How Fear Came

by Rudyard Kipling

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,
Forgoing 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.