Page:Ballads and Barrack-Room Ballads (1892).djvu/115

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EVARRA AND HIS GODS
93
And howled among the beasts: ‘Thus Gods are made,
And whoso makes them otherwise shall die.
Thereat the cattle bellowed . . . Then he died.

Yet at the last he came to Paradise,
And found his own four Gods, and that he wrote;
And marvelled, being very near to God,
What oaf on earth had made his toil God’s law,
Till God said mocking: ‘Mock not. These be thine.’
Then cried Evarra: ‘I have sinned!’—‘Not so.
‘If thou hadst written otherwise, thy Gods
‘Had rested in the mountain and the mine,
‘And I were poorer by four wondrous Gods,
‘And thy more wondrous law, Evarra. Thine,
‘Servant of shouting crowds and lowing kine.’

Thereat, with laughing mouth, but tear-wet eyes,
Evarra cast his Gods from Paradise.

This is the story of Evarra—man—
Maker of Gods in lands beyond the sea.