Page:The Seven Seas (Kipling, 1896).djvu/148

126 Then the silence closed upon me till They put new clothing on me

Of whiter, weaker flesh and bone more frail;

And I stepped beneath Time's finger, once again a tribal singer

[And a minor poet certified by Tr—ll].

Still they skirmish to and fro, men my messmates on the snow,

When we headed off the aurochs turn for turn;

When the rich Allobrogenses never kept amanuenses,

And our only plots were piled in lakes at Berne.

Still a cultured Christian age sees us scuffle, squeak, and rage,

Still we pinch and slap and jabber, scratch and dirk;

Still we let our business slide—as we dropped the half-dressed hide—

To show a fellow-savage how to work.