Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/729

 INCLUSIVE EDITION, 1885-1918 711

The wind fell dead with the midnight- The fog shut down like a sheet, When the Witch of the North heard the Egg-shell Feeling by hand for a fleet. " Get!" she said, "or you're gone," she said, But the little Blue Devil said "No!" "The sights are just coming on," he said, And he let the Whitehead go.

The wind got up with the morning

The fog blew off with the rain,

When the Witch of the North saw the Egg-shell

And the little Blue Devil again.

" Did you swim ? " she said. " Did you sink ? " she said,

And the little Blue Devil replied:

" For myself I swam, but I think," he said,

"There's somebody sinking outside."

"THE TRADE"

1914-1918

Letters and numbers on their skin. They play their grisly blindfold games
 * "pHEY bear, in place of classic names,

In little boxes made of tin.

Sometimes they stalk the Zeppelin, Sometimes they learn where mines are laid

Or where the Baltic ice is thin. That is the custom of "The Trade."

Few prize-courts sit upon their claims.

They seldom tow their targets in. They follow certain secret aims

Down under, far from strife or din.