How the Whale Got his Throat
How the Whale Got his Throat
Original Text
"Just So Verses," Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1940): 604.
1When the cabin port-holes are dark and green
2 Because of the seas outside;
4And the steward falls into the soup-tureen,
5 And the trunks begin to slide;
6When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap,
7And Mummy tells you to let her sleep,
8And you aren't waked or washed or dressed,
9Why, then you will know (if you haven't guessed)
Notes
3] wop: onomatopoeic term. Back to Line
10] "Fifty North and Forty West": "fifty degrees north of the equator and forty west of Greenwich in London … a little more than half-way from London to New York … an old sea expression for any part of the mid-Atlantic that is rough and unpleasant" (Ralph Durand, A Handbook to the Poetry of Rudyard Kipling [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1914]: 259). Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2007
Rhyme