The Waster

by Rudyard Kipling

　　

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From the date that the doors of his prep-school close On the lonely little son He is taught by precept, insult, and blows The Things that Are Never Done. Year after year, without favour or fear, From seven to twenty-two, His keepers insist he shall learn the list Of the things no fellow can do. (They are not so strict with the average Pict And it isn’t set to, etc.) For this and not for the profit it brings Or the good of his fellow-kind He is and suffers unspeakable things In body and soul and mind. But the net result of that Primitive Cult, Whatever else may be won, Is definite knowledge ere leaving College Of the Things that Are Never Done. (An interdict which is strange to the Pict And was never revealed to, etc.) Slack by training and slow by birth, Only quick to despise, Largely assessing his neighbour’s worth By the hue of his socks or ties, A loafer-in-grain, his foes maintain, And how shall we combat their view When, atop of his natural sloth, he holds There are Things no Fellow can do? (Which is why he is licked from the first by the Pict And left at the post by, etc.)

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