This one is a nice poem that grabbed my attention.
The part I was the most curious about is the third stanza:
> Would you call a friend from half across the world?
> If you'll let us have his name and town and state,
> You shall see and hear your cracking question hurled
> Across the arch of heaven while you wait.
Now it took me some time, but it seeems that Kipling was back in the UK when he published this, but had previously lived in the US. The next four lines are:
> Has he answered? Does he need you at his side-
> You can start this very evening if you choose
> And take the Western Ocean in the stride
> O seventy thousand horses and some screws!
^ And that one was really opaque to me, but I believe the Western Ocean means the Atlantic Ocean, and the, uh, we need more lines, it's complicated
> The boat-express is waiting your command!
> You will find the Mauritania at the quay,
> Till her captain turns the lever 'neath his hand,
> And the monstrouos nine-decked city goes to sea.
Anyway, it turns out the the “Mauritania” probably refers to a transatlantic cruise ship that was the largest ship when it was built, called “Mauretania”, with a strange spelling,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Mauretania_(1906) , since that matches the time period, going from the UK to US, is famous enough to mention in a poem, and the translation by Tellér Gyula seems to interpret it that way too, calling it “Mauretánia”.
And back in the first lines of the third stanza, “town and state” clearly means the friend lives in the US, and “half across the world” probably means Kipling refers to him and his readers being in the UK, or in any case, the old world.
But what really confused me is that “call a friend” and “You shall see and hear your cracking question hurled / Across the arch of heaven while you wait.” sounded to me at first like it was a personal telephone call trasmitted through a radio channel (or satellite link) from the old world to America. And although the history is somewhat unclear to me, it seems like that technology didn't yet exist in 1911.
But it turns out, that's not what it means at all. “If you'll let us have his name and town and state,” means it's not a telephone call, because most people didn't have a telephone back then, but obviously everyone had access to telegraph,
and although telegraphs were more usually transmitted through the transatlantic telegraph cables of which multiple were built since around 1965, they could also be transmitted by radio by that time, which seems strange given how primitive radio technology was back then.
But it seems like it actually existed, so “Across the arch of heaven” is possible that way.
And “You shall see and hear your cracking question hurled” because it's a stupid spark gap radio, because the reasonable kind of amplitude modulated radio telegraph transmissions were invented but not in general use yet in 1911.
Since they didn't have proper vacuum tubes yet.
And since this is a poem the most difficult things machine could do at that time, using the futuristic but actually existing transatlantic radio telegraphy is reasonable, even if transatlantic cable telegraphy might be more reasonable, although both were very fishy back then, because of the lack of vacuum tubes.
That leaves “turn a river in its bed” as the only element of the poem that isn't possible with technology, not only in 1911 but even today, but that one is probably a hyperbole.
And the part I'm confused about now is why it says “secret” in the title, but even there I think I might be able to understand it on my own, given that my big Oxford dictionary mentions some less common meanings of “secret”, one of which may apply.