Part 2 (2/2)
You rode on the back of the yellow-streaked king, His loose neck was wreathed with a mistletoe ring.
Primordial elephants loomed by your side, And our clay-painted children danced by your path, Chanting the death of the kingdoms of wrath.
You wrought until night with us all.
The fierce brutes fawned at your call, Then slipped to their lairs, song-chained.
And thus you sang sweetly, and reigned: ”Immortal is the inner peace, free to beasts and men.
Beginning in the darkness, the mystery will conquer, And now it comforts every heart that seeks for love again.
And now the mammoth bows the knee, We hew down every Tiger Tree, We send each tiger bound in love and glory to his den, Bound in love ... and wisdom ... and glory, ... to his den.”
III
”Beware of the trumpeting swine,”
Came the howl from the northward that night.
Twice-rebel tigers warning was still If we held not beside them it boded us ill.
From the parrots translating the cry, And the apes in the trees came the whine: ”Beware of the trumpeting swine.
Beware of the faith of a mammoth.”
”Beware of the faith of a tiger,”
Came the roar from the southward that night.
Trumpeting mammoths warning us still If we held not beside them it boded us ill.
The frail apes wailed to us all, The parrots reechoed the call: ”Beware of the faith of a tiger.”
From the heights of the forest the watchers could see The tiger-cats crunching the Leaf of the Tree Las.h.i.+ng themselves, and scattering foam, Killing our huntsmen, hurrying home.
The chiefs of the mammoths our mastery spurned, And eastward restlessly fumed and burned.
The peac.o.c.ks squalled out the news of their drilling And told how they trampled, maneuvered, and turned.
Ten thousand man-hating tigers Whirling down from the north, like a flood!
Ten thousand mammoths oncoming From the south as avengers of blood!
Our child-queen was mourning, her magic was dead, The roots of the Tiger Tree reeking with red.
IV
This is the tale of the Tiger Tree A hundred times the height of a man, Lord of the race since the world began.
We marched to the mammoths, We pledged them our steel, And scorning you, sang:-- ”We are men, We are men.”
We mounted their necks, And they stamped a wide reel.
We sang: ”We are fighting the h.e.l.l-cats again, We are mound-builder men, We are elephant men.”
We left you there, lonely, Beauty your power, Wisdom your watchman, To hold the clay tower.
While the black-mammoths boomed-- ”You are elephant men, Men, Men, Elephant men.”
The dawn-winds prophesied battles untold.
While the Tiger Trees roared of the glories of old, Of the masterful spirits and hard.
The drunken cats came in their joy In the sunrise, a glittering wave.
”We are tigers, are tigers,” they yowled.
”Down, Down, Go the swine to the grave.”
But we tramp Tramp Trampled them there, Then charged with our sabres and spears.
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