His influence on other poets has of course been powerful. As Eden Phillpotts is to Thomas Hardy, so is Robert Service to Rudyard Kipling. Like Bret Harte in California, Mr. Service found gold in the Klondike. But it is not merely in his interpretation of the life of a distant country that the new poet reminds one of his prototype; both in matter and in manner he may justly be called the Kipling of the North. His verse has an extraordinary popularity among American college undergraduates, the reasons for which are evident. They read, discuss him, and quote him with joy, and he might well be proud of the adoration of so many of our eager, adventurous, high-hearted youth. Yet, while Mr. Service is undoubtedly a real poet, his work as a whole seems a clear echo, rather than a new song. It is good, but it is reminiscent of his reading, not merely of Mr. Kipling, but of poetry in general. In _The Land God Forgot_, a fine poem, beginning The lonely sunsets flare forlorn Down valleys dreadly desolate; The lordly mountains soar in scorn As still as death, as stern as fate, the opening line infallibly brings to mind Henley's Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade. The poetry of Mr. Service has the merits and the faults of the "red blood" school in fiction, illustrated by the late Jack London and the lively Rex Beach. It is not the highest form of art. It insists on being heard, but it smells of mortality. You cannot give permanence to a book by printing it in italic type. It is indeed difficult to express in pure artistic form great primitive experiences, even with long years of intimate first-hand knowledge. No one doubts Mr. Service's accuracy or sincerity. But many men have had abundance of material, rich and new, only to find it unmanageable. Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling succeeded where thousands have failed. Think of the possibilities of Australia! And from that vast region only one great artist has spoken--Percy Grainger. CHAPTER II PHILLIPS, WATSON, NOYES, HOUSMAN Stephen Phillips--his immediate success--influence of Stratford-on-Avon--his plays--a traditional poet--his realism--William Watson--his unpromising start--his lament on the coldness of the age toward poetry--his Epigrams--_Wordsworth's Grave_--his eminence as a critic in verse--his anti-imperialism--his Song of Hate--his Byronic wit--his contempt for the "new" poetry--Alfred Noyes--both literary and rhetorical--an orthodox poet--a singer--his democracy--his childlike imagination--his sea-poems--_Drake_--his optimism--his religious faith--A. E. Housman--his paganism and pessimism--his modernity--his originality--his lyrical power--war poems--Ludlow.