of a sort occurring alternately, the chain of rhyme is continuous-hence chain-rhyme might serve as its appellation. It is as if the verses were in triplets, and the mean of one trio became the extreme of the next. No original poem has been written in English in this measure : About the middle of life's onward way, The next is an instance of blank verse arrangement in union with couplet rhyme, this latter being, as it were, supernumerary, not controlling the movement of the verse in the least: A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. A flowery band to bind us to the earth, The following is an example of the same length line, treated with regard to its pauses and construction like blank verse, but still rhymed at irregular distances: My life was at its end—I died; My last fond prayer was breathed to heaven for him, To yonder star, where happiest spirits bide In sunshine everlasting, and in bliss Whose heavenly splendour never may grow dim. Six-foot.-The couplet of this length was used by Drayton and Chapman for the same purpose as the heroic verse, which later drove it out of fashion. It forms a measure with an ancient quaintness somewhat rude :— But when the approaching foes still following, he perceives Note here the difference between the pause of sense and the pause of rhythm. In the first line the sense requires a stop at 'following,' the rhythm would place it at foes,' and at the end of the line. Again, in the fourth verse, the stop after the word 'follows' is almost disregarded, the real cesura occurring mid-line after horse.' The like observation may be made in the eighth line. In five-foot verse there is no divergence between the cesura and stop, the pause in sense coinciding with the other, and indeed determining its position; but here, owing to the greater length of line, the rhythmic force has become so much stronger that the sentential pause must conform more to the rhythmic, or suffer for it by partial or total neglect in pronunciation. Seven-foot is the longest form of march metre ever found, and that but rarely, it being commonly divided into the ballad form of four and three, already given. As used by Chapman in his translation of the Iliad, this measure would seem obsolete; but so much depends on the handling that in Macaulay's 'Armada' it seems as modern as any : The king is come to marshal us in all his armour drest, He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high. For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray, Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war; And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre.' It is perhaps advisable to give a few instances of the use of double rhyme, as it modifies the expression of the verse considerably, adding to it a syllable over measure. Even independently of rhyme, this feature is always noticeable: Come ye so early, Days of delight? Blithesome and bright? Merrily, merrily, Little brooks rush, Down by the meadow Under the bush.-AYTOUN. The odd syllable over seen to occur alternately throughout adds much to the quickness of the measure wherever introduced; in so short a specimen doubly so, almost taking the sample out of march metre altogether into another group, for it is at once apparent that if the verses were written in couplet form, the last foot would from this cause be quick regularly. Couplet use of double rhyme occurring constantly is rare:— When from our ships we bounded, It drifted in our faces; It drifted dealing slaughter, And blood ran out like water.-G. BORROW. The sweetness of a lyric often greatly depends on this insignificant particular of double rhyme, but the close of any verse goes for much in the mental impression : Hugged in the clinging billows' clasp, From seaweed fringe to mountain heather, Her slender handful holds together; HOLMES (American). It is not meant to imply that this form gives sweetness, but that it imparts a certain heightening effect to the ground tone; in the next and closing example, it is rather force and sublimity :-- O Lord! who art our God, perfection's splendour, As runs the fawn from the bright, cooling fountains, V. TRIPPING METRE. TURNING now to the consideration of the metre, denominated tripping from the pace at which it moves, composed wholly of two-syllabled feet, with the accent on the first, it will be found much the same phenomena are repeated as in verses of the forward run, only on a less complete and elaborate scale. In this metre, battling up, as it were, against the stream of speech, the accents are endowed with a greater average of distinctness than in the opposite run. Nothing of the nature of the hover is met with, every successive step being invariably accented, whether falling on words ordinarily capable on not. In the unrhymed form this metre seems to incline most naturally to a length of four feet, best known by Longfellow's admirable poem of 'Hiawatha':— Dównward through the| évening | twilight, In the days that are for gotten, From the full moon | fell Nokomis, She was sporting with her women, Cut the leafy swing asunder, Cut in twain the twisted grape vines, And Nokomis fell affrighted Downward through the evening twilight, On the muskoday, the meadow, On the prairie, full of blossoms. See, a star falls! said the people; From the sky a star is falling! This, the blank verse of the tripping metre, has a daintiness about it which is most pleasing, requiring no prophet to |