Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (1278 page)

but as yet it is imperialism without the inflammatory jingle, so no one remarks it. In fact, among the serious poems of “The Seven Seas “ section there are only two that can be said to stand out: “ M’Andrews’ Hymn” and “The Mary Gloster “; and, though it has found fewer to praise it, “The Mary Gloster” is much the superior of the two. “ M’Andrews’ Hymn” is interesting mainly for its intention — ” to sing the Song o’ Steam.” The old Scotch engineer, with his Calvinism; his, so to say, sincere Scotch hypocrisy; his hinted humanity “ at Gay Street in Hong Kong “; and his one real passion in life for his “ seven thousand horse-power,” is not so alive as his fellow in prose — McPhee of “ Bread Upon the Waters “ — and he would be distinctly tiresome but for some good lines Mr. Kipling puts into his mouth:

“That minds me of our Viscount loon —

Sir Kenneth’s kin — the chap

Wi’ Russia leather tennis-shoon an’ spardecked yachtin’ cap. I showed him round last week, o’er all —

an’ at the last savs he:

‘Mister M’Andrews, don’t you think steam spoils romance at sea? ‘

Damned ijjit! I’d been doon that morn

to see what ailed the throws, Manholin’, on my back — the cranks three

inches off my nose. Romance! Those first-class passengers

they like it very well, Printed an’ bound in little books; but why

don’t poets tell? I’m sick of all their quirks an’ turns —

the loves an’ doves they dream — Lord, send a man like Robbie Burns to sing

the Song o’ Steam! To match wi’ Scotia’s noblest speech yon

orchestra sublime Whaurto — uplifted like the Just — the tail- rods mark the time.

The crank-throws give the double-bass, the

feed-pump sobs an’ heaves, An’ now the main eccentrics start their

quarrel on the sheaves: Her time, her own appointed time, the rocking link-head bides,

Till — hear that note? — the rod’s return whings glimmerin’ through the guides.

They’re all awa! True beat, full power,

the clangin’ chorus goes Clear to the tunnel where they sit, my purrin’ dvnamoes. Interdependence absolute, foreseen, ordained, decreed, To work, ye’ll note, at anv tilt an’ every

rate o’ speed. Fra skylight-lift to furnace-bars, backed,

bolted, braced an’ stayed, An’ singin’ like the Mornin’ Stars for joy

that thev are made; While, out o’ touch o’ vanity, the sweatin’

thrust-block says: ‘ Not unto us the praise, or man — not unto us the praise! ‘“

Surely this last line is a little too much — even for an old Scotch humbug like M’An- drew.

However, the poem is an interesting “intention.” It is not quite the “ Abt Vogler” of steam — now Browning could have taught Mr. Kipling something about the use, and abuse, of technicalities in poetry — but it is something towards it.

In “ The Mary Gloster,” however, in spite of its Clement Scottish — or should it be G. R. Simsian — metre, we have a piece of characterisation such as Mr. Kipling seldom achieves. An old parvenu shipowner, dying a (( baronite “; but, for all his title and wealth, still the rough old pagan skipper, who has made a fortune by dint of sailing anything that was given him. He had been backed up by a plucky, little, ambitious wife, and she, though buried long since, is to the end, in spite of frankly confessed infidelities of no account, the ruling spirit of his life. Such is Sir Anthony Gloster, as he lies on his death-bed and damns his dilettante Harrow and Oxford son, with delightful and instructive candour.

His last desire is to be taken out in the old “ Mary Gloster” and buried at sea in the exact spot where his wife was buried, and he offers his son five thousand pounds to take him there. Mr. Kipling has seldom done better than in the old man’s last wandering speech, a remarkably outspoken statement of the whole morality of man:

“
Mary, why didn’t you warn me? I’ve

alius heeded to you, Excep’ — I know — about women; but you

are a spirit now; An’, wife, they was only women, and I was

a man. That’s how. An’ a man ‘e must go with a woman, as

you could not understand; But I never talked ‘em secrets. I paid ‘em •

out o’ hand. Thank Gawd, I can pay for my fancies!

Now what’s five thousand to me, For a berth off the Paternosters in the haven

where I would be? / believe in the Resurrection, if I read my Bible plain,

But I wouldn’t trust ‘em at Wokin’; we’re

safer at sea again. For the heart it shall go with the treasure —

go down to the sea in ships. I’m sick of the hired women — I’ll kiss my

girl on her lips! I’ll be content with my fountain, I’ll drink

from my own well, And the wife of my youth shall charm me — an’ the rest can go to Hell!”

“The Rhyme of the Three Sealers” must share the condemnation of “ The Rhyme of the Three Captains “ and “ The Ballad of East and West,” though it is better than either. Of the definitely nautical songs, the Anchor Song (from “ Many Inventions “), in spite of its merciless technicalities, succeeds by the curiously blended sadness and gladness of its music — sadness of farewell, gladness of putting out to sea. But, perhaps, the most catchy of all the sea- songs is one which doesn’t pretend to be a sea-song at all, but only a lament for the extinction of the three-volume novel, symbolised as “The Three-Decker.” The more modern novel is symbolised as a modern steamer, and it will be seen that Mr. Kipling, in pursuit of his image, is obliged, for the moment, to go back on M’Andrew:

“That route is barred to steamers: you’ll never lift again

Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.

