How Fear Came
What of the hunting, hunter bold?Brother, the watch was long and cold.What of the quarry ye went to kill?Brother, he crops in the jungle still.Where is the power that made your pride?Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side.Where is the haste that ye hurry by?Brother, I go to my lair to die!
Veil them, cover them, wall them round--Blossom, and creeper, and weed--Let us forget the sight and the sound,The smell and the touch of the breed!
Fat black ash by the altar-stone.Here is the white-foot rain,And the does bring forth in the fields unsown,And none shall affright them again;And the blind walls crumble, unknown, o'erthrown,And none shall inhabit again!
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- jungle n.
- A dense growth of brushwood, grasses, reeds, vines, etc.; an almost impenetrable thicket of trees, canes, and reedy vegetation, as in India, Africa, Australia, and Brazil. [Hind. jangal desert, forest, jungle; Skr. ja desert.]
- lair n.
- A place in which to lie or rest; especially, the bed or couch of a wild beast. [OE. leir, AS. leger; akin to D. leger, G. lager couch, lair, OHG. laga, Goth. ligrs, and to E. lie. See Lie to be prostrate, and cf. Layer, Leaguer.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
How Fear Came is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs from Books, Project Gutenberg ebook #15529; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rudyard Kipling, How Fear Came, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/how-fear-came.html, id L20409.
Form and metre
How Fear Came is 18 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 71%).
See other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABBCCDD boldA · coldA · killB · stillB · prideC · sideC · byD · dieD
- 2 ABAB roundA · weedB · soundA · breedB
- 3 ABABAB stoneA · rainB · unsownA · againB · o'erthrownA · againB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| What of the hunting, hunter bold? | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Brother, the watch was long and cold. | 8 | /˘······ |
| What of the quarry ye went to kill? | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Brother, he crops in the jungle still. | 9 | /˘····/˘· |
| Where is the power that made your pride? | 8 | ···/···· |
| Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side. | 9 | /˘······· |
| Where is the haste that ye hurry by? | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Brother, I go to my lair to die! | 9 | /˘······· |
| Veil them, cover them, wall them round-- | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Blossom, and creeper, and weed-- | 7 | /˘·/˘·· |
| Let us forget the sight and the sound, | 9 | ··˘/····· |
| The smell and the touch of the breed! | 8 | ········ |
| Fat black ash by the altar-stone. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Here is the white-foot rain, | 6 | ······ |
| And the does bring forth in the fields unsown, | 10 | ·········· |
| And none shall affright them again; | 8 | ···˘/·˘/ |
| And the blind walls crumble, unknown, o'erthrown, | 10 | ····/˘˘/·· |
| And none shall inhabit again! | 8 | ···˘/˘˘/ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.