Windham County reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1901-1906, 1903-02-06

lied for the Anglo Saxon race the prov
inces and peoples of India He is the
voice of British Imperialism. and he is
a dynamic force in the public affairs
of the empire His words have passed
with great power over England, fan
ming the dropping fame Of her patriot.
| ism, quickening her faith in her soar
ing destiny. He is the poet of energy,
I the laureate of action. In his verse all
things are alive as with the old HON
eric stir: all things are quick with a
sense of the untirable endeavor, the
/ imperishable passion of the Anglo,
Saxon race. No other literary man ever
pressed 50 close to the heated center of
the flying hour. He reioices in the hot
arena where men love and lust, where
they fight and die. This earth life, and
this trembling hour of it, is the thing
that takes his heart. He is the poet of
the Here and Now. lie writes not of
men in high places, not of men in shell
tered ease, but rather of the millions
who are digging the bitches, building
the bridges, laying the roads. steering
the ships, fighting the battles. in the
daring path of empire. Kipling's Wis
ion is essentially objective and con
crete His mind is unique in its quick
ness to take impressions, to make as |
similatious. He absorbs the technical /
tiles of professions, the secrets of ex- (
perts, the wisdom of adopts the cant /
of hypocrtes, the instincts of animals. /
Through his ringing lines we hear the /
jingle of coins on the dicer's table, the I
rhythmic minuet of the pistons, the
hiss and innueudo of the bullets, the
awful hoof- beat of the flying squadron,
the march and menace of the ships of
England. The mo is of his dittes and
ballads are often slight. trivial, vul-
gar: but his wonderful power as a
story -teller-his irresistible attack, his
instant spring. his dram tic grip: the
lit and swing of the rhythm. the touch.
and go of the telling all these carry
the reader as the shallop is carried by
wind and billow.''
Wordsworth, like Kipling, tried to
express the poetry that is in common ,
man; but, in Mr.. Markham s opinion,
be failed where kipling has succeeded
and gives us only bloodless efiigies
and shapes of clay" We quote fur !
ther:
"Kipling seizes upon the elemental. !
The primitive, the significant, and
gives us men with marrow in their :
bones. He has Browning's art of look ,
ing at men and things from the indvid-
lal angle Vague generalities, cloudy
he rejects them with a
hrug of the shoulder. He has, also. a
Measure of the Shakespearian instinct
hat sends out delicate spiritual ten
acles in all directions, feeling into
ife in all its levels and layers. all its
heights and hollows. Kipling's style is
risp with nervous energy, keen as a
wung blade. He has what every lit
rary artist must have-a fine feeling
or the unique word, the telling phrase.
I he can not find the word he wants,
lie coins one; and it is usually a word t,
o needless that it jumps into common il
peech, and will end in the repute of
he lexicon. 'Straight-f words and
ew' are in his arsenal Wrong. sham, a
ant, custom-he spears them all with n
quail zest. His chief literary fault is
he OVERLAPPING of local color, the ted
Gus use of technical terms and coarse
ialect''
Mr.. Markham finds in some of Kip
ng's later poems religious feeling,
loral aspiration, that his earlier poetry
oes not reveal. He says in conclusion: =
1.-The 'Recessional' is high keyed
oem which touches the Puritan nerve
the descendants of Cromwell Gun
a Din, rude and coarse as it is. ex-
snds the frontiers of human sympa-
~: and so tender is the humanity of
lis ballad that it stands a near neigh fir
Or to the Beatitudes. In 'Tomlinson' WI
I'D The Last Chantey, Kipling dis
lrbs our crude traditional conceptions
heaven. The Last Chantey' is a =
lperb poem, built up and breathed ]
ito by creative Imagination. We
Ear in all of Kipling's poems the
rill note of individuality and there
marked increase of power in his -
'etry as the years go by The ditties G
his earlier period are the mere
on the banjo; the ballads