THE YEARS BETWEEN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17690, 30 July 1919, Page 6

THE YEARS BETWEEN

When Tennyson died, and while tho Laureateship was still in abeyance, the editors of the idler invited a number of distinguished living writers to suggest the name of the poet best fitted to assume tho vacant wreath of bays. Nobody (if our memory serves us correctly) nominated Mr Alfred Austin; Swinburne was the favourite candidate, with Mr William Watson a hot second; and Mr Bernard. Shaw was in a minority of one on his resolution in favour of getting the -work done by a contractor—though, as he was careful to point out, as a Collectivist ho preferred the direct employment of labour by public bodies wherever possible. Mr Zan,gwill, however, also had tho courage of his convictions, and he plumped for Mr Eudyard Kipling; he reminded his readers that Mr Kipling was already in fact tho Laureate of the British Empire: — "Kipling," he said, "lias sung the song of the British flag in verses of unsurpassed vigour. ... He alone to-day possesses tho secret of those Macatilay measures which are trumpets to the blood of the scholarly and the simple alike. . . . His genius—tho most brilliant, not to say glaring, that our generation has witnessed, always at a white heat, and, therefore, lacking tho mellower radiances—is of the very fire that informs a Tvrteus. His mind has that narrowness th|t makes a national bard, and that breadth' which is indispensable for a British national bard, whose strains must echo the morning roll of the drum that follows the sunrise round the -world." Over a quarter of a century has passed away since these words were written (says the Spectator), hut the qualities of Mr Kipling's verse which rendered it attractive, not only to those who could perceive its technical and emotional merits, but to those also to whom poetry does not in general appeal at all—persons whose first impulse on seeing poetry is not to read it — these qualities are still perceptible, if not so obvious, in the volume now before us ("The Years Between"). The bulk of Mr Kipling's work is still direct, hard-hitting, expressive of the elemental emotions. His loves and hates are unchanged. The elegy _ on the death of Lord Roberts is a fitting epilogue to the">'Barrack Room Ballad" of "Bobs." The party vote on the Declaration of London moves him to as vigorous a scorn as did tho movements of "Padgett, M.P." through the Departments of India. Despite his distrust of democra-cy sitting in the seats of the miglitv, his interest in human beings of is as keen and catholic as ever I do not look for holy saints to guide mo on my way, Or male and female devillrins to lead, my feet astray. If these aro added, I rejoice—if not, I 6hall not mmd, So long as I have leave and choice to meet . my fellow-kind. For as wo eomo and as wo go (and deadly- ' soon go wo!) Tho people, Lord, Thy people, aire good enough for me I Deliver me from every pride—the Middle, High, and Low— That bars mo from a brother's side, whatever pride he show. And purge me from all heresies of thought and speech and pen That bid me judge him otherwise than I am judged. —Amen. That I may sing of Crowd or King or roadborne company, That I may labour im my day, vocation, and degree, To prove the same in deed and name, and hold unshakenly (Where'er j. go, whate'er I know, whoe'er my neighbour be)

This single faith in Life and Death and ail Eternity: "The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me." He still sets himself problems in technique for the sheer pleasure of mastering them; few but he would choose for the purpose of invective such a huddle of jingling rhymes as "The City of Brass" :— They chose themselves prophets and. priests of minute understanding Men swift to see done, and. outrun, their extremist commanding— Of the tribe which cfcscribe with a jibe tho perversions of JusticePanders avowed to the crowd whatsoever. its hist is. ■ Anybody else, except perhaps. Swinburne, would 'get dizzy with the breathless recoil of the scheme before he had finished two stanzas; but Mr Kipling goes on his way rejoicing for seven pages wiht never a forced inversion, a difficulty in the expression of his thought, or a redundant word inserted to pad out a line. One aspect of the earlier Rudyard Kipling is missing from his latest collection; indeed this particular aspect always showed itself more freely in his prose than in his vorse. He possessed that most striking of the characteristics of genius, the power of entering into and expressing minds "which were normally quite alien from his own. When his critics asserted that he mistook violence for strength, he turned aside and WTote "Kim" incarnating in the Lama a pure gospel of pacificism, just as Stevenson in "Will-o'-the-Mill" attempted the defence of the hanger-back in life. But, here, there is no dramatic psychology; there are occasional disguises, but the voice is the voice of the author, the emotions . are his emotions. Even cinder a still\form of verse which he practises with the happiest effect, we can perceive the energetic impulse of "Mandalay" :—

Try as ho will, no man breaks wholly loose From his first love, no matter who she be. Oh, was there ever sailor froe to choose, That didn't settle somewhere near tho eea? Myself, it don't excite mo nor amueo To watch a pack o' shipping on the sea, But I can understand my neighbour's views From certain things wihich have occurred to ■ me. Men must keep touch with things they used to use To cam their living even when they are free • And so come back upon tho least excuse— Saiuo as the sailor settled near tho eea. Parsons in pnlpitn, fox-payers in pews, Kings on your thrones, you know aa well as me, We've only one virginity to lose, And where wo lose it, thero our hearts will be! If, however, we miss something of value which we found in liis earlier work, he has given us something new by way of compensation. The series of "Epitaphs" discloses a fresh vein which he has worked with remarkable success; almost Latin in their pungency and conciseness, they have a curious astringent quality which reminds us at times of the "Hesperides." We can imagine Herrick rejoicing over the couplet on "Batteries out of Ammunition" : — If aJiy mourn us in the workshop, say Wo died because tho shift kept holiday. The present volume undoubtedly does not come up to the same level as its predecessors. The technical skill exhibited is as great, if not greater; the style, which once threatened to parody its parodists, has been simplified and strengthened; but tho eager vitality which saved Mr Kipling's most turgid passages from becoming pure bathos has, we fear, abated. When he attempts the sublime he often only attains tho grandiose. His fatal facility for journalism becomes apparent whenever his theme falls in that unfortunate mean which is too low for inspiration and too high for decoration. He sees political events like a reporter, and describes them like a "leader"-writer who believes in the message of his party; we read easily an{l with amusement; we are never bored; we may even approve enthusiastically of' the sentiments or disapprove of theni equally vehemently according to our • personal creed; but we are never under the delusion that we are reading poetry. Mr Kipling cr -not be parochial with" dignity or effect. He can speak worthily on behalf of a nation or an Empire, and he can express the naked soul of a man, bnt he can only belittle a sect or party; tho great swelling words torn bleeding from the Authorised Version seem pitifully out of place; the parturient mountain brings forth a ridiculous mouse. Like Wordsworth, Mr Kipling appears much at his best in selections; the dead weight of his uninspired verse drags down with it, in the reader's estimation, the frequent loftier flights of his Muse. He cannot fairly be judged by the average impression his volumes leave on the mind ; he does himself too much wanton and random injustice. In this respect "The Years Between" is sadly at fault; it containr, much of which lie may rightly bo proud, much which

would be beyond the powers of any other living writer; but unfortunately it also contains much which a finely discriminative mind would have rejected. For Wordsworth's deadly inclusiveness it may reasonably be pleaded in extenuation that he was unpopular, so to speak, on his merits; the public disliked his best work nearly, if' not quite, as strongly as his worst, and he assumed in self-defence a semi-sacerdotal attitude towards his own productions.. Ho, thought of them somewhat in the way the Puritans thought of the Bible—that to tho initiated there might be some difference between Deuteronomy and Job, but they were both so superior to all human compositions that the only fitting judgment to be passed on them was comprehensive acceptance. Mr Kipling has no such excuse; he has found favour with his audience from the beginning ; and we have a right to expect of him nothing but his best.