Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1897-07-22
KlpLlNG, THE POET OF POWER.
The Age OF tho Engine ut Last Produces n
Man t" sing the song OF steam.
Modern Machinery, january, 1897.

Lord. send a man like Robbie
Burns to sing the Song o. Steam. y
Ruilyard kipling makes the old Scotch
marine engineer say in McAntlrew 8
hymn. No ono who reads this MASTER
piece of realism, TO tie found in Kip.
ling's latest bouk of verse. published
by the Anpletons under the title of
The Seven Seas" will doubt that the
sentiment is the poets OWE. In truest
humility be trembles before tine task
he has set himself Of exalting the last
best work OF man, who is the last best
work OF God. Listen TO the poet who
is ahashed by the message he has 70
deliver, for he is inspired. M rs
The Lord has sent him; the song o.
steam has been sung. Men with blaeken.
ed faces and oily hands, dealing With
power that obeys your lightest touch to
work miraclsa in the material world, and
feeling also the strength and the re-
straint of it enter your soul to lift it up
to the height OF duty and reverence, a
voice has spoken for yo1 All your
thoughts have been uttered, your hopes
and IDEALS expressed, your beliefs trans
lated and justified before MEG who have
seen only the grimy task and the dumb
iron slave OF commerce, and have not
seer, as you have. the laws OF creation at
work in the rise and fall OF the engine
beam.
In McAndrew's hymn, the steam en-
CINE has, for the first time, been ele-
waited to its true place in dignitied
literature. 1t has long been the fashion
in art to deny grace to anything OF util-
ity, and especially To decry the engine as
a necessary evil. Ruskin, tile apostle OF
beauty, hurled anathemas against rail
roads. saying that IL he had his way he
would destroy most OF the railroads In
England and all of the railroads in
Wales. though he has pointed out the
majesty of monotouous motion 10 on
gines. But again they are to him
demons, tearing across the landscape
and shrieking blaspheny against the
fairest work OF God. With clearer
vision Wordsworth prophesied that
when the time shall come when the
applications of science shall become
familiarized to men the aoet will lend
of his divine gift to aid in the Trans
tiguration.
The applications OF science have long
been familiar to men. They ars now q
, form of flesh and blood, to be handled
and made serve To the man of skill
Win Luttl lutlT ullbl0T4 STCHNs bucs
hold some secret in reserve, some GER
tain penalty for neglect. They beckon
him on with aliuring possibilities OF
| discovery into fields unknown; They re-
serve their highest rewards for him
who loves. Familiarity has not bred
contempt, except to 1.-The dull-eyed, to
whom the things OF earth are dull !" to
whom the engine is but a mechanical
and urosaic draft horse. Few of us
however, see the modern inventions oil
man ia their poetic aspect
The writer once had vision of the
Significance of machinery in it's relation
to common life such as Kiping must
have had to have written the poetry we
find in McAndrew's hymn and through,
out The Seven Seas. An escort uI
four British men OF war accompanied
the yacht of the Queen Of Roum6nit
from Liverpool to Dublin, when shG
visited the Irish capital a half do2er
years ago. The great black hulls stoot
out on the bay below the Hill o.
Huwth, in the brilliant sunshine tina
lit the water clear back to the mount
ainous shore of Wales. 50 miles away,
What monsters they scanned, dwartinl
even the ''ieyel floor of God, as Kip
ling somewhere calls tho sea, the blu
dome above hecked with shredded
fleece, and the Welsh mountains heapet
up behind them in opalescent and van
ishing splcndor They seemed the onl,
real and enduring things in the scene
as il forged at the beginning on th
smithy of the Creator and endowed
with mighty potentialities and siniste
powers.
With majestic stride they moved Vi
the harbur IN silence, belching fer
smoke now and then, as il the puwe
chained below were clearing his nos
trils Of sulphurous flame. And the
there came the vision of the sort of en-
CINE Victor Hugo thought the ancient
would have built had steam been dis
covered in the days when dragons wer
a reality an iron and brazen monstq
with head reared in the air. side
clothed in glittering scales, claws seem
ing to tear the earth. mouth wide an
filled with fangs and flames, eyes hla2
ing balsfu fire and Jewel for bead
light. Homer woulu have put ii into a
: epic, as he did the 10 ships that hrough
he besiegers to Troy, the builder woul
l have been ono Of the gods on Olympus
and the engineer giving the impetu
only little lesser divinity.
Hut We feel the helittling of tho ei
5 sential in this piled on ornament. Til
French imagination seems ever to |
4 morbid and tnair real concept TO lac
viriIity. McAndrew, in this poem, sayt
Better myself abroad? Maybe.
I'd sooner starve than sail
: WI such as call snIlterrod ross, French {,
! nightingale.
y For Ru,iyard Kirling the things
0 to-day do not need this external pic
. uresqueneas 10 make them things
y wonder. Power to him IS an element
!. thing and not to be trickod out in Il
7 vain show of even symbolic ornamen
lie has the sturdy Saxon sense of IL
meaning Of prima forces The pressir
Of iingGr on telegraph key, willr
intelligence across the continent. is ms
q and science saying; Let there
2 light. I" And the marvel is that the
N is light. Men of small Imagination al
= contracted vision laugh at him. and
y the terminology Of TIM machine sht
u which he is pleased to weave into rec
50 less rhyme and call poetry. They a
J. init that such is his genius that il "
u be mistaken for poetry by those who
not know that the proper REALM
poetry was long ago surveyed al
fenced. Mr.. Kipling must get ba
}, within his bounds and wash the oil
~ his hands in the dews of Already, il
u seeks admission among the laur
d crowned.
le9 But Mr. Kipling has ever some lit
~ remark that sends the critic back
W silence, tingling under the lash. L
carpur is anticipated in Mc.Andruv
hymn. whore he appears in the pers