particular poet seldom exceeds his grasp. And although thus far in his
career--he is only fifty-two, and we may hope as well as remember--his
best poetry belongs to the nineteenth century rather than the
twentieth, so universally popular a homily as _If_ indicates that
he has by no means lost the power of preaching in verse. With the
exception of some sad lapses, his latter poems have come nearer the
earlier level of production than his stories. For that matter, from
the beginning I have thought that the genius of Rudyard Kipling had
more authentic expression in poetry than in prose. I therefore hope
that after the war he will become one of the leaders in the advance of
English poetry in the twentieth century, as he will remain one of the
imperishable monuments of Victorian literature. The verse published in
his latest volume of stories, _A Diversity of Creatures_, 1917,
has the stamp of his original mind, and _Macdonough's Song_ is
impressive. And in a poem which does not appear in this collection,
but which was written at the outbreak of hostilities, Mr. Kipling was,
I believe, the first to use the name _Hun_--an appellation of
considerable adhesive power. Do roses stick like burrs?

His influence on other poets has of course been powerful. As Eden
Phillpotts is to Thomas Hardy, so is Robert Service to Rudyard
Kipling. Like Bret Harte in California, Mr. Service found gold in the
Klondike. But it is not merely in his interpretation of the life of a
distant country that the new poet reminds one of his prototype; both
in matter and in manner he may justly be called the Kipling of the
North. His verse has an extraordinary popularity among American
college undergraduates, the reasons for which are evident. They read,
discuss him, and quote him with joy, and he might well be proud of the
adoration of so many of our eager, adventurous, high-hearted youth.
Yet, while Mr. Service is undoubtedly a real poet, his work as a whole