Darzee's Chaunt

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Title:     Darzee's Chaunt
Author: Rudyard Kipling [More Titles by Kipling]

(Sung in honour of Rikki-tikki-tavi)

Singer and tailor am I--
Doubled the joys that I know--
Proud of my lilt to the sky,
Proud of the house that I sew--
Over and under, so weave I my music--so weave I the house that I sew.

Sing to your fledglings again,
Mother, O lift up your head!
Evil that plagued us is slain,
Death in the garden lies dead.
Terror that hid in the roses is impotent--flung on the dung-hill and dead!

Who hath delivered us, who?
Tell me his nest and his name.
Rikki, the valiant, the true,
Tikki, with eyeballs of flame,
Rik-tikki-tikki, the ivory-fanged, the hunter with eyeballs of flame.

Give him the Thanks of the Birds,
Bowing with tail-feathers spread!
Praise him with nightingale-words--
Nay, I will praise him instead.
Hear! I will sing you the praise of the bottle-tailed Rikki, with eyeballs of red!

_(Here Rikki-tikki interrupted, and the rest of the song is lost.)_

[The end]
Rudyard Kipling's poem: Darzee's Chaunt

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