14. In lyric poetry, where we are no longer guided by the strict form, as in iambic pentameter, it is not always easy to catch the rhythm on the first reading. The opening lines may not be so determinate in emphasis as to fix the character of the metre. In such cases, it is necessary to read one or more stanzas, to get the movement intended. Thus :

Down toward the twilight drifting.

Toward is accented on the first syllable according to the dictionaries, and may be pronounced as either one or two syllables. It may be esteemed so unimportant, compared with down, as to lose its accent in comparison. So we might suppose either of the following readings:

Dówn tow'rd thě | twilight | drifting, |

Down tów'rd | the twi | light dríft | ing. |

But reading the whole stanza we find the movement to be different from either of these:

Só we'll gó no | móre a- | róving. |

But we find that Byron intended:

So we'll go no móre | a-róv | ing,
So láte | intó | the night, | etc.

16. Once more:

One word is too often profaned,

is not especially rhythmical if read:

Óne word is tóo óften profáned;

In its connection, however, it becomes :

Ŏne word is too óf | těn profáned |

For mé to profáne | it;

One féeling too fálse | ly disdained |
For thée to disdáin | it.

-Shelley.

17. So, even in iambic pentameter, a line may seem entirely. unrhythmical, if we fail to feel the emphasis as it lay in the mind of the writer. Thus, in Milton:

'Tis true I am that spirit unfortunate,

will seem like prose if thus accented:

'Tis trúe | I ăm | that spír | It unfór | tǎnǎte. |

Throw the emphasis, however, on am as the sense requires, and it becomes at once rhythmical, if we remember that spirit is frequently one syllable in the poets:

'Tis trúe | I ăm | that spir't | unfór | tunăte. |

18. The following extract from Ruskin illustrates this discrimination in emphasis:

"A true master-poet invariably calculates on his verse being first read as prose would be; and on the reader's being pleasantly surprised by finding that he has fallen unawares into music.

I said there was naething I hated like men!
-The deil gae wi' him, to believe me.

"The only doubtful accent in this piece of entirely prosaic and straightforward expression is on the him, and this accent depends on the context. Had the sentiment been, for instance, 'He's gaen the deil gae wi' him,' the accent would probably have been on the w. But here, the speaker is intent on fastening the fault on her lover instead of on herself; and the accent comes therefore full on the him, if only the reader understands completely the sense of what he is reading."

19. But that there may be difference of opinion as to emphasis and expression, may be seen by the exceptions taken by Mr. Hodgson to the judgment of Mr. Ruskin, in certain instances. Mr. Ruskin accents the first line of Tennyson's well-known stanza, as follows, and I think the common instinct would agree with him :

Come in to the gár | den, Máud, |

For the black | bat night | has flown; |

for the general rhythm of the lyric is undoubtedly anapæstic. But Mr. Hodgson says: "I should read the first and third lines with a strong stress on Come, and on the first syllable of garden, leaving everything else more or less unstressed. The lover is eager for her to come; he is waiting at the gate; she is in the house. He wants her to come to him where he is waiting: Come; - don't delay. Emphasizing into contrasts his wish, not with delay, but with get out of the garden."

20. This last sentence affords a good occasion to illustrate the principle that there may be all degrees of difference of stress without affecting the general flow of the rhythm. Mr. Hodgson understands Mr. Ruskin as intending to throw strong emphasis upon into, as if to contrast it with out of; which would indeed show a ridiculous nervousness on the part of the lover. Whereas the ordinary accent of into, with the slight preponderence of stress upon the first syllable, is sufficient to give the rhythmical effect intended. This is one of the principles which need special consideration in the study of verse: that it is the alternation between stressed and unstressed syllables which determines the rhythm, without reference to the difference of emphasis among the stressed syllables themselves. This difference of emphasis may result in phrasing, which has already been described as an additional effect, superimposed upon the fundamental flow of the verse.

21. Another example is from "In Memoriam :"

Or that the past will always win

A glory from its being far,

And orb into the perfect star

We saw not when we moved therein.

Mr. Ruskin says: "If the reader has intelligence enough to put the accent on the Or, and be of being, the verse comes right; but imagine the ruin to it if a merely formal reader changed the first line into a regular iambic by putting the accent on that!"

Mr. Hodgson replies: "My intelligence is not enough, I confess, to make me put the accent on the be of being, though it is adequate to the Or. To put the stress on the be of being is to make logic of the verse, and bad logic into the bargain. The true stress is on far. That gives an imaginative picture of the receding past. Whereas, to lay stress on being is to give an argument for the past winning a glory, and a bad argument to boot, because much of the past is very nearyesterday, for instance."

PART II. - FORMS.

CHAPTER XI.

THE MORE USUAL FORMS OF ENGLISH VERSE.

1. HAVING now seen the great variety, both in rhythm and metre, of which English verse is capable, we are led to inquire whether there is any law in this variety, and whether there are any forms which are especially suited to the genius of the people.

To answer the first of these questions, it is necessary to take a brief glance at the history of English metre. Three periods have been distinguished in its development.

2. First, the Anglo-Saxon period. Its distinguishing features are the predominance of the accented syllable and the use of couplets. All else is unimportant. In each half of the couplet are two strong accents, made more prominent still by alliteration; while the unaccented syllables, few or many in number, run on like prose, hastily uttered. In the poem of "Beowulf" the accents come "short, sharp-sounding, each like a sword-blow." In other than war songs, there might be six or seven accents to a couplet.

3. Then comes a transition period. The Norman influence begins to be felt, modifying the intense energy of the Saxon. The contrast between the accented and unaccented syllables is