Explore "Shiv and the Grasshopper" by Rudyard Kipling on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Shiv, who poured the harvest and made the winds to blow, / Sitting at the doorways of a day of long ago, / Gave to each his portion, food and toil and fate, / From the King upon the _guddee_ to the Beggar at the gate. / _All things made he -- Shiva the Preserver. / Mahadeo! Mahadeo! He made all, -- / Thorn for the camel, fodder for the kine, / And mother's heart for sleepy head, O little son of mine! _
Wheat he gave to rich folk, millet to the poor, / Broken scraps for holy men that beg from door to door; / Cattle to the tiger, carrion to the kite, / And rags and bones to wicked wolves without the wall at night. / Naught he found too lofty, none he saw too low -- / Parbati beside him watched them come and go; / Thought to cheat her husband, turning Shiv to jest -- / Stole the little grasshopper and hid it in her breast. / _So she tricked him, Shiva the Preserver. / Mahadeo! Mahadeo! turn and see! / Tall are the camels, heavy are the kine, / But this was Least of Little Things, O little son of mine! _