Wordsworth uses three rhymes, of which one runs throughout the whole sonnet thus:

Weak is the will of man, his judgment blind,
Remembrance persecutes, and hope betrays;
Heavy is woe, and joy, for humankind

A mournful thing, so transient is the blaze!
Thus might he paint our lot of mortal days,
Who wants the glorious faculty assigned
To elevate the more than reasoning mind,

And color life's dark cloud with orient rays.
Imagination is that sacred power,
Imagination lofty and refined;

'Tis her's to pluck the amaranthine flower

Of faith, and round the sufferer's temple bind

Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower,

And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind.-WORDSWORTH.

Romantic Measure is made up of iambic tetrameters, rhymed, and either in couplets, or varied by trimeters; as,

He was a man of middle age;
In aspect manly, grave and sage,
As on king's errand come;
But in the glances of his eye,
A penetrating, keen, and sly
Expression found its home.-SCOTT.

The Tennysonian Stanza is made up of four iambic tetrameters, with two rhyming verses used between two others, best known in the poem "In Memoriam." Thus:

I hold it truth with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.

lambic Trimeters are seldom used by themselves, though they are found in Shakspere's lyrics. Thus :

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,

Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude;

Thy tooth is not so keen

Because thou art not seen,

Although thy breath be rude.-As You Like It.

Ballads and Hymns are composed mainly of tetrameters and trimeters alternating.

The other forms in which iambic measure occurs, are either varieties of those already explained, or parts or multiples of them. The long verses of seven and eight feet may generally be written as two verses of four and three, and of four and four feet respectively. Thus the first line of the "Battle of Ivry," which is generally printed as one Heptameter, may be printed as a Tetrameter and a Trimeter:

Now glory to the Lord of Hosts,

From whom all glories are!-MACAULAY.

Anapæstic Measure is rarely found pure, even in single lines.

For example, in Beattie's "Hermit," out of forty-eight lines, only four are pure complex verses; all the others have a simple foot at the commencement; e.g.:

Sometimes, however, a line thus defective at the beginning, is counterbalanced by an excessive syllable in the preceding line, thus:

in which case the lines printed as one verse would be pure; as,

"Tis the last rose of sum | -mer, left bloom | -ing alone.

The commonest forms of this complex measure are the Trimeter; as,

I am monarch of all I survey,

My right there is none to dispute:

From the centre all round to the sea,

I am lord of the fowl and the brute.-COWPER,

and the Tetrameter; as,

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail

And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;

And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.-BYRON.

EXERCISE. Arrange each of the following sentences into a Heroic couplet:

This man would soar to heaven by his own strength, and would not be obliged for more to God.

How art thou misled, vain, wretched creature, to think thy wit bred these God-like notions.

She made a little stand at every turn, and thrust her lily hand among the thorns to draw the rose, and she shook the stalk, every rose she drew, and brush'd the dew away. (Four lines.)

Whoever thinks to see a faultless piece, thinks what never shall be, nor ever was, nor is.

Sometimes men of wit, as men of breeding, must commit less errors, to avoid the great.

The hungry judges soon sign the sentence, and that jurymen may dine, wretches hang.

Arrange each of the following into Iambic Tetrameters, rhyming:

He soon stood on the steep hill's verge, that looks o'er Branksome's towers and wood; and martial murmurs proclaimed from below the southern foe approaching. (Four lines.)

Of mild mood was the Earl, and gentle; the vassals were rude, and warlike, and fierce; haughty of word, and of heart high, they recked little of a tame liege lord. (Four lines.)

A lion, worn with cares, tired with state affairs, and quite sick of pomp, resolved to pass his latter life in peace, remote from strife and noise. (Four lines.)

I felt as, when all the waves that o'er thee dash, on a plank at sea, whelm and upheave at the same time, and towards a desert realm hurl thee. (Four lines.)

No more, sweet Teviot, blaze the glaring bale-fires on thy silver tide; steel-clad warriors ride along thy wild and willowed shore no longer. (Four lines, rhyming alternately.)

His eyes of swarthy glow he rolls fierce on the hunter's quiver'd

hand,-spurns the sand with black hoof and horn, and tosses his mane of snow high. (Four lines, rhyming alternately.)

Where late the green ruins were blended with the rock's woodcover'd side, turrets rise in fantastic pride, and between flaunt feudal banners. (Four lines, rhyming alternately.)

Whate'er befall, I hold it true; when I sorrow most, I feel it; -better than never to have loved at all, 'tis to have loved and lost. (Tennysonian Stanza.)

Rhythm.

TOPICAL ANALYSIS.

Prose and poetry distinguished, p. 627.

Definition of rhythm, p. 627.

Critics differ as to whether poetry must be rhythmical, p. 630. VERSIFICATION, p. 633.

English verse, p. 633.

RHYME, p. 633.

Rules for Rhyme, p. 633

a. Vowel sounds and final consonants, p. 633.

b. Accent of rhyming syllables, p. 633.

c. Penultimate syllables, p. 633.

d. Antepenultimate syllables, 633.

Words are changed to meet the requirements of rhythm :

1. By contraction, p. 634.

2. By expansion, p. 634.

Measures, p. 635.

a. Iambic, p. 635.
b. Trochaic, p. 636.
c. Anapastic, p. 636.
Dactyls, p 636.
The pause, p. 636.
Variety is given by:

a. Introducing other feet, p. 636.
b. Appending syllables, p. 636.

c. Contracting the first foot, p. 637.

d. Varying the pause, p. 637.

e. Combining verses of different lengths, p. 637.

f. Introducing broken verses, p. 637.

Irregular measure, p. 638.

Heroic measure, p. 639.

The elegiac stanza, p. 640.

The Spenserian stanza, p. 640.

The sonnet, p. 640.

Romantic measure, p. 641.

The Tennysonian stanza, p. 641.

Iambic trimeters, p. 641.

Ballads and hymns, p. 642.

Anapæstic measure, p. 642.

Exercises, p. 643.

GENERAL INDEX.

ABBREVIATIONS: cr. stands for criticised; q. stands for quoted.