The White Seal.

* * * * *

You mustn’t swim till you’re six weeks old,
  Or your head will be sunk by your heels;
And summer gales and Killer Whales
  Are bad for baby seals. 
Are bad for baby seals, dear rat,
  As bad as bad can be;
But splash and grow strong,
And you can’t be wrong,
  Child of the Open Sea!

    The White Seal.

* * * * *

I will remember what I was, I am sick of rope and chain. 
  I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs. 
I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugar-cane. 
  I will go out to my own kind, and the wood-folk in their lairs.

I will go out until the day, until the morning break,
  Out to the winds’ untainted kiss, the waters’ clean caress. 
I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket-stake. 
  I will revisit my lost loves, and playmates master-less!

    Toomai of the Elephants.

* * * * *

The People of the Eastern Ice, they are melting like the snow—­
They beg for coffee and sugar; they go where the white men go. 
The People of the Western Ice, they learn to steal and fight;
They sell their furs to the trading-post; they sell their souls to the white. 
The People of the Southern Ice, they trade with the whaler’s crew;
Their women have many ribbons, but their tents are torn and few. 
But the People of the Elder Ice, beyond the white man’s ken—­
Their spears are made of the narwhal-horn, and they are the last of the Men!

    Quiquern.

* * * * *

When ye say to Tabaqui, ‘My Brother!’ when ye call the Hyena to meat, Ye may cry the Full Truce with Jacala—­the Belly that runs on four feet.

    The Undertakers.

* * * * *

The night we felt the earth would move
  We stole and plucked him by the hand,
Because we loved him with the love
  That knows but cannot understand.

And when the roaring hillside broke,
  And all our world fell down in rain,
We saved him, we the Little Folk;
  But lo! he does not come again!

Mourn now, we saved him for the sake
  Of such poor love as wild ones may. 
Mourn ye!  Our brother will not wake,
  And his own kind drive us away!

    The Miracle of Purun Bhagat.

THE EGG-SHELL

The wind took off with the sunset—­
The fog came up with the tide,
When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell
With a little Blue Devil inside. 
‘Sink,’ she said, ‘or swim,’ she said,
’It’s all you will get from me. 
And that is the finish of him!’ she said. 
And the Egg-shell went to sea.

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.