by Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)
At the hole where he went in
Language: English
At the hole where he went in Red-Eye called to Wrinkle-Skin. Hear what little Red-Eye saith: 'Nag, come up and dance with death!' Eye to eye and head to head, (Keep the measure, Nag.) This shall end when one is dead; (At thy pleasure, Nag.) Turn for turn and twist for twist -- (Run and hide thee, Nag.) Hah! The hooded Death has missed! (Woe betide thee, Nag!)
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Note: Armer's text has different punctuation and capitalization and Armer adds a whispered "Rk! Tk! t-k-t-k tchk!" after line 2.
Text Authorship:
- by Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936), "Epigraph", appears in The Jungle Book, first published 1894 [author's text checked 1 time 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 Elinor Armer (b. 1939), "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", subtitle: "In which the mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi battles the cobra Nag to the death", 2011 [ voice and piano ], from Will You, Won't You?, no. 4, Subito [sung text not yet checked]
- by Homer B. Hatch , "The challenge of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", published 1915 [ four-part men's chorus a cappella ] [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2009-02-06
Line count: 12
Word count: 67