And in her many troubles | did most pleasure take.

Wrapt in eternal silence | far from enemies.

SPENSER.

SPENSER.

where the pause comes after the seventh syllable but does not affect the harmony of the verse.

Be the case as it may with alexandrines, in iambic verses of five feet there is no metrical pause, that is, no pause without which the verse would not be verse. The poet is at liberty to introduce what pause or pauses he pleases, and where he pleases. He constructs his poetical phrase according to the metre, and with a view to harmony, and he may, by a skilful grouping of his words, with any pauses or breaks on the lines that are consistent with the sense, and the effect he endeavours to produce, compose very melodious verse.

Here are a few passages with the pauses marked.

Early, before the morn || with crimson ray
The windows of bright heaven || opened had,
Through which | into the world || the dawning day
Might look, || that maketh every creature glad,
Uprose Sir Guyon, || in bright armour clad,
And to his purposed journey || him prepared :
With him the Palmer eke || in habit sad
Himself addressed || to that adventure hard :
So to the river's side || they both together fared.
SPENSER.

The pause marked here in each verse by two strokes is what Lord Kames calls the capital pause. When there are more than one, the less perceptible pause, or pauses, he calls sub-pauses. The capital pause (when there are more than one, it is not always easy to decide which is the principal), occurs, in the verses just quoted

after the fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh syllable, except in the last verse, which is an alexandrine and is, divided according to the French rule.

The joyous birds, || shrouded in cheerful shade,
Their notes unto the voice || attempered sweet;
The angelical soft trembling voices || made
To the instruments divine || respondence meet;
The silver-sounding instruments || did meet
With the base murmur || of the waters' fall;
The waters' fall || with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, || unto the wind did call;
The gentle warbling wind || low answerèd to all.
SPENSER.

Here the pause occurs in two places in which it did not occur in the preceding passage; it divides the third verse after the ninth syllable, and in the fifth verse it comes after the eighth syllable.

Thus with the year

Seasons return; || but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, || or summer's rose,
or herds, || or human face divine.

Or flocks,

MILTON.

First in his east || the glorious lamp was seen,
Regent of day, || and all the horizon round

Invested with bright rays, || jocund to run

His longitude through heaven's high road; || the gray
Dawn, and the Pleiades, || before him danced,

Shedding sweet influence.

MILTON.

These examples, added to the former, sufficiently show that English poets are restricted by no laws in the use they make of pauses in their verse, and the student has

only to read the works of the greatest English poets, and indeed of many who are not classed among the greatest, to discover what an admirable use they have made of their liberty in this respect and in some others. Let him study this passage, among many, of Milton.

Now came still evening on, and twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale.
She all night long her amorous descant sung:
Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the Moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

VIII

RHYME

Rhyme, that similarity of sound in the final syllables of two or more successive lines, is not at all indispensable to English verse. Milton, Thomson, Young, Cowper, Shelley, Wordsworth, and many other poets, have written long poems without rhyme; Collins, Southey, and others have composed verses without rhyme in lyrical poetry; and in dramatic verse rhyme is very rarely used. Most short poems, however, are rhymed, and the greater number of long ones.

For the rhyme to be correct, the final syllables of the lines which rhyme together must have the same vowel sound, and if this vowel sound is followed by a consonant sound, simple or complex, it must be exactly the same in the corresponding lines. Thus, praise and days; high, and lie; nest and blessed are good rhymes. Whatever difference there may be in the spelling, provided the sound is the same, the rhyme is good. Love and grove, notwithstanding the similarity in the spelling, are bad rhymes; so are wood and flood.

So are the following, and they are to be found, alas! in Keats, thorns, fawns; thoughts, sorts; Thalia, higher.

ON THE STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH VERSE

75

Though Keats has used them, they are none the less detestable rhymes, the more so that they countenance the vulgar cockney pronunciation of sort, thorn, higher, as sawt, thawn, highah, substituting in all such words aw for or, and ah for er, a pronunciation unfortunately tolerated in too many schools. Such false rhymes as giving, live in, should be avoided, for they also countenance the substitution of n for ng in giving, lying, singing, and other similar words, degrading them into the vulgar givin, lyin, singin.

The seat of the rhyme is the last accented syllable of the verse, and when that syllable is followed by another unaccented one, this unaccented syllable should be identically the same in the verses that rhyme together, as in wěnded and blended, highly and drily,

In comic verse there are sometimes two unaccented syllables after the last accented one, and in this case both these syllables must be the same respectively in the corresponding lines; grávity rhymes thus with suavity; and docility with humility, in these lines of Byron.

He liked the gentle Spaniard for his gravity;
He almost honoured him for his docility;

Because, though young, he acquiesced with suávity,
Or contradicted but with proud humility.

We have now to examine the use made of rhyme by English poets.

In long poems the verses are mostly written in couplets; that is, they rhyme two by two. Pope rarely uses any other than iambic verses of five feet rhyming in this manner. This measure is called the heroic couplet, because it is used in heroic or epic poetry. It is, however, employed in short poems as well.