stop the mill with the corn half ground--and if the custom or usage
were proven to be as it was said, why, that was the end of it, even
though it were flat against Hugh, his wish and command."


It may be said of the verse that, possibly, it is more carefully
considered than the prose, more deliberate and formally more excellent.
But it is certainly more remote from the passion it conveys. There is
more drive in a single fragment of_ An Habitation Enforced_ than in all
the songs of Puck.

Similarly let us take another of Mr Kipling's themes--his delight in
the world's work. Think first of _The Bridge-Builders_ and of _William
the Conqueror_ and then turn to _The Bell Buoy_ (_Five Nations_) or
_The White Man's Burden_ (_Five Nations_). In each case--and we repeat
the result every time the experiment is made--we find that the author's
motive, which lives in his prose, tends in his verse to expire. In
_The White Man's Burden_ it expires outright, so that reading it, it is
difficult to realise that _William the Conqueror_ has had the power so
deeply to move us.

This is true even where Mr Kipling's subject, which in prose has not
taken him to the top of his achievement, has in verse taken him as high
as in verse he is able to go. Mr Kipling's best verse is contained in
_Barrack Room Ballads_; but even these do not compare in merit with
_Soldiers Three_. _Barrack Room Ballads_ are the best of Mr Kipling's
poetry, because in these poems rhyme and beat are essential to their
inspiration. They are the exception which prove the rule that normally
Mr Kipling has no right to his metre. _Barrack Room Ballads_ are
robust and vivid songs of the camp, choruses which require no music to