We hoped for more like that, and we had not long to wait. Presently the news went round that Mr. Kipling was contributing some quite fascinating ballads to The Scots Observer, a weekly journal, since defunct, edited with sword and pen by Mr. W. E. Henley; and, long before the volume entitled "Barrack-Room Ballads " appeared, "Danny Deever," " Fuzzy-Wuzzy," and "Mandalay " had become household words. There was a go and a catchiness about them that no English ballads had possessed since Macaulay. When the volume appeared it was more widely read than any poetry published for some years. It was that rare thing in poetry, a genuinely popular success; and the success was significant of the achievement.

By that volume Mr. Kipling as a poet must still be judged. It contained poems. which he has certainly not surpassed since, if, indeed, he has equalled them, and it revealed limitations which he has not yet sur

Re

mounted. In few volumes has the cleavage between what a man can do and what he can not do been so marked. And, with one or two exceptions presently to be noted, the cleavage was between the "Barrack-Room Ballads" and the "Other Verses." reading the volume again to-day, one returns to one's first conclusion. The best of the "Barrack-Room Ballads " still retain their magic, but the "Other Verses " still leave one cold, and, to be frank, a little bored.

Of the ballad, or rather of one kind of ballad, Mr. Kipling is clearly a master; that is the singing ballad, with swinging jingle choruses and catchy refrains, and written in dialect; but not the narrative ballad written in simple English. Nor, broadly speaking, can he write any kind of poetry in simple English. As a poet he stands or falls with dialect. Any minor qualifications this statement may seem to need will be made in due course. Our

concern, for the moment, is with the "Barrack-Room Ballads."

99 66

These are not, of course, of equal excellence. Out of twenty-one there are, perhaps, not more than seven that one cares about reading again, but these seven are "Mandalay, "" Danny Deever, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, "Tommy,' "Oonts," "Gunga Din," and "Soldier, Soldier." Of these the first four are, in their several ways, perfect things. The delicious humour, the biting irony, and the irresistible_musichall swing of Fuzzy-Wuzzy" (( Tommy"; the tragic shiver and mournful music of "Danny Deever"; the romance and melody and passion of "Mandalay."

and

Here again in poetry was something that made us unspeakably glad. You might rank them this high or that, but without doubt they were real things, perfect things of their kind; in their degree as satisfactory

as

"Kubla Khan," or a number from

"The Mikado," or a song by Mr. Albert Chevalier. They were, indeed, as Orphic in their possession of us as "Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road," or "Ta-ra-raboom-de-ay”; but, unlike those fascinating masterpieces, they were not dependent upon histrionic or musical interpretation.

won us by sheer literary effect.

They You had

but to read them, and they provided their own dance-music. They lose, in my opinion, by being set to music-which is one of the signs of their being real poetry. Real poetry can as seldom be "set" as it can be illustrated. Also, one is struck, particularly in " Mandalay," with Mr. Kipling's wonderful transmuting use of the commonest material. Its magic is made of the very refuse of language. It reminds one of the magic of certain paintings, say a portrait by Mr. Sargent, which, close at hand, looks all slaps and dashes of paint, like an untidy palette; but, as we move further and further away, the vision comes

out of the chaos, and soon we forget the brush-marks in the beauty. Similarly with the best of these "Barrack-Room Ballads," the poor Cockneyisms are transfigured out of recognition by imagination working at white heat, and a rhythm that might set rocks to dance-music. And could lovepoetry be tenderer than:

"Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,

An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat—jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,

An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin'

white cheroot,

An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:

Bloomin' idol made o' mud—

Wot they called the Great Gawd

Budd

Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!

On the road to Mandalay. ..