They’re just beyond your skvline, howe’er so far you cruise

In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.

Swing round your aching search-light — ‘twill show no haven’s peace.

Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, grey-bearded seas!

Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep’s unrest —

And you aren’t one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest!

Here in this casual, accidental way, perhaps Mr. Kipling has caught more of

“The beauty and mystery of the ships And the magic of the sea”

than in any of his more determined sea-ballads. “ The Story of Ung,” and “ In the Neolithic Age” — the latter with its refrain

“There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,

And-every-single-one-of-them-is-right ‘‘ —

may be added to “ The Conundrum of the Workshops “ as good examples of Mr. Kipling’s jeux esprit on the subject of “art”; and to these may be added two poems a propos romance: one the obscure hymn “To the True Romance” (from “Many Inventions”), and the other entitled “The King,” and containing the whole matter in a line-and-a-half:

“
And all unseen Romance brought up the nine-fifteen.”

I must not forget the “ Sestina of the Tramp Royal,” which embodies in a humourous epilogue the restless sailor spirit of wandering that breathes through the whole book:

“Therefore, from job to job I’ve moved along.

Pay couldn’t ‘old me when mv time was done,

For something in my ‘ead upset me all,

Till I ‘ad dropped whatever ‘twas for good,

An’, out at sea, be’eld the dock-lights die,

An’ met my mate — the wind that tramps the world!

It’s like a book, I think, this bloomin’ world,

Which you can read and care for just so long,

But presently you feel that you will die

Unless you get the page you’re readin’ done,

An’ turn another — likely not so good;

But what you’re after is to turn ‘em all.

Gawd bless this world! Whatever she ‘ath done —

Excep’ when awful long — I’ve found it good.

So write, before I die, ‘ ‘E liked it all! ‘“

and, having named that, I don’t think I

have missed much in “ The Seven Seas.”

4. Scattered Poems.

Since the publication of “The Seven Seas,” Mr. Kipling has published in newspapers several poems, but the three which have made the deepest impression are “The Vampire,” the Recessional,” and “The White Alan’s Burden.” “ The Vampire” is something like a great achievement in satire, as it is surely the bitterest tiling ever written by man against woman.

The touch of hysteria in it, as of personal pain, will save women from taking it too much to heart; and, of course, like all recrimination between the sexes, it is necessarily one-sided. But all that discounts in no way from its murderous force.

With the “Recessional” and “The White Man’s Burden “ we enter upon a third period of Air. Kipling’s development as a poet — a period, to be sincere, with which, so far, poetry has little to do. It may be said that the “ Recessional “ and “The White Alan’s Burden” are more than poetry. I would venture to say that they are certainly less. In fact, they are not poetry at all, and it is uncritical, seriously, to consider them as such. They are political catch-words imbedded in rather spirited hymns, and they are in no sense the work of Rudyard Kipling the poet, but rather of Rudyard Kipling, unofficial M.P. for British Possessions. By writing them Mr. Kipling has become a greater political force than fifty members of Parliament, but not all the Great Powers, including Japan, can make them poetry. Their prestige is exactly that of “ The Open Door,” “ Spheres of Influence,” and such phrases; and the natural place for them was in a speech by Mr. Chamberlain, or — for a really graceful setting — Lord Rosebery. This is all I propose to say of them in this place.

5. General.

What, then, is the truth about Mr. Kipling’s poetry, in this spring of 1899? It may, I think, be gathered from the running comment I have made in the previous pages. It is that Mr. Kipling is a master-of captivating sing-song, a magician of catches and refrains. Of melodies that trip and dance, and gaily or mournfully or romantically come and go, there has, perhaps, been no such master before him in English; and he is this largely because he has had the wisdom to follow Burns, and write many of his ballads to popular or traditional airs, which must be allowed their share in the success. He is, so to say, the Burns, not of steam, but of the music-hall song.

“
And the tunes that mean so much to you alone —

Common tunes that make vou choke and blow your nose,

Vulgar tunes that bring the laugh that brings to the groan —

I can rip your very heart-strings out with those.’’

Yes, in Mr. Kipling the banjo (self- admittedly his favourite instrument) has found its Apollo. Mr. Kipling can indeed wind our heart-strings round his little finger; but for joy or sorrow — or any manner of mystery — it must always be the banjo, and no other instrument. It must be either “ Pilly-ivilly-ivinky-ivinky popp,” or “ Tumpa-tumpa-tumpa-tum-pa tump,” or (for sorrow) ‘‘ Plunka-lunka-lunka-hmka-lunk ‘‘; either that or — nothing. And, of course, seeing it is the banjo, there must always be dialect, not necessarily dialect of speech, but at least dialect of mood, dialect of the mind.

“The Vampire “ is written in “ essential “ slang, and a devoted reading of everything Mr. Kipling has ever to my knowledge printed leads me to venture on the statement that, speaking of serious poetry, he has only written twelve non-dialect lines, and these are almost the best lines he has written. He buried them, as is his custom, in a cache — or he flew them kite-like with a long tail — of bad verses; but so poetry is often found: