Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/263

Rh And downward, where the grey pine meets the birch,

And downward, where the dwarf oak meets the pine,

Till at his feet our cup-like pastures lay.

That night, the slow mists of the evening dropped,

Dropped as a cloth upon a dead man's face,

And weltered in the valley, bluish-white

Like water very silent—spread abroad,

Like water very silent, from the Shrine

Unlighted of Taman to where the stream

Is dammed to fill our cattle-troughs—sent up

White waves that rocked and heaved and then were still,

Till all the Valley glittered like a marsh,

Beneath the moonlight, filled with sluggish mist

Knee-deep, so that men waded as they walked.

That night, the Red Horse grazed above the Dam

Beyond the cattle-troughs. Men heard him feed,

And those that heard him sickened where they lay.

Thus came the sickness to Er-Heb, and slew

Ten men, strong men, and of the women four;

And the Red Horse went hillward with the dawn,

But near the cattle-troughs his hoof-prints lay.