Kipling's Song

From his quiet home at Bateman's Burwash, Sussex, Mr. Rudyard Kipling (cousin of Premier Stanley Baldwin, their mothers having been two of the four famed Macdonald sisters) contributed some verses to the British Gazette, the Government's emergency anti-strike newspaper:

A Song of the English

Keep ye the law--be swift in all obedience--

Clear the land of evil, drive the road, the bridge and ford ;

Make ye sure to each his own,

That he reap where he hath sown;

By the peace among our peoples let men know we serve the Lord.

While these lines might indeed achieve a noble and sonorous effect when sung by a great chorus, sincere admirers of Kipling sadly reflected that a generation has passed since his genius alone was sufficient to set mighty rhythms beating in the blood of even his calmest readers.*

* The British Poet Laureate, Robert Bridges, maintained complete silence last week at his retreat, Chilswell, Boar's Hill, Oxford. An irrepressible Mid-West headline writer once placed above a story concerned with Laureate Bridges--then in this country--the single devastating row of caps:

KING'S CANARY WON'T CHIRP