Mr. Kipling is a genuine artist, but the genius of his art lies in his power to express the sentiments and primal passions of men in the rough and ready way of the music hall, not by eliminating its grotesque vulgarity, but by using it to express things that are neither grotesque nor vulgar, but vast and elemental, he is at his best on all these grounds.
On the other hand, he uses more conventional means and falls back upon the ordinary language of the poetic artist, as he does in the Recessional, when he wishes to be more dignified and weighty, then, he is really less effective he impresses as much as a splendid “character” actor does. The Recessional is good verse; but Mandalay is inspired verse.