Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/728

 7 io RUDYARD KIPLING'S VERSE

When ye say to Tabaqui, "My Brother!" when ye call the

Hyena to meat, Ye may cry the Full Truce with Jacala the Belly that runs

on four feet.

The Undertakers.

The night we felt the earth would move We stole and plucked him by the hand,

Because we loved him with the love That knows but cannot understand.

And when the roaring hillside broke, And all our world fell down in rain,

We saved him, we the Little Folk; But lo! he does not come again!

Mourn now, we saved him for the sake Of such poor love as wild ones may.

Mourn ye! Our brother will not wake, And his own kind drive us away!

The Miracle of Purun Bhagat.

THE EGG-SHELL

'T^HE wind took off with the sunset

The fog came up with the tide, When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell With a little Blue Devil inside. "Sink," she said, "or swim," she said, "It's all you will get from me. And that is the finish of him!" she said, And the Egg-shell went to sea.