In expression this last does not dis-resemble the sonnet; it is, therefore, recommended to sonneteers in general as a variation.

Another variety :

Loud-voiced night, with the wild winds blowing
Many a tune;

Stormy night, with white rainclouds going

Over the moon;

Again, with the arrangement only partial :

Sweet in the greenwood a birdie sings,
Golden-yellow its two bright wings,
Red its heartikin, blue its crest:

Oh but it sings with the sweetest breast.

Early, early at lighted dawn,

On the edge of my ingle-stone,

As I prayed my morning prayer

'Tell me thy errand, birdie fair.'-TOM TAYLOR.

Rich and rare were the gems she wore,

And a bright gold ring on her wand she bore;
But oh! her beauty was far beyond

Her sparkling gems and snow-white wand.

Lady, dost thou not fear to stray,

So lone and lovely through this bleak way?
Are Erin's sons so good or so cold

As not to be tempted by woman or gold ?-MOORE.

Pain and sorrow shall vanish before us,

Youth may wither, but feeling will last:

All the shadow that ever fell o'er us,

Love's light summercloud sweetly shall cast.
Oh! if to love thee more

Each hour I numbered o'er:
If this a passion be

Worthy of thee,

Then, be happy, for thus I adore thee;

Charms may wither, but feeling will last :
All the shadow that e'er shall fall o'er thee

Love's light summercloud sweetly shall cast.-MOORE.

Contrary change out of the forward metre into the tripping is impracticable without intervention of the fixed

cesura.

XVIII.

TONE-VERSE.

AKIN to the last subject may be cited another kind of irregularity. We have seen that it is allowable to quicken the movement of verse by the insertion of additional syllables, even to racing speed. Let only the contrary course be attempted, on however small a scale, the verse is contemptuously styled halting; this harsh judgment should at least be reconsidered. Is there any will say the close of this old ditty would be better corrected,

Even so a man, whose thread is spun,
Drawn out and set, and so is done.
The rose withers, the blossom blasteth,
The flower fades, the morning hasteth;
The sun sets, the shadow flies,

The gourd consumes, and man he dies.

The correction is indeed simple enough: write he or it in front of the word 'sets,' as it is done before 'dies' in the following line. But where is the gain? Certainly not in the expression, only in conforming to rule for rule's sake.

Let us take another instance :

Old Holly, well we know thy kind face of old;
Thy glossy leaves, thy ruddy berries and prickles bold.
Of winters braved thy look speaks, sturdy and true,
And of the heart behind it stout that bore thee through.
Thy hand, old friend, ah well I know how strong thy grasp,
But not I wot a friend's hand gives half a clasp.

Thy hand then, Holly, but thy prickles-oh!
Here's to thee, Holly, and fair Mistletoe.

"Twas in the time of olden, time agone lang syne,

That thou, old sturdy Holly, madest Mistletoe thine.

Still ever against that tide thou deckest thee in thy brightest,
Likewise thy ladie fair she decks her in her whitest.

This lets us into the metrical mystery, for it is at once apparent that something more than ordinary is required before a syllable can be dropped. This is excessive weight in the component words, monosyllables, which form a sort of spondaic foot between them across the gap. In the second stave there is once a concurrence of three such syllables, and then no further employment of the figure, such of course not being compulsory; nor, happening at the end of the line, is there any metric break in this last instance.

The verse, How should we sing the Lord's song in a strange land,' might be quoted as a notable instance, having this dwell repeated twice in a very brief space.

Holding that there is no further observance called for in verse than that of pleasing proportion, it cannot be admitted that these or similar forms are unlawfully constituted, unless disagreeable.

Take the following sequent to a piece instanced before, under false metre:

Do you question the young children in the sorrow,

Why their tears are falling so?

The old man may weep for his to-morrow,

Which is lost in long Ago.

The old tree is leafless in the forest.

The old year is ending in the frost,

The old wound if stricken is the sorest,
The old hope is hardest to be lost:

But the young, young children, O my brothers,
Do you ask them why they stand

Weeping sore before the bosom of their mothers,

In our happy Fatherland ?-MRS. BROWNING.

Lines of this description are not unfrequently met with:

There came a voice when all forsaken

This heart long had sleeping lain,

Nor thought its cold pulse would ever waken

To such benign, blessed sounds again.

:

Sweet voice of comfort 'twas like the stealing
Of summer wind through some wreathed shell.
Each secret winding, each inmost feeling

Of all my soul echoed to its spell.

'Twas whispered balm, 'twas sunshine spoken,
I'd live years of grief and pain

To have my long sleep of sorrow broken

By such benign, blessèd sounds again.—MOORE.

The admired cadence of 'Love's Young Dream' owes its character to this sort of spondaic resting on long syllables, as also does 'Auld Lang Syne.' With these, however, the number of syllables is three, and there is no metric break. But then the end of the line is the place of the dwell, and that accounts for the rest. The close requires the third long syllable, and that brings matters metrically straight :—

Oh! the days are gone when Beauty bright
My heart's chain wove,

When my dream of life from morn till night
Was love, still love.

New hope may bloom,

New days may come
Of milder, calmer beam,

But there's nothing half so sweet in life

As love's young dream:

No, there's nothing half so sweet in life

As love's young dream.-MOORE.

A question may arise as to whether decided pauses ought not to reckon for something in verse, as well as rests in music. No observance of the kind is requisite, but the cesural position has been occasionally made use of to dock the verse a syllable, after the manner of the first example cited:

Orphan hours, the year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep!

Merry hours, smile instead,

For the year is but asleep:

See it smiles as it is sleeping,

Mocking your untimely weeping.-SHELLEY.

Instances of the contrary might just as easily be adduced where the cesura has been taken advantage of to increase syllables indefinitely.

Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother.
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid.
Set against these

A brother's murder-Pray can I not.

Conformity in these is less sought, but is really hardly more taxed than in this of strained regularity from Dekker, where a long string of articles, more numerous than the feet, is crammed into one verse:

Six gifts I spend upon mortality,

Wisdom, strength, health, beauty, long life, and riches;
Out of my bounty one of these is thine.

No metre but blank verse could submit to this treatment without breaking down utterly.

A treatise on versification can hardly be considered complete that leaves out of notice altogether about suiting the sound to the sense; but really it is a point on which rules are useless. If the writer's own perception of appropriateness cannot guide him, nothing else can. All know the passage:

Soft is the strain when zephyr gently blows,

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar :
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the verse moves slow:

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.

Of course, in the very nature of things, there is nothing here that can compare with the variable numbers of Alexander's Feast,' or Pope's own Ode on St. Cecilia's Day.' Variable movement of that kind there is none. The point of import is that in the first couplet the sound of the words employed is notably soft and smooth-few rough r's; in the second couplet, the direct contrary, many rough r's; in a word, a deft use of alliteration.

The last two couplets are noticeable on somewhat different ground: the first by the weight attempted to be thrown into