Departmental Ditties and Other Verses(1886): Digital Edition
Departmental Ditties and Other Versesis a collection of poems by Rudyard Kipling that first appeared in June 1886, printed on the Civil & Military Gazette Press in Lahore. It was subsequently reprinted in Calcutta by Thacker, Spink & Co. (December 1886), with multiple further editions. With each new edition, Rudyard Kipling tended to add poems, both among the "Ditties" and the "Other Verses."
Here we are presenting the first version of the poem as it appeared in its original, newspaper context. The versions of these poems that are available in other digital editions (such as on Project Gutenberg) use the 1888 versions of the poems from the 3rd edition of Departmental Ditties and Other Verses. The first versions of the poems are often slightly different.