VERSES OLD AND NEW.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1669, 8 February 1913, Page 9

VERSES OLD AND NEW.

, , •/) ' WINTER NIGHT. : .Silent and full of stars) the awful. HeaTea Is(looking: down on slumber. Thero is not IJio breathing of a solitary . breeze ! • Upon the cheek of -winter.' It is still As when the shapeless attributes of Earth ' 10 tho night of Chaos, and tho win m£ m i« darkness hung: upon S?, Ull [°F, me(l , solitudo. Tho trees sfnnd up Without the show of motion; and tho stars Ana tho uprising of the holy moon i Wake,viable tho silvering of frost , Among their naked boughs. Even the tall grass . , Around thoir trunks is flashing, liko the spears / : ■Of fainr multitedesj the enowy tops /■■■■' nif .' '"J tills aro quivering with goma— Ihe jewelry of winter. I have gazed 1 , mf on 'ho things around me, until all ihe grossness of realjty is gone, ) And I can feed my fancy with the thought / Si 0 I ?, os ' : fr'orious vision. I con cast . ,rho veil of Earth aside, and send my gaze Into tho land of fairy; and look through Groves of unearthly beauty. I can see • The golden pillars and the frotted roof Of wizard palaces; the grottoes where .The elfin spirits'of the unseen world— The winged an;l mysterious messengers •From tho far land of spirits-shako their plumes • ' : •And white wings in the moonlight. I v can tread - ' - . " The jewelled pathway, where , a magio -'- wand : ■ Hath changed the unseemly pebbleUo a . _ gem- ■ The gray sand into gold. < There cannot be : A vision lovelier in tho flowery time ' i Of .the revealing spring, nor in the sun And glory of the summer. .It is as Jhe blissful-: Paradise of Yemen's «.-■ - 9. he flowery garden'- of enchanted iGul. - : ; —John Greenleaf Whittier. - A CYCLE. : Old men weave memories, sitting in the .■■■■■ sun, . . .. Of a ivorld grown vain, whose one-time . , ■ taunted scars , t , / The soft moss covers,-and whose .-rare - ' vThat sold them. Truth—new, wayward . chafferersshun. ' JPpr strange' and impious markets. . One .-'■- ■by 0110, ■ ' . -I ■ ,• Dimmed by an . alien flame, tho Tim- . . winking stars That cheered their vigils fade; till . m- Death unbars !•- . . .To thoir bruised eyes his,kind pavilion. 0 glory of the young; day's harbinger I ' our kindling ;prido too madly • 'And. luqty boast our Sicklier deeds out- • ■ rttn, , ■ i. ■ Sfark we the portent, and. forebode the , 1 ■ -year. v-,. ; ' ; ' When dazed .and blind wo likewise, in our turn , /. : . Old men, weavo memories, sitting in tho . ? 61111 a . . ■ r ' /; ■ ' ' /'A - - 1 ;. J. Fislier, in the "Spectator/*^ The war op the two banks; ' Somo M. Paul Fort was'elected Prince of m Prance, the fourth ot: the dynasty in - succession > to ' Paul . :■ venaine, JStephane Mallarm-e, and Leoa I. Thls , election, though' it passed at the tame almost unnoticed abroad, lias 'P, en ,'a: litera'ry. cQnilict which bids fair to wuviilso-- modern French I V;-' '-yv?" 'ho struggle between . tho 'Eight and the Lefti-Bamks of tKe ■ . heme. -Mwhere. in tho world are journalism and literature so sharply dis- : tinguished or so definitely localised as in ; Paris. The Ifnylit Bank,, or, as it is otherwise known,- ; ;the Boulevard, is tho ; -,™me of jourjmlism, l the Left, tho "Quar:tier Latin, is the home of literature «-M art. Jf. -R.nl Port, as "Prince of - Poets, is the leader of;, tho'■Left. M. -Ernest La Jennesse, tho most famous of : • touleyartUers," is; the leader of - the PjK BOW a battle-royal isrngiDg b99H2»|M. Eomain ' , Itotlaml has written an article; on the' , conflict,; entitled "The War of the Tw</ . : ;B4flte/' iii which 'he shows that tho ...' ; struggle tb irreconcilable between tho,two . . . camp. M. Eollaaid is-a. case in point' , m. tho m-attor