MR. KLE'LING'S POEMS. * IT is delightful to have Mr. Kipling's
poems in a single volume—all that "realm of gold " within two boards. That is as it should be with a poet. If you want to read a poem you want to read it at once, and nothing else will do. Like Hilda, you demand your poetic castle down on the table. To find that the poem is in another volume, on another shelf, in another room, and possibly even in another house, is like having your castle on another continent. It is the abomination of desolation. But alas ! what Mr. Kipling and his publisher mean by collected verse is not at all what the ordinary reader, or at any rats the present writer means by it. We had hoped as we took the volume in hand that it was going to contain all those delightful snatches of song that are scattered through Mr. Kipling's prose with an amplitude, a generosity, and an alluring charm to which the history of literature affords no parallel, or affords it in Walter Scott alone. But nothing of the kind is here. We have only the poems that have been published as poems—none of the verse in the prose volumes shows its head. We miss with indignation and dismay the lady who watched from the housetop the lightnings in the North. We do not hear the horse bells ringing on Merrow Down, or the ponies trotting in the dark. We seek in vain the tenor note of Lalage's British Lover ; we may not watch Elizabeth at her glass, or re-read that noble contribution to gnomic verse that tells us how a man should bear himself in the trial of popularity—words as wise and almost as poignant as those of the "Happy Warrior." However, it is no good grumbling,. and Mr. Kipling's publisher will no doubt tell us that we are ungrateful to talk about another meal when so full a one is laid before us. Still, we do want to see all the verse put together, "part for our ease, the greater part for pride" in the poet who will never fully have his rights till such a collection is placed before the public. Some day, no doubt, though moat likely years hence, this noble work will be done, and our grandsons will achieve the full inheritance. But that is poor consolation to those who have not too long to wait.
"Sons of the world, Oh haste those years, But till they come, allow our tears."
What are we to say of Mr. Kipling as a poet P We who love almost every verse he has sung, and love them for their faults as well as their virtues. "But is Mr. Kipling really a poet ? " bland pedantry will ask us, peering over its pince-nez. We will tell him what we think. When the question of Mr. Kipling's canonization comes on before the special commis- sion named by Apollo and the Muses we foresee a most telling speech from the Devil's advocate. He will be able to make point after point against the poet's claim, and in a sense all his points will be good points. Yet we are certain that when all is said and done, counsel for the aspirant will have no difficulty whatever in disposing of every one of them. He will not, we take it, trouble the court with long argument. He will simply call Mr. William Shakespeare. Alter asking him in true professional form whether he is not the author of "King Lear" and "Twelfth Night," he will request
• Collected Vow of Budyard Kipling. London: Hodder and Stoughton. [20s, net.]
him to express his views on Mr. Kipling's claim. Shakespeare will, of course, "make good." We can imagine him with his native sweetness and light suggesting that possibly he ought not himself to have been canonized, but will add that, granted his canonization was just, he does not see how Mr. Kipling's application can be refused. He will tell the Court that the aspirant, like himself, was rather a student of men and things than of books, though he will probably add that both of them tried to study words as carefully as they could. In the last resort they have this also in common : they both liked the plain man as much as the hero. The Court will then interrupt the proceedings, say it does not require any more evidence, and order the immediate issue of a certificate of canonization to " Rudyard Kipling, late of the Parish of Burwash, in the county of Sussex."
In a word, you can give a dozen good arguments to show that Mr. Kipling is not a poet, but only a versifier of amazing cleverness ; but all the same he is a poet, and he knows it himself, as every true poet must, and the public knows it also —when it is not puzzled by the refinements of superfine critics. For ourselves, we are prepared to stake the whole case for Mr. Kipling on the following three verses. People whose minds are not sophisticated will understand what we mean.
For those who do not understand it would be useless to attempt any explanation :—
When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre, He'd 'eard men sing by land and seas An' what he thought 'o might require, 'E wont an' took—the same as me!
The market-girls and fishermen, The shepherds an' the sailors, too, They 'card old songs turn up again, But kep' it quiet—same as you!
They knew 'e stole; 'e knew they knowed.
They didn't tell, nor make a fuss, But winked at 'Omer down the road,
An' e winked back—the same as us!"
We take Mr. Kipling in his least heroic vein and when he is most Kiplingesque, and we ask that he shall be judged by our quotation. As we have said, however, we are not going to be so foolish as to give any further or better reasons for believing, or rather knowing, that Mr. Kipling is a true poet. All that we set out to do on the present occasion was to grumble because we have not got all his verse in one volume, and to salute Mr. Kipling as one of the "poets militant below."
That accomplished, we leave the book to our readers and his fame to succeeding ages.
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