Read "False Dawn" by Rudyard Kipling online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
To-night God knows what thing shall tide, / The Earth is racked and faint -- / Expectant, sleepless, open-eyed; / And we, who from the Earth were made, / Thrill with our Mother's pain. / In Durance.
No man will ever know the exact truth of this story; though women may / sometimes whisper it to one another after a dance, when they are putting / up their hair for the night and comparing lists of victims. A man, of / course, cannot assist at these functions. So the tale must be told from / the outside -- in the dark -- all wrong.