of hardships which tfce Left 1 -has to undergo, since he iras'cofcpcHed to, ; publish the first, part of'his world--,-i'enowncd i "Jean Christophe". i iii r aVLeft Bank renew with a/circulation of barely 1000 copies. M. Clement Vaiiitel, a writer, on _ "Le Journal," , who is generally de- -. scribed as' :the . "most-read man in' : France," ia' the. last to plunge headlong H inV the-conflict, on behalf of tho Eight. These - four,' poetsaro the : . acknowledged - leaders, of the Left. The -reply, is made by JI. Alexandre ITeroereau, the editor of "Vers et Prose," the lehdinsr; review of- •: the, Left, -in an'intorviMv, in. the ."Journal ■ , -ties Debats,"-wherein hb declares that/it ; .-is -:"the Left that; conceives tho ideas, .. and the Eight eiplodts them." -And. this is how tho fight stands at present. It is. being waged a.l'outrance in'everynewspaper .—"Westminster Gazette." . '■ ' KIPLING'S COLLECTED VERSE. Mr. Eudyard , Kipling .has. published a , 20s. edition, of, collected verse, and incidentally annoyed Mr. Lascelles Aborcrombie, of the "llanchester Guardian." : ■ - "There is much to be said," he observes, ''for devilled bones and : brandy; at the lowest estimate they are n ;more enter-' ■ tainingf.orm; of .-nutriment.than iunket: and'barley-water. But-they can hardly. r ,;be-.said to make a convenient diet; the . . man who habitually feeds on thom for a' , ;- while is likely scon to bo content with ■ ■ their',.memory.-For: the .fact- is that devilled bones arfd'brandy are not serious; "y. and while, occasional fare may bo anything you please,'.diet must be serious. . Jlr. ifipling's poems havo the same fault. We'have got out of tho habit I of reading them.: It was an'exciting habit while it ■ lasted, but wo ;aro.-not likely to fall back . on it again as customary; an odd meal, or two ■ now and . then will be enough', when the mood is on us for something fierce and . bitiift—poiiibly as a momentary reaction ' ... to a diet of junket and barley-water.And the reason is quito simple: llr. Kipling's poetry 'is' not serious." No one' will object to it, because it is stinging, smoking stuff, • full of heat and surprising flavour.'Poetry' /■ may, if it likes; reek of theso qualities, t •'* and;'still keep clear of wearying our hun- . gers, so, .long as it is serious poetry.}'. Mr." ■ lupling's is not—it is a mere •accumula- . . tion ot heady qualities, violent flavours . offered as things in themselves. In fact, it is kickshaw; and kickshaws mado out of pepper and heat are just' as trifling as . kickshaws made out of sugar and ice. "This objection, it is scarcely, necessary ' . ; to, explain, does'not at all mean that Mr." Kipling's poetry-is too often given to humour. It is just wharf ho is humorous that his' inability to be really serious underneath it all becomes most provoking. Look at tho once famous 'Tomlinson.' Hero Mr. Kipling attempts to give, .in boisterous humour, reproof to a i nl 'attitude which Dante reproveu with grave, savage scorn. There was no reason why Mr. Kipling's method should not hnvo been as wholesome and as effective o.s Danto's. But there is no need to com--pare . Tomlinson' with the third canto ot Inferno to perceive that tho former is npt humorous at all; it is simply childish. And. as a reproof, in consequence, it does no damage at all; it is only a wide— ono cannot even score olf it. Thero are -many reproofs in' Mr. Kipling's poetry, and the samo thing may ho said of them all; they are all wides. A wide may be delivered with overy intention of serious I ■ • cricket; but they are not serious for all that; .except to tin bowler's own side. Surely no political party was ever so' unfortunate in its authorised singer ns Mr. • , Kipling's. He had a