Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/334

 316 RUDYARD KIPLING'S VERSE

Look out when your temper goes

At the end of a losing game; When your boots are too tight for your toes:

And you answer and argue and blame. It's the hardest part of the Law,

But it has to be learnt by the Scout For whining and shirking and "jaw"

(Chorus} All Patrols look out!

THE TRUCE OF THE BEAR

1898

VEARLY, with tent and rifle, our careless white men go By the pass called Muttianee, to shoot in the vale below. Yearly by Muttianee he follows our white men in Matun, the old blind beggar, bandaged from brow to chin.

Eyeless, noseless, and lipless toothless, broken of speech, Seeking a dole at the doorway he mumbles his tale to each; Over and over the story, ending as he began: "Make ye no truce with Adam-zad the Bear that walks like a Man!

"There was a flint in my musket pricked and primed was

the pan, When I went hunting Adam-zad the Bear that stands like

a Man.

I looked my last on the timber, I looked my last on the snow, When I went hunting Adam-zad fifty summers ago!

" I knew his times and his seasons, as he knew mine, that fed Bv night in the ripened maizefield and robbed my house of

bread.

I knew his strength and cunning, as he knew mine, that crept At dawn to the crowded goat-pens and plundered while I slept.