Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/286

GENIUS AND OTHER ESSAYS rollicking unique, "The Last Chantey," doubtless one of the purest examples, since Coleridge's wondrous "Rime," of the imaginatively grotesque. That it is a grotesque may exile it from the highest field of art, but, like Doré's masterpiece, Le Juif Errant, it is a paragon of its kind. It is true to the mental cosmology of the sailor class, and to the author's own fancy (as seen in "Tomlinson" and the Prelude to the earlier Ballads) by its retention of the mediæval notion of God, the Devil, and supramundane goings-on—as much so as the overture of Faust. The measure is roysteringly delightful. Who but Kipling would take up the catch of "All round my hat I vears a green villow," and use it for a ballad which, if fantastic, is of magnificent grade? Such an expedient, that few would detect, shows that his methods are as bold as his imaginings, and that no good workman need be at a loss for tools.

The ring and diction of all this verse add new elements to our song. Kipling's realism proves again that the strongest flights are taken from the ground of truth—that ideality and experience are not antagonistic. More than other modern poets of England, he has had the liberty of her realm; for him sea and shore, ice and desert-sand, are Britain's domain, or that of those who speak her tongue. Of such, the soldier and sailor, the explorer, of every degree, are his people, and the traders large and small. To reveal their sensations is easy for the insight that created a demonic soul within the Ganges "Mugger" and is on human terms with all the beasts of the jungle. [272]