FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128  
129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   >>  
is right!" . . . . . 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. Still the world is wondrous large, -- seven seas from marge to marge, -- And it holds a vast of various kinds of man; And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu, And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban. Here's my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the moose And the reindeer roared where Paris roars to-night: -- There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, And -- every -- single -- one -- of -- them -- is -- right! THE STORY OF UNG Once, on a glittering ice-field, ages and ages ago, Ung, a maker of pictures, fashioned an image of snow. Fashioned the form of a tribesman -- gaily he whistled and sung, Working the snow with his fingers. _Read ye the Story of Ung!_ Pleased was his tribe with that image -- came in their hundreds to scan -- Handled it, smelt it, and grunted: "Verily, this is a man! Thus do we carry our lances -- thus is a war-belt slung. Lo! it is even as we are. Glory and honour to Ung!" Later he pictured an aurochs -- later he pictured a bear -- Pictured the sabre-tooth tiger dragging a man to his lair -- Pictured the mountainous mammoth, hairy, abhorrent, alone -- Out of the love that he bore them, scribing them clearly on bone. Swift came the tribe to behold them, peering and pushing and still -- Men of the berg-battered beaches, men of the boulder-hatched hill -- Hunters and fishers and trappers, presently whispering low: "Yea, they are like -- and it may be -- But how does the Picture-man know?" "Ung -- hath he slept with the Aurochs -- watched where the Mastodon roam? Spoke on the ice with the Bow-head -- followed the Sabre-tooth home? Nay! These are toys o
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128  
129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   >>  



Top keywords:
tribal
 

aurochs

 

Pictured

 
pictured
 
grunted
 
lances
 

Verily

 

Pleased

 

Fashioned

 

fashioned


tribesman
 
pictures
 

glittering

 

whistled

 

hundreds

 

honour

 

Working

 

fingers

 

Handled

 

Picture


presently
 

trappers

 

whispering

 
Aurochs
 

Mastodon

 
watched
 
fishers
 

Hunters

 

mammoth

 

abhorrent


mountainous

 

dragging

 
scribing
 
battered
 

beaches

 
boulder
 

hatched

 

behold

 

peering

 

pushing


roared

 

amanuenses

 
Allobrogenses
 

skirmish

 
messmates
 
headed
 

squeak

 

scuffle

 
cultured
 

Christian