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Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
And every sense and every heart is joy.

Q. What do you mean by Rhyme ?

A. Poetry in which, besides the measured arrangement of the words, there is a recurrence of similar sounds at the end of certain lines.

Q. Can you exemplify this?

A. "Order is Heaven's first law; and this confest,
Some are, and must be, greater than the rest,
More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence,
That such are happier, shocks all common sense.'

Q. What do you call two successive lines rhyming together? A. A couplet; while three, under similar circumstances, are called a triplet; as,

"Honor and shame from no condition rise;

Act well your part, there all the honor lies."
Four limpid fountains from the cliffs distill
And every fountain pours a several rill,
In mazy windings wandering down the hill;
Where blooms with vivid green were crown'd,
And glowing violets cast their odors round."

Q. What do you mean by imperfect rhymes?

A. Rhymes in which the sounds in certain syllables make merely an approach to each other, but are not perfectly alike; as,

"Shall only man be taken in the gross?

Grant but as many sorts of mind as moss."

Q. What do you mean by double rhymes?

A. Rhymes which occur both in the middle and at the end of the same verse, as well as in the final syllables of different verses; as,

"You, bustling and justling,
Forget each grief and pain;
listless yet restless,

Find every prospect vain."

Q. What do you understand by the term stanza?

A. A certain arrangement of verses in which the rhymes do not take place in successive lines, but in such as are placed at some distance from each other;

as,

N

"Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb

The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar!
Ah! who can tell how many a soul sublime
Hath felt the influence of malignant star,
And waged with Fortune an eternal war;
Check'd by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown,
And Poverty's unconquerable bar,

In life's low vale remote hath pined alone,

Then dropp'd into the grave, unpitied and unknown!'

Q. What is the shortest stanza in our language?

A. That which consists of four lines or verses, sometimes with only the second and fourth lines forming a rhyme, and sometimes with the first and third also; as,

"O thou Great Being! what thou art

Surpasses me to know;

Yet sure I am, that known to thee
Are all thy works below."

"How smiling wakes the verdant year,

Array'd in velvet green;

How glad the circling fields appear,

That bound the blooming scene!"

Q. What may be conceived as the origin of rhyme ?

A. The pleasure which the ear feels in the recurrence of similar sounds; so that rhyme and alliteration, as well as poetry itself, have all a common origin.

Q. Are rhyme and blank verse alike adapted to all sorts of subjects?

A. Rhyme is best fitted for light and familiar subjects; blank verse for those which are of a graver and more dignified character.

Q. Do blank verse and rhyme equally prevail in all languages? A. No; in Greek and Latin, rhyme is almost unknown; in French and Italian, there is hardly such a thing as blank verse; while in English, they are nearly alike prevalent. [See Montgomery on Poetry, p 109-113.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE STRUCTURE OF VERSE.

'Q. 'On what does the Structure of Verse chiefly depend? A. On a certain arrangement of words, or syllables, called poetic feet.

Q. How do a certain number and variety of syllables get the name of feet?

A. Because it is chiefly by their means that the voice steps, as it were, along the verse, dividing it into distinct portions, which constitute what is called

measure.

Q. Can you illustrate this by example?

A.

"But Hope can here | her moonlight vigils keep,

And sing to charm the spirit of the deep."

Q. On what do these poetic feet depend?

A. With us they depend principally upon accent; among the Greeks and Romans, they depended altogether upon quantity, one long syllable being equal to two short ones.

Q. In what respect, therefore, may all syllables be viewed with regard to poetry?

A. Either as long and short, or as accented and unaccented.

Q. Do accent and quantity ever coincide?

A. They always do so when the accent falls upon a vowel, which causes the syllable to be long as well as accented; as grateful, polite.

Q. How many kinds of poetic feet are there?

A. Two those having but two syllables, and those having three.

Q. What are the feet that have each only two syllables? A. The Trochee, the Iambus, the Spondee, and the Pyrrhic.

Q. What are those which have three each?

A. The Dactyl, the Amphibrach, the Anapæst, and the Tribrach.

Q. Can you explain the feet consisting of two syllables each? A. The trochee has the first syllable accented, and the second unaccented; the iambus the first unaccented, and the second accented; the spondee, both accented; and the pyrrhic, both unaccented; as, boldněss; dělight; pale sūns; on it.

Q. Can you explain the trisyllabic feet, or those which have three syllables each?

A. The dactyl has the first syllable accented, and the second and third unaccented; the amphibrach the first and third unaccented, and the second accented; the anapæst the first and second unaccented, and the

third accented; and the tribrach the whole three unaccented; as, rēgălăr; dētērmine; cõuntĕrvăil: measărăblĕ.

Q. Do these feet admit of any other division?

A. Yes; they are divided into those called principal, and those called secondary feet.

Q. What are the principal feet?

A. The Iambus, the Trochee, the Dactyl, and the Anapæst while the Spondee, the Pyrrhic, the Amphibrach, and the Tribrach, are the secondary.

Q. Why are the former called principal feet?

A. Because that of them alone, or, at least chiefly, whole poems may be formed.

Q. Why are the others called secondary feet?

A. Because they never either wholly or chiefly form whole poems, but are merely mixed with the other feet, for the sake of varying the measure or movement of the verse.

CHAPTER IX.

OF VARIETIES OF VERSE.

Q. How are different kinds of verse denominated? A. According to the particular kind of feet of which it is either wholly or principally formed; as, Iambic, Trochaic, Dactylic, and Anapæstic verse.

Q. How many sorts of iambic verse are there?

A. Chiefly four, according as it consists of two, three, four, or five feet.

Q. Can you illustrate these different kinds of Iambic verse by examples?

A. 1. "With ravished ears

The monarch hears,

Assumes tho gōd,

Affects to nōd,

2. And seems to shake the spheres."

3. "And now when busy crowds retire

2.

3.

To take their evening rest,
The hermit trimm'd his little fire
2. And cheer'd his pensive guest."

"Yė friends to truth, yě stātesměn, who survey
The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay,
"Tis yours to judge how wide the limits stand
Between ǎ splendid and ǎ hāppy lānd."

Q. What is this last species called?

A. Heroic measure, and is the most common species of verse in the English language.

Q. Does iambic verse never consist of more than five feet? A. Occasionally it takes six, and is then called Alexandrine measure, the chief use of which is to give variety to the other species of iambic verse.

Q. When is the Alexandrine measure commonly introduced? A. Chiefly at the close of a poem, a paragraph, or a stanza, of heroic measure; as,

"The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away!
But fix'd his word, his saving power remains;

Thy realm forever lāsts, thy own Messiah reigns!"

Q. What is done with iambic verse consisting of seven feet? A. It is divided into two lines or verses, the one containing three, the other four feet; as,

66

Alas! by some degree of wō,

Wě ev'ry bliss must gain;

The heart căn neer a transpört khôw,
That never knew ǎ pāin."

Q. What is the next most common species of verse! A. The Anapastic, which may consist of two, three, or four feet; as,

"In my rage shall be seen

The revenge of ǎ quéén."

"Not ǎ pine in my grōve is there seen,
But with tendrils of woodbine is bound;

Not ǎ bééch is more beautiful green,

But ǎ sweet-brièr entwines it around."

“May I gōvěrn mỹ pāssions with absolute sway, And grow wiser or better ǎs life wears ǎway," Q. Is anapæstic verse a common species of poetry? A. Pretty common for short poems, but seldom used in poems of any length.

Q. Is there much fine trochaic and dactylic verse?

A. Very little; for, though often found mixed up with iambic or anapæstic verse, neither is much used by itself.

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