by Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)
Morning song in the jungle
Language: English
One moment past our bodies cast No shadow on the plain; Now clear and black they stride our track, And we run home again. In morning-hush, each rock and bush Stands hard, and high, and raw: Then give the Call: "Good rest to all That keep the Jungle Law!" Now horn and pelt our peoples melt In covert to abide; Now crouched and still, to cave and hill Our Jungle Barons glide. Now, stark and plain, Man's oxen strain, That draw the new-yoked plough; Now striped and dread the dawn is red Above the lit talao.1 Ho! Get to lair! The sun's aflare Behind the breathing grass: And creaking through the young bamboo The warning whispers pass. By day made strange, the woods we range With blinking eyes we scan; While down the skies the wild duck cries: "The Day - the Day to Man!" The dew is dried that drenched our hide, Or washed about our way; And where we drank, the puddled bank Is crisping into clay. The traitor Dark gives up each mark Of stretched or hooded claw: Then hear the Call: "Good rest to all That keep the Jungle Law!"
View original text (without footnotes)
1 pond or lake
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
1 pond or lake
Authorship:
- by Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936), "Morning song in the jungle", appears in The Second Jungle Book, in Letting in the Jungle, first published 1895 [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882 - 1961), "Morning song in the jungle", op. 15079 no. 3 (1905), published 1912 [ mixed chorus a cappella ], from The Jungle Book, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 32
Word count: 194