Jan, 18.
The fact that today Is the anniversary of] Rudyard Kipling's death recalls the thought that up to the present this war has brought to Great Britain no inspiring poet. There were one oF {wo outstanding in the last great} struggle apart from Kipling, but there can} be little doubt that his minstrelsy was the] greater inspiration. It may be said that war] needs no poetry; it fs true that it can be Aispensed with, but singers of Empire, such fas Kipling was, do play their part in the Hire of a nation, and an important one at] that. It is Interesting to recall some of the] things which he wrote in the Inst war at]
For all we have and 'For all our children'
Stand up and take the war.
the Hun is at the gate 'Our world has passed away Th wantonness overthrown. 'There's nothing left today "But steel, and fire, and stone'!...... easy hope or lies Shall bring us to our goat, But iron sacridee Of body, will, and soul, There ig but one task for all—One lite for each to give, What stands it Freedom fall Who dies if England live It is true that Mr. Churchill in many of his speeches has repeated in splendid prose what] Kipling wrote nearly twenty-seven years ago, but it is well that such inspiring lines can be remembered during this struggle against the jesser breeds without the law."
How many people read their Kipling today? Probably not many. Yet {t would do them good to relearn about tha spirit of Empire] Which has made the British people what they are today. It wai faith in their mission and that quality of sturdiness which makes the "poor little street bred people" the heroes that they are today, which enables the British to stand up practically alone in an endeavour to save Europe and the world from the hideous thing which the enemy seeks to fashion for them, Could a better indictment of the enemy be found than in Kipling's "Justice" written in 1918?
'A People and their King through ancient sin grown strong, Because they feared no reckoning Woulld set no bound to wrong: But now their hour is past, And we who bore it find Evil incarnate held at last To answer {o mankind the achievement of 1918 is the promise of victory in this war, when evil incarnate will be, brought to answer.
For agony and spoil Of nations best 19 dust, For poisoned air and tortured sell And cold commanded lust.
It Is not alone in words such as these that Kipling still talks to this present generation but even in the lines which he wrote in 1910:—
Who in the Realm today tays down dear life "for the sake of a land more' dear? And, unconcerned for his own estate, tolls tilt the last ridged sands have run?
Let him approach, Tt ig proven here Our King asks nothing of any man more than Our King himself has done.
'There are some who would deny that Kipling] was a great poet. True much of his work! does not rise to.the heights, but as the bard of Empire, as the singer of the songs of] free men, a a man who has seen so clearly'
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.