KIPLING.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 318, 3 October 1908, Page 12

KIPLING.

There is a virtuosity about Mr. Kipling's poetry (says the London "Times" in reviewing tho new four-volume issue of this writer's verses) which' makes it difficult to examine coolly. His most daring effects, his big voluble rhythms, with their perfect accuracy of balanco and emphasis, seem produced, not with labour and forethought and nico calculation, but with a singlo back-handded stroke. That easy sweep of the wrist hardly over fails him. Setting .aside some of the obviously immature "Departmental Ditties," and a few in which his later mannerisms have hung heavily upon hini, all his poems aro instances of it. All his results seem achieved with the same reckless sureness. In tho four volumes mentioned abovo there is', it is true, no lack of tho defect of this quality. His extraordinary facility in riotous and many-syllabled metres too often ends in simply parodying itself:— 'Tis theirs to sweep through,the ringing deep where Azrael's outposts' are. Or buffet a path through ihe Pit's red wrath when God goes out to war, Or hang with the reckless Seraphim on the rein of a red-maued :tar. But his equal mastery in calmer strains counterbalances this exuberance. Good or bad, all his poems say exactly what he intends to say,, in'tho most telling words and rhythms. Sometimes, we feel sure, they are not' meant to convey anything very precise, and then wo get Azrael and the Seraphim in all their native ambiguity.' Elsewhere, when the impression to bo recorded is clear and sharp, wo get a picture as exact and direct as that in the poem about Sussex in "The Fivo Nations." There is no doubt whatever of Mr. Kipling's command of his mothods; and his achievement is within its limits so admirable that the limits themselves are easy to overlook. To find them we must forget about his virtuosity and regard our four volumes solely as, in Matthew Arnold's:phrase, a criticism of lifo. It is surprising, when wo come to look into it to find what a small segment of life Mr. Kipling has touched in his poetry. His volumes rango over both hemispheres, not to speak .of Azrael's outposts; but every-day.affairs, common problems, universal passions, hardly find a place in them at all. It may bo objected that patriotism is a universal passion; and so, no doubt, it is; and certainly the greatness and magnificence of tho Eng> lish figure in those poems to some purpose. But Mr. Kipling's vein of sentiment 011 this subject is very far from being patriotic. He only cares for Englishmen when they aro i:i the Colonics or India, or on oije of the bloodstained fringes of the Empire. The English' man in England, unless, indeed, he is merely at homo on leave, he sometimes seems posi» tively to hate — Tho poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag—

This is tho tone in which we are habitually referred to. if wo Jive in our native island. This may be Imperialism, though wo doubt it, .but it is hardly patriotism. We do not say that Imperialism, even iu this form, may not bo tho better of the two —that is another point altogether, and scarcely a •literary ono. We only say that it has a very much more remote bearing upon life as most people live it. It is a healthier sentiment, perhaps, than that form of patriotism which begins and onds in abusing foreigners; so far from that, there is hardly a word iu Mr. Kipling's poetry to show that ho is aware of tlieir existence. But this shadowy senso of the glory of being English only when you have left Southampton is a totally unreal thing to most people, and in such a form probably appeals chiefly 'to sedentary stay-at-homes. It is on this cloud-like basis that a large part of Mr. Kipling's poetry has, as wo know,' been roared; and that part includes nearly all that ho has written m a purely personal vein. Somo of it is striking and beautiful, among a great deal that is tawdry, but it can hardly be said to belong to tho things which lie nearest or even near, to the human heart. Tho sentiment may be useful and laudable in a dozen ways, and with a genius like Mr. Kipling's it may produce somo fine verso, but it remains at bottom exotic. When he writes in character it is a different matter. It is not for nothing that "Departmental Ditties" shows among many other influences tho influence of Browning. Mr. Kipling's gift is essentially dramatic. When ho writes in propria persona he _is constantly harassed by two somewhat diverse enemies—the daily papers and, the prophets of the Old Testament. His poetry is betrayed on one side towards tho cheapest of journalistic ornament, and on the other towards vaguo and sonorous archaisms. • But whon he writes as a private soldier or a Scottish engineer he is capable of false notes. His sense of character is far too acute to be misled by his taste. In poems liko "M'Andrew's Hymn" or "The Mary Gloster" there is not a word which is not perfectly just and inevitable. But in these and in tho Barrackroom Ballads it still to be noted that the field covered is a small one. Tho peoplo aro ordinary peoplo, no doubt, but the circumstances are very special. The soldiers in the ballads hint that tliey are human, but we see them in their pleasures or difficulties only as soldiers, not as human beingb They fight and drink and make love like other people, it is true, ,but always in tho foreground is tho fact that they are a class ■ apart, doing disagreeable and dangerous work for a not particularly grateful country. This is, of course, ho disparagement of these admirable versos, which merelyJcecp to their natural limits; but it is an illustration of tho way in which Mr. Kipling's poetry persistently stays outside any vein of emotion that is common property.