Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/415

 As was the sowing so the reaping Is now and evermore shall be. Thou art delivered to thine own keeping. Only Thyself hath afflicted thee!

NCE, on a glittering ice-field, ages and ages ago, Ung, a maker of pictures, fashioned an image of snow. Fashioned the form of a tribesman—gaily he whistled and sung, Working the snow with his fingers. Read ye the story of Ung!

Pleased was his tribe with that image came in their hundreds to scan— Handled it, smelt it, and grunted: "Verily, this is a man! "Thus do we carry our lances—thus is a war-belt slung. "Lo! it is even as we are. Glory and honour to Ung!"

Later he pictured an aurochs later he pictured a bear— Pictured the sabre-tooth tiger dragging a man to his lair— Pictured the mountainous mammoth, hairy, abhorrent, alone— Out of the love that he bore them, scriving them clearly on bone.

Swift came his tribe to behold them, peering and pushing and still— Men of the berg-battered beaches, men of the boulder-hatched hill— Hunters and fishers and trappers, presently whispering low: "Yea, they are like and it may be. But how does the Picture-man know?