Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/270

86 Broke like a flood across the Valley, washed

The mist away; but louder than the rain

The thunder of Taman filled men with fear.

Some say that from the Unlighted Shrine she cried

For succour, very pitifully, thrice,

And others that she sang and had no fear.

And some that there was neither song nor cry,

But only thunder and the lashing rain.

Howbeit, in the morning, men rose up,

Perplexed with horror, crowding to the Shrine,

And when Er-Heb was gathered at the doors

The Priests made lamentation and passed in

To a strange Temple and a God they feared

But knew not.

From the crevices the grass

Had thrust the altar-slabs apart, the walls

Were grey with stains unclean, the roof-beams swelled

With many-coloured growth of rottenness,

And lichen veiled the Image of Taman

In leprosy. The Basin of the Blood