Now Chil the Kite brings home the night
    That Mang the Bat sets free.
The herds are shut in byre and hut -
    For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
    Talon and tush and claw.
O hear the call! Good Hunting, All
    That keep the Jungle Law!

usurping Martin’s place as purveyor of all things Kiplingesque…

Kipling’s Jungle Books are (to use a well-worn cliche) beloved of young and old alike, and it’s not hard to see – they’re good. They’re full of action, romance and imagination, lush with detail, charged with excitement, but above all, they’re beautifully (and I mean really beautifully) written¹. From the jungles of the Waingunga to the ice floes of the Arctic, from Rikki-Tikki-Tavi to Akela the Lone Wolf - Kipling captures a thousand different moods, creatures and places in the most wonderful prose.

Having said that, IMO one of the nicest things about the Jungle Book is the way each chapter (story) starts and ends with some verse. And today’s example is one of my favourites. The versification is utterly perfect, but more than that, I love the way the poem seems to embody the ‘feel’ of the Jungle at night, when the wolf pack is about to hunt. It sends shivers down my spine.

— Thomas