Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/304

 "A guard was set that he might not flee "A score of bayonets ringed the tree. "The peach-bloom fell in showers of snow, "When he shook at his death as he looked below. "By the power of God, who alone is great, "Till the seventh day he fought with his fate. "Then madness took him, and men declare "He mowed in the branches as ape and bear, "And last as a sloth, ere his body failed, "And he hung like a bat in the forks, and wailed, "And sleep the cord of his hands untied, "And he fell, and was caught on the points and died.

"Heart of my heart, is it meet or wise "To warn a King of his enemies? "We know what Heaven or Hell may bring, "But no man knoweth the mind of the King. "Of the grey-coat coming who can say? "When the night is gathering all is grey. "Two things greater than all things are, "The first is Love, and the second War. "And since we know not how War may prove, "Heart of my heart, let us talk of Love!"

More than a hundred years ago, in a great battle fought near Delhi, an Indian Prince rode fifty miles after the day was lost with a beggar girl, who had loved him and followed him in all his camps, on his saddle-bow. He lost the girl when almost within sight of safety. A Mahratta trooper tells the story:— HE wreath of banquet overnight lay withered on the neck, Our hands and scarves were saffron-dyed for signal of despair,