Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/269

Rh They know who dared the anger of Taman,

And watched that night above the clinging mists,

Far up the hill, Bisesa's passing in.

She set her hand upon the carven door,

Fouled by a myriad bats, and black with time,

Whereon is graved the Glory of Taman

In letters older then Ao-Safai;

And twice she turned aside and twice she wept,

Cast down upon the threshold, clamouring

for him she loved—the Man of Sixty Spears,

And for her father,—and the black bull Tor

Hers and her pride. Yea, twice she turned away

Before the awful darkness of the door,

And the great horror of the Wall of Man

Where Man is made the plaything of Taman,

An Eyeless Face that waits above and laughs.

But the third time she cried and put her palms

Against the hewn stone leaves, and prayed Taman

To spare Er-Heb and take her life for price.

They know who watched, the doors were rent apart

And closed upon Bisesa, and the rain