BOOKS.

MR. KIPLING'S VERSE.* WE have often asked in these columns for an edition of

Mr. Kipling's verse which should be inclusive, which should not only give every piece of poetry published as poetry, but should cull every piece of verse from his prose works. We have got what we asked for, and are thoroughly well satisfied with the result. And we may add that these three volumes are also a credit to the publishers, when war and early peace conditions as to paper and printing are remembered.

It is a great delight to that butterfly of the bookshelves, the general reader, to wander through the Eden of Mr. Kipling's planting. We notice at once that Mr. Kipling we may be

sure that this matter was not left to any outside help—has laid out the paths in his garden with the very maximum of serpentining. The paths—i.c., the arrangement of the poems—

have all got an intention behind them, and are meant to lead our minds in a particular direction and for a particular purpose. We are bound to say, however, that we have been quite unsuccessful in unravelling the design, and cannot form an idea why one song follows another. No doubt the reason is sometimes propinquity in a former edition, but occasionally there is evidence, or appears to be evidence, that the "mix up" is intentional. But why worry over such a matter ? If the garden is goad and the flowers are good, who cares how much the paths wind ?

For ourselves, we arc to be counted among those who are contented to enjoy good poetry, and are somewhat careless as to " placing " the writer exactly or analysing very deeply why we like his work. We do not, therefore, propose in the case of Mr. Kipling, any more than in the case of Sir Walter Scott, to discuss whether he is a true poet or only a great prose writer who oftentimes wrote true poetry. That must be a controversy for the schoolmen of literature, though we confess that the analogy with Scott appeals to us. Scott and Kipling both have the same energy of mind and of eloquence ; both have an intensely patriotic, and so political, side to their natures ; and both are very conscious craftsmen, though both are the very last people to talk of " Art for Art's sake." To both, again, the men and the women behind the guns mounted on the slopes of Parnassus are the essential thing. Given these conditions,

it is natural that both poets should excel in snatches of verse.

" Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife !

To all the sensual world proclaim,

One crowded hour of glorious life

Is worth an ago without a name " should be snatched with

Alone upon the housetops to the North

I turn and watch the lightening in the sky-- The glamour of thy footsteps in the North— Come back to me, Beloved, or I die. Below my feet the still nazar is laid ; Far, far below the weary camels lie— The camels and the captives of thy raid— Come back to me, Beloved, or I die.

My father's wife is old and harsh with years,

And drudge of all my father's house am I ;

My bread is sorrow and my drink is tears— Come back to me, Beloved, or I die ! "

Again, each great poet, or writer of poetry, for we are, in spite • Radyard PM' . • Inclusive Edition. 1885-1518. u cola. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Us. net J

of ourselves, haunted by the controversial point, looks upon history with the eye of the dramatist or subject-painter, and so loves the ballad.

In one respect, however, Mr. Kipling differs very greatly from Sir Walter Scott. In Mr. Kipling's verse we find much more humour, a finer sense of irony, and, above all, far more of the satiric touch. Indeed, Scott, in spite of one or two rare outbursts of sae= indignatio, hardly ever satirizes. Great Pittite as he was, he is the panegyrist of Fox, and the Cavalier by no means always makes the Puritan dogs have the worst of it. Mr. Kipling, on the other hand, is often, we will not say at his best, but almost at his best, in satire. For lofty invective and piercing word there is little in our language to be compared with "Gehazi." There, indeed, he " bites into the live man's flesh for parchment," and lets the wretch go rankling through London. But the saying of such things demands the support of quotation

' Whence comest thou, Gehazi, So reverend to behold,

In scarlet and in ermines And chain of England's gold ? From following after Neamart To tell him all is well, Whereby my zeal hath made me A Judge in Israel.'

Well done, well done, Gehazi !

Stretch forth thy ready hand, Thou barely 'scaped from judgment, Take oath to judge the land, Unswayed by gift of money Or privy bribe more base, Of knowledge which is profit In any market-place.

Search out and probe, Gehazi, As thou of all canst try, The truthful, well-weighed answer

That tells the blacker lie—

The loud, uneasy virtue, Tho anger feigned at will, To overbear a witness And make the Court keep still.

Take order now, Gehazi, That no man talk aside In secret with his judges The while his case is tried.

Lest he should show them—reason To keep a matter hid, And subtly lead the questions Away from what he did."

Here Mr. Kipling shows that he can wield the lash with triumphant force. The poem wo have just quoted is as roignant as Dryden or as Pope at his very best, but it is totally without the touch of personal malice or malignity, which are such non-conductors of symeathy that they often make the public pity rather than condemn the sinner. But "Gehazi" does not stand alone. The verses on the Report of the Irish Com- mission entitled " Cleared " arc only just less vitally moving :— " Cleared in the face of 11 mankind beneath the winking skies, Like phoenixes from Phoenix Park (and what lay there) they

rise.

Go shout it to the emerald seas—give word to Erin now, Her honourable gentlemen are cleared—and this is how :- They only paid the Moonlighter his cattle-hocking price, They only helped the murderer with counsel's best advice, But—sure it keeps their honour white—the learned Court believes They never give a piece of plate to murderers and thieves.

They never told a ramping crowd to card a woman's hide, They never marked a man for death—what fault of theirs he died ?- They only said ' intimidate,' and talked and went away— By God, the boys that did the work were braver men than they !

• • Less black than we were painted ' 1—Faith no word of black was said ; The lightest touch was human blood, and that, you know, runs red.

It's sticking to your fist to-day for all your sneer and scoff, And by the Judge's well-weighed word you cannot wipe it off.•

` The charge is old '1—As old as Cain—as fresh as yesterday ; Old as the Ten Commandments—have ye talked those laws away ? If words aro words, or death is death, or powder sends the ball, You spoke the words that sped the shot—the curse be on you all.

• • • • • • • • The secret half a county keeps, the whisper in the lane, The shriek that tells the shot went home behind the broken

pane,

The dry blood crisping in the sun that scares the honest bees, And shows that boys have heard your talk—what do they

know of the ' But we must not write as if we thought Mr. Kipling was always in a passion of indignation. He can put on the robe of the mystic and touch us there with a power that has been given to few in this generation. No doubt we have plenty of mystical writers, but they are usually so divinely dark that: they smother rather than arouse the inner hidden sense.

As a last 'quotation let us take the enchanting " The Way through the Woods "

They shut the way through the woods

Seventy years ago.

Weather. and rain have undone it again,

And now you would never know There was once a road through the woods Before they planted the trees. It is underneath the coppice and heath And the thin anemones, Only the keeper sees That, where the ring-clove broods, And the hadge.s roll at ease,

There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods Of a summer evening late, When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools Where the otter whistles his mate, (They fear not men in the woods, Because they see so few) You will hear the beat of a horse's feet, And the swish of a skirt in the dew, Steadily cantering through The misty solitudes, As though they perfectly knew The old lost road through the woods ... But there is no road through the woods !

Yet all the same Mr. Kipling's celestial votaress finds the road through the woods, and deigns to use it for her gracious visitations !