Kaa's Hunting
The stream is shrunk--the pool is dry,And we be comrades, thou and I;With fevered jowl and dusty flankEach jostling each along the bank;And, by one drouthy fear made still,Foregoing thought of quest or kill.Now 'neath his dam the fawn may see,The lean Pack-wolf as cowed as he,And the tall buck, unflinching, noteThe fangs that tore his father's throat.The pools are shrunk--the streams are dry,And we be playmates, thou and I,Till yonder cloud--Good Hunting!--looseThe rain that breaks our Water Truce.
Words in this poem
- unflinching a.
- Not flinching or shrinking; unyielding.
- tore n.
- The dead grass that remains on mowing land in winter and spring. Mortimer. [Probably from the root of tear; cf. W. tór a break, cut, tóri to break, cut.]
- yonder adv.
- At a distance, but within view. [OE. yonder, ýonder; cf. OD. ginder, Goth. jaindr there. Yond, adv.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Kaa's Hunting 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, Kaa's Hunting, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/kaa-s-hunting.html, id L20408.
Form and metre
Kaa's Hunting is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic 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 AABBCCDDEEAAFF dryA · iA · flankB · bankB · stillC · killC · seeD · heD · noteE · throatE · dryA · iA · looseF · truceF
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 iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The stream is shrunk--the pool is dry, | 8 | ········ |
| And we be comrades, thou and I; | 8 | ···/···· |
| With fevered jowl and dusty flank | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Each jostling each along the bank; | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| And, by one drouthy fear made still, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Foregoing thought of quest or kill. | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| Now 'neath his dam the fawn may see, | 8 | ········ |
| The lean Pack-wolf as cowed as he, | 8 | ········ |
| And the tall buck, unflinching, note | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| The fangs that tore his father's throat. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The pools are shrunk--the streams are dry, | 8 | ········ |
| And we be playmates, thou and I, | 8 | ···/···· |
| Till yonder cloud--Good Hunting!--loose | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The rain that breaks our Water Truce. | 8 | ····//˘· |
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.