Is Kipling's "The Conundrum of the Workshops" poetry?

Dear Jerry,

 

Touche!   Or, as you might say, Gotcha!

 

I'd read it long ago, but had to re-read it. I'll confess to playing the Devil's Advocate, but would never aspire to be the Devil himself.

 

Kipling was a genius, of that I have no jot or tittle of doubt. I admire him this side of idolatry. Were you twist my arm until it broke, I'd holler: It's verse. But Kipling was capable of verse of such towering dimension that it might at times o'ertop the topless peak of Parnassus. Step by step, of course.

 

I still feel a resolve to defend the distinction between verse and poetry. What a waste of a word it would be if they were perfectly symmetrical synonyms of each other. Perhaps one is left-handed and the other right-handed.

 

Charles