Darzee's Chant

• 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, 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 has delivered us, who?
• Tell me his nest and his name.
• Rikki, the valiant, the true,
• Tikki, with eyeballs of flame,
• Rikk-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!