Tuesday, May 05, 2026
Kipling
C.S. Lewis, letter to his brother Warren (Dec. 18, 1939):
‹Older
During the evening Ridley read to us a Swinburne ballad and, immediately after it, that ballad of Kipling’s which ends up 'You’ve finished with the flesh, my Lord'.
Nobody except me knew who the second one was by, and everyone agreed that it just killed the Swinburne as a real thing kills a sham. I then made him read 'Iron, cold iron' with the same result and later he drifted into McAndrew's Hymn. Surely Kipling must come back? When people have had time to forget 'If' and the inferior Barrack Room Ballads, all this other stuff must come into its own. I know hardly any poet who can deliver such a hammer stroke. The stories, of course, are another matter and are, I suppose, even now admitted to be good by all except a handful of Left idiots.
