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The Dutch in the Medway (Rudyard Kipling)

from Poetry and Music 6 by Toby Darling

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lyrics

The Dutch in the Medway
(Rudyard Kipling)
1664-72

E F#m
If wars were won by feasting,
A B
Or victory by song,
C#m B
Or safety found in sleeping sound,
F#m A
How England would be strong!
C#m B
But honour and dominion
A G#m
Are not maintained so.
E F#m
They're only got by sword and shot,
A B
And this the Dutchmen know!

The moneys that should feed us
You spend on your delight,
How can you then have sailor-men
To aid you in your fight?
Our fish and cheese are rotten,
Which makes the scurvy grow--
We cannot serve you if we starve,
And this the Dutchmen know!

Our ships in every harbour
Be neither whole nor sound,
And, when we seek to mend a leak,
No oakum can be found;
Or, if it is, the caulkers,
And carpenters also,
For lack of pay have gone away,
And this the Dutchmen know!

Mere powder, guns, and bullets,
We scarce can get at all;
Their price was spent in merriment
And revel at Whitehall,
While we in tattered doublets
From ship to ship must row,
Beseeching friends for odds and ends--
And this the Dutchmen know!

No King will heed our warnings,
No Court will pay our claims--
Our King and Court for their disport
Do sell the very Thames!
For, now De Ruyter's topsails
Off naked Chatham show,
We dare not meet him with our fleet--
And this the Dutchmen know!

credits

from Poetry and Music 6, released December 10, 2016

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Toby Darling Penang, Malaysia

Amateur enthusiast.
Feel free to do anything you want with these tracks, I am not interested in making money from music.

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