The methods of avoiding monotony most often to be observed are the use of double and treble rimes, the shifting of the pause which occurs toward the middle of a line and the interchange of one foot for another at exactly that point in the line where the substitution helps to bring out the thought. Sometimes as we have already seen these substitutions may be so ' free and so frequent that we are almost in doubt whether a rhythm is really iambic or anapestic, -as in this stanza from a ballad of Scott's:

Oh! I lo'e weel my Charlie's name,
Though some there be that abhor him;
But oh! to see the deil gang hame
Wi' a' the whigs before him!

[] Over the water, and over the sea,

And over the water to Charlie;

Come weal, come wo, we'll gather and go,

And live and die with Charlie.

Here there is no question but that the result is pleasing to the ear; and while we may choose to mark off the iambs and the anapests for our own information, their intermingling matters little. As King James declared more than three centuries ago, 66 your ear must be the only judge and discerner." What the poet needs above all else is a natural ear for the tunes of verse. Without this, he will unceasingly blunder

and annoy us with the harshness of his lines. With it, he has the root of the matter in him; and he can then go forward resolutely to acquire an added skill in handling the subtleties of metrical technic. "For if Nature be not the chief worker in this art," to quote from King James once more, "rules will be but a band to Nature, and will make you within a short space weary of the whole art; whereas if Nature be chief and bent to it, rules will be a help and staff to Nature."

CHAPTER IV

RIME

Whate'er you write of, pleasant or sublime,
Always let sense accompany your rime;
Falsely they seem each other to oppose,
Rime must be made with reason's law to close;
And when to conquer her you bend your force,
The mind will triumph in the noble cause; ce
To reason's yoke she quickly will incline,
Which, far from hurting, renders her divine.

BOILEAU, Art of Poetry (as translated by Soame). In all modern languages poetry is generally rimed; and even in English, in spite of our possession of blank verse, a metrical instrument of surpassing power and variety, most of our verse is in rime. Although there is not yet any absolute agreement upon its rules, we may venture to define rime in English as an identity of the vowel-sound in the last long foot and of all the sounds that follow it, preceded by a difference in the consonant sound that comes before this final long vowel. Thus charm and alarm are rimes, charming and alarming, charmingly and alarmingly. There must be a distinct difference in the consonant sound that precedes; cent and descent, meant and lament are not generally accepted in English as good rimes. Although it would not be difficult to cite from distinguished poets examples of the effort to pass off as rimes pairs of words in which there is no change in the consonant preceding the vowel of the final long syllable, there is an almost unanimous opinion that

X

this is contrary to the best traditions of English poetry. Yet it is only fair to note that Lowell links recompense and expense, Austin Dobson unites Mentor and tormentor, Byron ties together philanthropic and misanthropic. It may be well to mention also that the principle that the accord shall be on the vowel of the final long syllable is violated by Walt Whitman who mates exulting and daring, crowding and turning, and by Poe who conjoins dead and tenanted.

A rime on one syllable only, turn and discern, is called single, or masculine. A rime on two syllables, turning and discerning, is called double, or feminine. A rime on three syllables, beautiful and dutiful, is called triple.

A single rime is the natural termination of iambic and of anapestic rhythms: -]

and

Here was a type of the true elder race,

And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face;

The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold;
His cohorts were gleaming in silver and gold.

The double rime is the natural termination of trochaic rhythms:

And the people-ah, the people,

They that dwell up in the steeple.

And the triple is the natural termination of dactylic rhythms:

Ere her limbs frigidly

Stiffen too rigidly.

But the iambic and anapestic rhythms may have an

added short syllable, and in this case they have double

rimes:

and

The time I've lost in wooing,

In watching and pursuing;

Let the wind take the green and the gray leaf

Cast forth without fruit upon air;

Take rose-leaf and vine-leaf and bay-leaf

Blown loose from the hair.

In like manner the short syllable may be dropped at the end of a trochaic rhythm, and then we have a single rime :

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime, [~]
And departing leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time. [~]

And in a dactylic rhythm either one or both of the short syllables at the end of the line may be omitted, with the result that in the first case we have a double rime and in the second a single rime: —

Still, for all slips of hers,

One of Eve's family -
Wipe those poor lips of hers
Oozing so clammily.
Loop up her tresses [~]

Escaped from the comb, []
Whilst wonderment guesses []

Where was her home? []

Since poetry must be considered always as something to be said or sung, there should be absolute identity of sound in the vowels and consonants which make up a rime. The ear is the judge, not the eye, and therefore identity of spelling is not sufficient. Height does not rime with eight; but it does rime with