DARZEE'S CHAUNT(SUNG IN HONOUR OF RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI) Singer and tailor am I -- Doubled the joys that I know -- Proud of my lilt through 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, oh 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 eye- balls 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.) I will remember what I was, I am sick of rope and chain -- I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs. I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugar-cane, I will go out to my own kind, and the wood-folk in their lairs. I will go out until the day, until the morning break, Out to the winds' untainted kiss, the waters' clean caress: I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket-stake. I will revisit my lost loves, and playmates masterless! |