Four foot:

Rise, O Muse, in the wrath of thy rapture divine,
And sweep with a finger of awe every line,
Till it tremble and burn as thine own glances burn,
Through the vision thou kindlest! wherein I discern
All the unconscious cruelty hid in the heart
Of mankind; all the limitless grief we impart
Unawares to each other; the limitless wrong
We inflict without heed, as we hurry along
In this boisterous pastime of life. So we toy
With the infinite! So in our sport we destroy, &c.
R. LYTTON.

Six-foot ditto:

And his heart said within him, Alas!

For man dies! if his glory abideth, himself from his glory shall pass. And that which remaineth behind he seeth it not any more.

For how shall he know what comes after, who knoweth not what went before?

I have planted me gardens and vineyards, and gotten me silver and gold, And my hand from whatever my heart hath desired I did not withhold: And what profit have I in the works of my hands which I take not away? I have searched out wisdom and knowledge; and what do they profit me, they?

As the fool dieth, so doth the wise. What is gathered is scattered again, As the breath of the beasts even so is the breath of the children of men: And the same thing befalleth them both. And not any man's soul is his own.-R. LYTTON.

The following are examples of the checked or falling rhythm:

Three-foot :

I arise from dream of thee

In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright:
I arise from dream of thee,

And a spirit in my feet

Has led me-who knows how?

To thy chamber window sweet.-SHELLEY.

Here the quick foot is constantly the first and no other, whence a considerable difference in run between this example and the next, where the sole quick place is the second.

Has sorrow thy young days shaded,
As clouds o'er the morning fleet ?
Too fast have those young days faded,

That even in sorrow were sweet?
Does Time with his cold wing wither
Each feeling that once was dear ?—
Come, child of misfortune! come hither,
I'll weep with thee tear for tear.-MOORE.

Four-foot :

The mistletoe hung in the castle hall,

And the holly branch shone on the old oak wall;
The baron's retainers were blithe and gay,
Keeping their Christmas holiday.

The baron beheld, with a father's pride,
His beautiful child young Lovel's bride.
She with her bright eyes seemed to be
The star of that goodly company.

I am weary of dancing now, she cried,
Yet tarry awhile, I'll hide, I'll hide;
And, Lovel, be sure you are first to trace
The clue to my secret hiding-place.
Away she ran, and her friends began

Each bower to search, and each nook to scan

Here the quick foot, in contrast to the two preceding examples, has free range of the first three feet.

Five-foot:

Through grief and through danger thy smile hath cheered my way,
Till hope seemed to bud from each thorn that round me lay.
The darker our fortune, the brighter our pure love burned;
Till shame into glory, till fear into zeal was turned ;

Yes, slave as I was, in thy arms my spirit felt free,

And blessed even the sorrows that made me more dear to thee.
Thy rival was honoured, whilst thou wert wronged and scorned,
Thy crown was of briars, while gold her brows adorned,
She wooed me to temples, whilst thou lay hid in caves,
Her friends were all masters, while thine, alas! were slaves,
Yet cold in the earth at thy feet I would rather be,

Than wed what I love not, or turn one thought from thee.

F

T. MOORE.

It is not at all pretended that any strict line of division is constantly observed between these classes in practice; indeed, one stanza often differs greatly from another in the same poem. Though the individual lines must necessarily incline one way or the other, when freely intermixed, as in most of the following examples, they may be held to create an independent variety, the changeable.

Four-foot and three:

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
We buried him darkly at dead of night,

The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeams' misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.-WOLFE.

Four-foot:

Svend Vonved bound his sword to his side,
He fain will battle with knights of pride;
So fierce and strange was his whole array,
No mortal ventured to cross his way.
His helm was blinking against the sun,
His spurs were clinking his heels upon,
His horse was springing, with bridle ringing,
While sat the warrior wildly singing.
He rode a day, he rode for three,
No town or city he yet could see;

་

'Ha,' said the youth, by my father's hand,

There is no city in all this land.'-G. BORROW.

Five-foot:

Dread you their haunting, oh man of the world-wise brow ?
These ghosts, would you banish them all away from our earth?
Alas! when I was haunted, the loveless dearth
Never came over my soul that is over it now.
Oh for the beautiful spirits that haunted me

In the long sweet hours of the pallid winter nights,
With the noiseless garb and the tremulous angel-lights,
Lighting my soul, as the sunlight the desolate sea!

Six-foot:

EMILY HICKEY.

Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to sport and splash! In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash On the horses with curling fishtails, that prance and paddle and pash Round the lady atop in the conch-fifty gazers cannot abash,

Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash.

All the year long at the villa, there's nothing to see though you linger, Except yon cypress that points like Death's lean lifted forefinger.

Another variety the same length :—

R. BROWNINĠ.

Here alone with my dead; the sight of a human face (trip two deep)
Makes the pain sharper, I think; so none but the Saviour of Grace
Shall see me, as here I sit with the white-clad motionless form
Of my little son who is dead lying upon my arm.

(trip at cesura)

I have laid him down in the cot that each night used I rock, and spread All the tender flowers I could gather about his head; (trip three deep) Early spring-time it is, so I could only find

Delicate violet-bloom, that shrank from the bitter wind.

EMILY HICKEY.

There is little to be observed of these forms individually or collectively; the applications that they serve are exemplified in the given extracts, songs, ballads, and minor poems in general. Rather as the poet's particular production commends itself to our liking we feel well or ill disposed to the measures employed.

IX.

THE UNRHYMED STAVE.

STAVE or stanza is the general designation for any number of lines connected together on any plan, regular or irregular; stave, as far as any distinction exists, applying more perhaps to the minor forms, stanza to the longer and more elaborate. As opposed to the continuous or leading forms of a metre, the stave exhibits the powers of the same in some settled arrangement, or combination of pattern repeated over and over again.

As on other occasions, our subject must be divided, to begin, into two great branches-the unrhymed and the rhymed-totally dissimilar.

A variation on blank verse, even so slightly different as the next, is not without its metric effect, the mere divisioning followed inclining to a verse-by-verse arrangement; each complete usually in its own sense, brings about a closer unity of the line, which acting as a more definite integer in composition, tends apparently in some degree to quicken the movement-a needful requirement.

The first three lines of the next example are, it will be seen, odd-over regularly, the last strict measure; a greater degree of fixity in this point as well as in others usually attending concretion into the stave, especially where brief:'Son,' thus his father widowed long and aged, Mournfully said, 'The young are never lonely; Solitude's self to them is a boon comrade; Lone are the aged; lone amid the crowd.

Loneliest when brooding o'er a silent hearthstone
Vacant of prattlers, coaxing back to laughter:
Toys to the greybeard are his children's children;
They are to age, my son, as hopes to youth.'
BULWER LYTTON.

In the same volume whence this was taken, 'The Lost Tales of Miletus,' there is another poem 'The Wife of Miletus,'