Page:Departmental Ditties and Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads, Kipling, 1899.djvu/282

98 Above its brows for eyes, and gave it hair

Of trailing moss, and plaited straw for crown.

And all the village praised him for his craft,

And brought him butter, honey, milk, and curds.

Wherefore, because the shoutings drove him mad,

He scratched upon that log: "Thus Gods are made,

"And whoso makes them otherwise shall die."

And all the people praised him.... Then he died.

Because his God decreed one clot of blood

Should swerve one hair's-breadth from the pulse's path,

And chafe his brain, Evarra mowed alone,

Rag-wrapped, among the cattle in the fields,

Counting his fingers, jesting with the trees,

And mocking at the mist, until his God

Drove him to labour. Out of dung and horns

Dropped in the mire he made a monstrous God,

Abhorrent, shapeless, crowned with plaintain tufts,

And when the cattle lowed at twilight time,

He dreamed it was the clamour of lost crowds,