Chapter Headings from ‘The Jungle Books’
by
Now Chil the Kite brings home the night
That Mang the Bat sets free–
The herds are shut in byre and hut
For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
Talon and tush and claw.
Oh hear the call!–Good hunting all
That keep the Jungle Law!
Mowgli’s Brothers.
* * * * *
His spots are the joy of the Leopard: his horns are the Buffalo’s pride.
Be clean, for the strength of the hunter is known by the gloss of his hide.
If ye find that the bullock can toss you, or the heavy-browed Sambhur can gore;
Ye need not stop work to inform us. We knew it ten seasons before.
Oppress not the cubs of the stranger, but hail them as Sister and Brother,
For though they are little and fubsy, it may be the Bear is their mother.
‘There is none like to me!’ says the Cub in the pride of his earliest kill;
But the Jungle is large and the Cub he is small. Let him think and be still.
Kaa’s Hunting.
* * * * *
The stream is shrunk–the pool is dry,
And we be comrades, thou and I;
With fevered jowl and dusty flank
Each jostling each along the bank;
And, by one drouthy fear made still,
Foregoing thought of quest or kill.
Now ‘neath his dam the fawn may see,
The lean Pack-wolf as cowed as he,
And the tall buck, unflinching, note
The fangs that tore his father’s throat.
The pools are shrunk–the streams are dry,
And we be playmates, thou and I,
Till yonder cloud–Good Hunting!–loose
The rain that breaks our Water Truce.
How Fear Came.
* * * * *
What of the hunting, hunter bold?
Brother, the watch was long and cold.
What of the quarry ye went to kill?
Brother, he crops in the jungle still.
Where is the power that made your pride?
Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side.
Where is the haste that ye hurry by?
Brother, I go to my lair to die!
‘Tiger-Tiger!’
* * * * *
Veil them, cover them, wall them round–
Blossom, and creeper, and weed–
Let us forget the sight and the sound,
The smell and the touch of the breed!
Fat black ash by the altar-stone.
Here is the white-foot rain,
And the does bring forth in the fields unsown,
And none shall affright them again;
And the blind walls crumble, unknown, o’erthrown,
And none shall inhabit again!
Letting in the Jungle.
* * * * *
These are the Four that are never content, that have never been filled since the Dews began–
Jacala’s mouth, and the glut of the Kite, and the hands of the Ape, and the Eyes of Man.
The King’s Ankus.
* * * * *
For our white and our excellent nights–for the nights of swift running,
Fair ranging, far-seeing, good hunting, sure cunning!
For the smells of the dawning, untainted, ere dew has departed!
For the rush through the mist, and the quarry blind-started!
For the cry of our mates when the sambhur has wheeled and is standing at bay!
For the risk and the riot of night!
For the sleep at the lair-mouth by day!
It is met, and we go to the fight.
Bay! O bay!
Red Dog.
* * * * *
Man goes to Man! Cry the challenge through the Jungle!
He that was our Brother goes away.
Hear, now, and judge, O ye People of the Jungle,–
Answer, who shall turn him–who shall stay?
Man goes to Man! He is weeping in the Jungle:
He that was our Brother sorrows sore!
Man goes to Man! (Oh, we loved him in the Jungle!)
To the Man-Trail where we may not follow more.