Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II
W

When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,

We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—lie down for an æon or two,

Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall set us to work anew!

And those who were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair;

They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet's hair;

They shall find real saints to draw from—Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;

They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!

And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;

And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame;

But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,

Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!

[213]

[213]

I

THE SING-SONG OF OLD MAN KANGAROO

ot always was the Kangaroo as now we do behold him, but a Different Animal with four short legs. He was gray and he was woolly, and his pride was inordinate: he danced on an outcrop in the middle of Australia, and he went to the Little God Nqa at six before breakfast, saying, "Make me different from all other animals by five this afternoon."

Up jumped Nqa from his seat on the sandflat and shouted, "Go away!"

He was gray and he was woolly, and his pride was inordinate: he danced on a rockledge in the middle of 
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