If

 If? You may wonder what kind of title it could be. Well, there are at least two poems entitled "If", one by Rudyard Kipling and the other by Emily Dickinson. Actually, as is her wont, Dickinson never gives her poems any defined titles. The first line of her poems is taken to be the title.The present poem is no exception to her general praxis. In a way, by curtailing her line length title to a word, I am even more cautious and austere with choice of diction that Dame Dickinson! 

In a way, the two poets are distant, well, almost, contemporaries. Yet vast is the difference in their poetic vision as in their lives. Kipling, every which way a colonial product, is very public. Dickinson, on the other hand, a recluse who lived the" Violet by a mossy stone/half hidden from the eye" kind of existence, is extremely private. There is a kind of intimacy and interiority to her verses that celebrate the fragile, the minutiae of life. Saving a fainting robin or cooling one pain or easing one life the aching can make her content!

If Dickinson's wor(l)ds craft the miniature canvas, Kipling's brush strokes are very large, very striking, and in the public realm. Walking with kings, talking with the commoner, fighting and forgiving the high and the mighty are his concerns. Undoubtedly, both the poems are deeply touching. If, however, Kipling's inspirational poem is quite hectoring in its tone, Dickinson's is as gentle and soft like the March morning breeze or the soft sunrise on a misty December dawn.

Does the difference in the two poems in their message and the style emerge because  of the poets' gender positioning? That is to say, Kipling's verses deliberate in the typical 'man'ly way about very male concerns, while Dickinson's is the feminine delicate touch. Read both the poems and let me know your impressions, please. Hope we could thus come up with newer interpretations, too, of these two poems, and of poetry itself.

Pratima@if I have made a line clearer/ to the discerning reader/the feat makes my day better