In his selection A Choice of Kipling’s Verse, made in 1941, T S Eliot wrote that Kipling should not be seen as a bad poet but as a great writer of verse. He didn’t really give a clear definition of what he thought the difference between “poetry” and “verse” to be, though. Understandably, given the time it was published, his choice tended more towards the patriotic side of Kipling’s work.
Craig Raine’s 1991 selection included poems that Eliot had omitted, because Raine was keen to stress Kipling’s skill as a poet. The one below is an example. Kipling had already published his Barrack Room Ballads and this is a more poetic development of those perhaps, with the same concern for the plight of the ordinary soldier. It’s a military poem, set during a war, but it doesn’t describe combat. It was published in The Times in 1901, then included in the collection The Five Nations. It reflected Kipling’s experiences as an observer of the Boer War.
It’s a wonderfully vivid evocation of the South African landscape and the isolation of the men guarding the bridge. It’s impossible to read without the scene coming clearly into one’s mind’s eye. It’s almost cinematic. Kipling’s precise choice of words, the short lines and the strong rhythm all contribute to the overall effect. Has a sunset ever been described in a better way than the second and third verses here? Notice also that as the sun sets and night descends, later in the poem, Kipling picks out the sounds that can be heard.
Whatever one thinks of the “verse” or “poetry” argument, I think this is Kipling at his very best and you won’t be surprised to find it is my favourite of his poems.
Bridge-Guard in the Karroo by Rudyard Kipling
“ …and will supply details to guard the Blood River Bridge”
District Orders: Lines of Communication
—South African War.
Sudden the desert changes,
The raw glare softens and clings,
Till the aching Oudtshoorn ranges
Stand up like the thrones of Kings—
Ramparts of slaughter and peril—
Blazing, amazing, aglow—
’Twixt the sky-line’s belting beryl
And the wine-dark flats below.
Royal the pageant closes,
Lit by the last of the sun—
Opal and ash-of-roses
Cinnamon, umber, and dun.
The twilight swallows the thicket,
The starlight reveals the ridge.
The whistle shrills to the picket—
We are changing guard on the bridge.
(Few, forgotten and lonely,
Where the empty metals shine—
No, not combatants—only
Details guarding the line.)
We slip through the broken panel
Of fence by the ganger’s shed;
We drop to the waterless channel
And the lean track overhead;
We stumble on refuse of rations,
The beef and the biscuit-tins;
We take our appointed stations,
And the endless night begins.
We hear the Hottentot herders
As the sheep click past to the fold—
And the click of the restless girders
As the steel contracts in the cold—
Voices of jackals calling
And, loud in the hush between,
A morsel of dry earth falling
From the flanks of the scarred ravine.
And the solemn firmament marches
And the hosts of heaven rise
Framed through the iron arches—
Banded and barred by the ties,
Till we feel the far track humming,
And we see her headlight plain,
And we gather and wait her coming—
The wonderful north-bound train.
(Few, forgotten and lonely,
Where the white car-windows shine—
No, not combatants—only
Details guarding the line.)
Quick, ere the gift escape us!
Out of the darkness we reach
For a handful of week-old papers
And a mouthful of human speech.
And the monstrous heaven rejoices,
And the earth allows again,
Meetings, greetings, and voices
Of women talking with men.
So we return to our places,
As out on the bridge she rolls;
And the darkness covers our faces,
And the darkness re-enters our souls.
More than a little lonely
Where the lessening tail-lights shine.
No—not combatants—only
Details guarding the line!
The Good Reader 