"...Poetry or a novella"
Yeah, 5 stars, why not, according to my grading standard, it gets a 5 if I really enjoyed it but wouldn't recommend it to everyone. Poetry is a strange one, especially a collection of poems, sometimes it's odd to just read a whole handful of little things in a row, similar to short stories, but...shorter. (It was like reading through all the Psalms in like one go, it was kind of exhausting). But, all that preamble aside, I think Kipling had a real command of the English language and it really shows in the poetry. I've also never read anything he's written, but I'm very familiar with the story of both "The Jungle Book" and "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi". I like poems because they're abstract, often just painting a picture of a moment, rather than telling a story. Or, they use some well known historical event, person or place, to create a very distinct mood or image of that thing. I really like that. I didn't love every poem, and sometimes his usage of "Britishisms" (dropping the "H" at the start of words, dropping consonants and the ends of words, made it sometimes difficult to read it in the meter it was going for, but that's just me personally).
There were some real standouts though.
"Cold Iron" was great, with this opening line:
"Gold is for the mistress–silver for the maid"–
Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade!"
"Good!" said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
"But Iron–Cold Iron–is master of them all."
"Puck's Song" was a personal favorite:
"See you our little mill that clacks,
So busy by the brook?
She has ground her corn and paid her tax
Ever since Domesday Book.
See you our stilly woods of oak,
And the dread ditch beside?
O that was where the Saxons broke
On the day that Harold died.
See you the windy levels spread
About the gates of Rye?
O that was where the Northmen fled,
When Alfred's ships came by."
Good stuff. I would recommend checking them out if you find any of the descriptors I provided intriguing. I look forward to checking out some of his works.