‘Touched with pity and wonder, I did not fire then ... I have looked no more on women--I have walked no more with men. Nearer he tottered and nearer, with paws like hands that pray-- From brow to jaw that steel-shod paw, it ripped my face away! ‘Sudden, silent, and savage, searing as flame the blow-- Faceless I fell before his feet, fifty summers ago. I heard him grunt and chuckle--I heard him pass to his den, He left me blind to the darkened years and the little mercy of men. ‘Now ye go down in the morning with guns of the newer style, That load (I have felt) in the middle and range (I have heard) a mile? Luck to the white man’s rifle, that shoots so fast and true, But--pay, and I lift my bandage and show what the Bear can do!’ (Flesh like slag in the furnace, knobbed and withered and grey-- Matun, the old blind beggar, he gives good worth for his pay.) ‘Rouse him at noon in the bushes, follow and press him hard-- Not for his ragings and roarings flinch ye from Adam-zad. ‘But (pay, and I put back the bandage) this is the time to fear, When he stands up like a tired man, tottering near and near; When he stands up as pleading, in wavering, man-brute guise, When he veils the hate and cunning of the little, swinish eyes; ‘When he shows as seeking quarter, with paws like hands in prayer, _That_ is the time of peril--the time of the Truce of the Bear!’ Eyeless, noseless, and lipless, asking a dole at the door, Matun, the old blind beggar, he tells it o’er and o’er; Fumbling and feeling the rifles, warming his hands at the flame, Hearing our careless white men talk of the morrow’s game; Over and over the story, ending as he began:-- ‘_There is no truce with Adam-zad, the Bear that looks like a man!_’ THE OLD MEN [Page 57] _This is our lot if we live so long and labour unto the end-- That we outlive the impatient years and the much too patient friend: And because we know we have breath in our mouth and think we have thought in our head, We shall assume that we are alive, whereas we are really dead._ We shall not acknowledge that old stars fade or alien planets arise (That the sere bush buds or the desert blooms or the ancient well-head dries), Or any new compass wherewith new men adventure ’neath new skies. We shall lift up the ropes that constrained our youth to bind on our children’s hands; We shall call to the water below the bridges to return and replenish our lands; We shall harness horses (Death’s own pale horses) and scholarly plough the sands. We shall lie down in the eye of the sun for lack of a light on our way-- We shall rise up when the day is done and chirrup, ‘Behold, it is day!’ We shall abide till the battle is won ere we amble into the fray.