Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/205

Rh paraphrases; but then Departmental Ditties is a small matter even to their author, and it would indeed be a waste of shot to demolish them in detail even to this extent. But the remarkable thing is that in the Barrack-Room Ballads we shall meet paraphrases, if possible, even more detestable still. There Mr. Kipling actually goes back on himself to produce verse of this sort in a piece called 'Evarra and his Gods':

and so on. It is, I know, a harsh and severe thing to say, but none the less it is certainly true that not even Sir Edwin Arnold ever wrote viler blank verse than that. Nor does this singular example of critical incapacity on the part of our balladist stand alone. Here is the opening of another piece, 'The Sacrifice of Er-Heb,' also one of Mr. Kipling's latest efforts:

We shall find no conscious and critical development