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.

The Law of the Jungle -- which is by far the oldest law in the world -- has / arranged for almost every kind of accident that may befall the Jungle / People, till now its code is as perfect as time and custom can make / it. You will remember that Mowgli spent a great part of his life in the / Seeonee Wolf-Pack, learning the Law from Baloo, the Brown Bear; and / it was Baloo who told him, when the boy grew impatient at the constant / orders, that the Law was like the Giant Creeper, because it dropped / across every one's back and no one could escape. "When thou hast lived / as long as I have, Little Brother, thou wilt see how all the Jungle / obeys at least one Law. And that will be no pleasant sight," said Baloo.