the palm trees, and the temple bells they say:

Come you back, you British soldier? Came you back to Mandalay!

          Come you Back to Mandalay,
          Where the old flotilla lay
          Can't you ear their paddles chunkin, from
Rangoon to Mandalay?

          On the road to Mandalay
          Where the flying fishes play
          And the dawn comes up like thunder,
          Outer China  cross the Bay.

Her petticoat was yaller, and her little cap was green,

And Her name was Supi-yaw-lat, Yet the same as
Theebaw's Queen

And I seed her first a-smoking of a whackin white
Cheroot
And a wasting Christian kisses on an eathen idol's foot:

Bloomin idol made o'mud
wot they called the Great Gawd Budd
Pluky lot she cared for idols when I kissed her
where she stood.

          On the road to Mandalay
         
When the mist was on the rice-fields and the sun
was dropping' slow,
she'd git her little banjo and she'd sing
Kulla lo lo!

With her arm upon my shoulder and her cheek again
my cheek
we useeter watch the steamers and the hathis
pilling teak

Elephints a-pilling teak
In the sludgy, squidi creek,
Where the silence sung that heavy
you was arf afraid to speak

      On the road to Mandalay

But that's all shove behind me-long ago
and far away
And there ain't no busses running from the bank
to Mandalay
Am I'm learning here in London what the ten-year
soldier tells:
"If you've heard the East a-calling you won't never
need naught else"

    No! you won't need nothing else
    but them spicy garlic smells,
    And the sunshine and the palm trees and
    the tinkly temple bells

   On the road to Mandalay...

I am sick of wasting leather on theese gritty
pavin stones,
And the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes
the fever in my bones;
Thou I walks with fifty housemaids
outer Chelsea to the Strand,
And they talks a lot of loving but,
what do they understand

Beefy face and grubby and Law
what do they understand?
I've a neater, sweeter maiden
in a cleaner greener land!

    On the road to Mandalay...


Ship me shomewhere East of Suez
Where the Best is Like the Worst
Where there are no Ten Commandments
And a Man can raise a Thirst;
For the Temple Bells are Calling
And is there where I would be,
By the Old Mulmein Pagoda
Looking lazy at the Sea

    On the road to Mandalay,
   Where the old Flotilla Lay,
    With our sick beneath the awnings
    When we went to Mandalay!
    On the road to Mandalay!
    Where the fliying fishes play,
   And the dawn comes up like thunder
  Outer China, cross the bay.

                                                                                                                                    Rudyard Kipling