Baloo
FOR the sake of him who showedOne wise Frog the Jungle-Road,Keep the Law the Man-Pack makeFor thy blind old Baloo's sake!Clean or tainted, hot or stale,Hold it as it were the Trail,Through the day and through the night,Questing neither left nor right.For the sake of him who lovesThee beyond all else that moves,When thy Pack would make thee pain,Say: 'Tabaqui sings again.'When thy Pack would work thee ill,Say: 'Shere Khan is yet to kill.'When the knife is drawn to slay,Keep the Law and go thy way.(Root and honey, palm and spathe,Guard a cub from harm and scathe!)Wood and Water, Wind and Tree,Jungle-Favour go with thee!
Words in this poem
- jungle n.
- A dense growth of brushwood, grasses, reeds, vines, etc.; an almost impenetrable thicket of trees, canes, and reedy vegetation, as in India, Africa, Australia, and Brazil. [Hind. jangal desert, forest, jungle; Skr. ja desert.]
- khan n.
- A king; a prince; a chief; a governor; -- so called among the Tartars, Turks, and Persians, and in countries now or formerly governed by them. [Pers. & Tart. khan.]
- scathe v. t.
- To do harm to; to injure; to damage; to waste; to destroy. [Icel. skatha; akin to AS. sceathan, sceth\'eban, Dan. skade, Sw. skada, D. & G. schaden, OHG. scadon, Goth. skaÞjan.]
- favour n.
- Kind regard; propitious aspect; countenance; friendly disposition; kindness; good will. [Written also favour.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Baloo is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs from Books, Project Gutenberg ebook #15529; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rudyard Kipling, Baloo, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/baloo.html, id L20313.
Form and metre
Baloo is 20 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 90% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABBCCDD--EEFFGGHHII showedA · roadA · makeB · sakeB · staleC · trailC · nightD · rightD · loves · moves · painE · againE · illF · killF · slayG · wayG · spatheH · scatheH · treeI · theeI
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| FOR the sake of him who showed | 8 | ·······˘ |
| One wise Frog the Jungle-Road, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Keep the Law the Man-Pack make | 7 | ······· |
| For thy blind old Baloo's sake! | 7 | ······· |
| Clean or tainted, hot or stale, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Hold it as it were the Trail, | 7 | ······· |
| Through the day and through the night, | 7 | ······· |
| Questing neither left nor right. | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| For the sake of him who loves | 7 | ······· |
| Thee beyond all else that moves, | 7 | ······· |
| When thy Pack would make thee pain, | 7 | ······· |
| Say: 'Tabaqui sings again.' | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| When thy Pack would work thee ill, | 7 | ······· |
| Say: 'Shere Khan is yet to kill.' | 7 | ······· |
| When the knife is drawn to slay, | 7 | ······· |
| Keep the Law and go thy way. | 7 | ······· |
| (Root and honey, palm and spathe, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Guard a cub from harm and scathe!) | 7 | ······· |
| Wood and Water, Wind and Tree, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Jungle-Favour go with thee! | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.