The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-11-10
AS A POET AND PATRIOT.
Dual Position OF Rudyard KipIfnE I'm
the Public Eye.
Kansas City t a

Kansas City Star.
Within the last three years Rudyard Kip
ling has seen his literary work praised be-
yond measure and condemned without
stint At the time OF his illness in America
he was regarded as the coming literary
figure Of the generation. Since then HIS
popularity has been waning. To-day a host
of readers who once were his devout fol-
lowers have found new idols. The name OF
the brilliant young Englishman is no longer
one to ~conjure by. His verse on the South
African war has been the greatest factor
in the clouding OF his reputation. Many OF
his former admirers wait in trepidation TO
see what each new week may bring forth.
The Bookman. for instance. says: Mr..
kiplingS verse Is ceasing To be disappolnt-
ing. 1t is becoming pathetic" Then IL
prints his poem, The Lesson" and adds:
TT would do no good to comment on this.
Besides. we haven't the heart"
1t must be admitted that there is a vast
gulf between such verse as the Hymn Be
the first stanZa Of the earlier poem:
1.-THE earth is fun of anger.
The seas are dark with wrath;
The nations in their harness
Go up against our pathi
Ere yet we loose the legions-
Ere yet We draw the blade,
Jehovah of the Thunders,
Lord God of Battles, aid.'
Contrast the noble dignity of that stanza,
its fine rhythm. its moving force with this
from THE Lesson"
LET us admit it fairly. as a business peo-
We have no end of a lesson; it will do US no
end of good.
Not on a single Issue. or in one direction or
twain,
But conciusively. comprehenslvely. and
several times and again,
Were all our most holy illusions Knocked
higher than Gilderoy's kite;
We have had a jolly good lesson, and IL
serves US jolly well right"
OF course, there is no more comparison
between the two tnan there is between
Lincoln's Gettysburg Grafton and the aver
Hymn Before Action" is poetry; The
Lesson" is doggerel. Critics have been
treating the two as If their author intended
them to be i'm the same class. They have
taken the jingle:
Hes an absent-minded beggar, and he
may forget IL all,
But we do not want his Riddles TO remind
him
That we sent 'em to the ~workhouse while
their daddy m Paul,
So well help the homes our TOmmy's LETT
behind him."
IS seriously as God OF our fathers" in
"Recessional." Such a standard Of judg-
ment necessarily leads TO the conclusion
that Mr.. Kipling regards one as pracu-
cally equal 10 the other; that he cannot
distinguish between poetry and drivel. On
the face OF it this Is an improbable assump-
don. Wordsworth could not tell his good
work from his bad. Matthew Arnold re-
marks that in his seven volumes the pieces
of high merit are mingled with a mass OF
productions very inferior TO them-sO in
ferior that IT seems wonderful how the
game poet should have produced both. But
the writer presents the duu and tedious
with evident Inconsistencies OF its defects.
II is akin in workmanship to his most in
Spired utterances. Arnold adds: "Shaks-
peare frequently has lines and passages
in a strain quite false. and which are en-
Ggine his smiling if one could meet him in
the Eiysian fields and tell him SO. smiling
and replying that he knew il perfectly wen
himself. and what did il natter
Is not this h hint as 20 the recent verse
Of KiplinEy The man who wrote "the H.
carnatlOn Of krishna Mulvaney' and Nc
Andrews Hymn does not need 10 be told
that his recent verse Is abominable. With
ArnOld's Shakespeare he would Doubtless
admit IL with a smile and ask: What q
it2" Just at present Kipling Is Far more
interested in the reform OF the British army
system than in letters. Since the outbreak
Of the Boer war his heart has been Ia South
Africa In all OF his work inspired by the
war he has taken the position OF an Ems
opinions he has put In prose communica-
tiOns TO newspapers. But has most earnest
efforts he has sent out in verse because he
knew that in such shape they would al
tract most attention.
There is no need 10 try 10 reconcile The
Lesson" with 'Recessionak' Their pur-
pose IS utterly different. Kipling has 4
right TO put his criticism OF the Wan Office
into verse # he wants 10. II does not follow
that he has lost his power a. a poet be-
cause his rhyming political pamphlets 90
not read like his "Maudalay.'