Music

This piece is my humble attempt to render into song a poem by Rudyard Kipling, a writer whose work I have long admired. Kipling’s poetry holds a rare quality: the ability to distil the most complex and often troubling themes into art that feels at once profound and accessible. Whether in the cadence of his verse or in the narrative force of works such as The Jungle Book, his gift was not simply to write, but to shape thought into enduring form. He was the voice of a century.

There is great musicality embedded within Kipling's words, which is but the reflection of his skill. Even when read silently, his lines seem to carry their own rhythm, a natural melody that lends itself effortlessly to song. The transformation of his poetry into music reveals this quality even more clearly — the subtle balance of word, tone, and cadence becomes audible, almost as if the poem had been waiting for its notes all along.

“Truth” is my small contribution to this tradition: a tribute to Kipling’s artistry, and to the way his words continue to resonate for centuries.          

TRUTH
  

[Intro]

She faced herself at last, the story runs,
And telegraphed her sister: "Come at once!
Facts out of hand. Unable overtake
Without your aid. Come back for Truth's own sake!
Co-equal rank and powers if you agree.
They need us both, but you far more than me!"

[Verse 1]

Once on a time, the ancient legends tell,
Truth, rising from the bottom of her well,
Looked on the world, but, hearing how it lied,
Returned to her seclusion horrified.

[Verse 2]

There she abode, so conscious of her worth,
Not even Pilate's Question called her forth,
Nor Galileo, kneeling to deny
The Laws that hold our Planet 'neath the sky.

[Verse 3]

Meantime, her kindlier sister, whom men call
Fiction, did all her work and more than all,
With so much zeal, devotion, tact, and care,
That no one noticed Truth was otherwhere.  

[Bridge]

Then came a War when, bombed and gassed and mined,
Truth rose once more, perforce, to meet mankind
And through the dust and glare and wreck of things
Beheld a phantom on unbalanced wings,
Reeling and groping, dazed, dishevelled, dumb,
But semaphoring direr deeds to come.

[Chorus]

She faced herself at last, the story runs,
And telegraphed her sister: "Come at once!
Facts out of hand. Unable overtake
Without your aid. Come back for Truth's own sake!
Co-equal rank and powers if you agree.
They need us both, but you far more than me!"

[Verse 4]

Truth hailed and bade her stand; the quavering shade
Clung to her knees and babbled, "Sister, aid!
I am – I was – thy Deputy, and men
Besought me for my useful tongue or pen,"

[Verse 5]

"To gloss their gentle deeds, and I complied,
And they, and thy demands, were satisfied.
But this –" she pointed o'er the blistered plain,
Where men as Gods and devils wrought amain –
"This is beyond me! Take thy work again."

[Bridge]

Tablets and pen transferred, she fled afar,
And Truth assumed the record of the War ...
She saw, she heard, she read, she tried to tell
Facts beyond precedent and parallel —
Unfit to hint or breathe, much less to write,
But happening every minute, day and night. 

[Verse 6]

She called for proof. It came. The dossiers grew.
She marked them, first, "Return. This can't be true."
Then, underneath the cold official word:
"This is not really half of what occurred."

[Chorus]

She faced herself at last, the story runs,
And telegraphed her sister: "Come at once!
Facts out of hand. Unable overtake
Without your aid. Come back for Truth's own sake!
Co-equal rank and powers if you agree.
They need us both, but you far more than me!"