splendid-flourishing delivery, but ij; was the beginning of tho end of tho match -when ho went on to bowl. These inwed metaphors, however, do not only, apply to his political poems. . They aro poems that ought to bo forgot- . ton, no doubt; but Mr. Kipling has rc- ■ printed them in this sumptuous collected edition. -But most;of tho poems of activity and soldiering, as well as i tho iMiems in- •«" ~ spired ;bf a vaguely thundering , 6ort .of religion, aro just as lacking in" any . achieved 'seriousness, for all ' their' serious' intention. They, merely ; aohiovo: a collocation, -of powerful flavours. Tho technique is to b'anie. Tf - there over was any sorious stuff in the .composition of th-Sse,pccius, it -has gone off in tho cooking. .'Tho Song of the Banjo 1 * suggests an adriiirablo idea—heroism rendered by-means of the Utterly ; Ahsurd. But thero is neither real heroism in : it nor real absurdity; nothing but a strong;fl-avoiirhig-of artificial essences.

And tho refrain 'Pilly-wiUy-winky-mnky-popp/ and so on, is not oven vul-' gar. Tho author of 'Docs your mother rido a biko or <i triko in tho park after dark , with her feot upon the handle-bars' know how to bo heartily and seriously vulgar. Mr. Kipling's 'vulgarity, so often admired, ■ is only an artful flavour, seasoning nothing in particular eerved hot. Can anything more ho said of such poems as that; beginning 'Beyond the gath of the outmost sun through utter darkness hurled/ of thoso terrible ballads about crime/ and cruelty, of thoso still more terrible ballads about technical ' "It is impossible to write about Mr. Kipling's collected poems without exasperation. This is not at ,all because ho has, as an artist in prose, dono magnificent and imperishable things, told stories which, orio must surely believe,, this ■world will not willingly lot die. A great story-teller is often enough a. poor hand at poetry. Tho thing is, that Mr. Kipling's poetry sets out to accomplish something whioh was, and still' is, crying out to bo accomplished. It ought to have. done for tho British Empire, in a collection of lyrics, what Virgil did for the lioman Empires in .threo lines. And Mr. Kipling's poetry comes near enough to doing this to make tho failure hard to tolerato. Poetry is. 'more mastered by the unconscious elements in a. man than prose; ai\d the unconscious element which took full charm' of Mr. Kipling's poetry, though it hardly bothers us in his prose, was that quality whioh we have called, perhaps too, irreverently, his incurable childishness.' And when this quality is also in charge'of tho British Empire, the result is either ludicrous or else that uncomfortable feeling which. . schoolboys havo when the head master' tells them to to patriotic. Still, there certainly are several fine things scattered through the collection which, if the', fjreat . main scheme had not so unhappily gone to pieces, would have fitted in admirably as appropriate decoration; and they do, in spito of their somewhat forlorn appearance in the tentative bluster of the whole, undoubtedly,, stand out handsomely as things of good and firm success. Their number hero would havo been greater if the ' collection had included the poems from .the 'Jungle Books' and some of the other prose works. 'White. Horses,' 'The Derelict,' 'Diego Valdez,' 'Tho Sea and the Hills,' Tho Explorer,' 'The Long Trail,' and perhaps one or two more, aro poems which wo should bo proud tojinvq.in our language'; essences, tho bottles of chemically . led sentiment, v.hav,B had'something todo with., them,' but'for . 'all that these poems adeouatefly : ajid. '.elqQtteiitly ■proclaim on© of tliib greatTcbaracteristics of a colwmyig. race—the pusto -for 'danger and . splendid . adventure/'.. . . 1 .1