With Practical and Comprehensive Instructions for Composing Verses and Finding the Proper Rhymes.

AS MOST persons are given, at some period of their lives, to writing poetry, it seems not inappropriate to devote a portion of this work to a few practical remarks upon that subject.

Poetry is the language of the imagination. The idea generally entertained that it consists in the writing of rhymes, and in the proper arrangement of the verses and words employed, is erroneous. Verses may be arranged with the most precise skill, so that the keenest critic shall be unable to detect a flaw in their construction, and yet may not be poetry. On the other hand, a prose composition may be rich in the truest poetry. The words or verses are but the dress in which the thought is clothed. It is the thought, the idea, or the picture painted by the imagination that is poetry. The famous expression of Menon, "Like the sandal-tree, which sheds a perfume on the axe which fells it, we should love our enemies," though written in prose, is poetic in the highest degree. This distinction of the poetic principle should be carefully borne in mind by those who aspire to write verse.

The usual form of poetry is verse, and it is most common to adorn it with rhyme.

Versification is the art of making verses The word stanza is frequently used for verse, but improperly so. A verse consists of a single line. A stanza consists of a number of lines regularly adjusted to each other. We may, then, define a verse as a line consisting of a certain succession of long and short syllables. The half of a verse is called a hemistich. Two lines or verses constitute a distich, or couplet.

The standard by which verse is measured is called metre. the number of the syllables and the position of the accents.

This depends on

In order to regulate the proper succession of long and short syllables, verses are divided into certain measures, called feet. This term is applied because the voice, in repeating the lines, steps along, as it were, in a kind of measured This division into feet depends entirely upon what is called the quantity of the syllables; that is, whether they are long or short, without reference to the words.

Two kinds of verse are used by poets-rhyme and blank verse. Rhyme is characterized by a similarity of sound at the end of certain definitely arranged 'ines. For example:

Blank verse is a combination of lines that do not rhyme. It was the earliest form of poetry used, and the only form attempted in Europe until the Middle Ages, when the minstrels and poets of that period introduced the novelty of rhyme. It is used principally in dramatic compositions, descriptive and heroic poems, and the like.

The following, from Shakspeare's play of "As You Like It," is a fair sample of blank verse:

"I have neither the scholar's melancholy,
Which is emulation; nor the musician's,
Which is fantastical, nor the courtier's,
Which is pride; nor the soldier's, which is
Ambition; nor the lawyer's, which is politic;
Nor the lady's, which is nice; nor the lover's,
Which is all of these; but it is a melancholy
Of mine own; compounded of many simples,
Extracted from many objects, and, indeed,
The sundry contemplation of my travels;
In which my often rumination wraps me
In a most humorous sadness."

Accent and Feet.

A foot may sometimes consist of a single word, or, again, it may comprise two or three different words, or be composed of parts of different words.

In English verse, eight kinds of feet are employed.

wo syllables, and four are feet of three syllables.

Four of these are feet of

The feet composed of two syllables are the Trochee, the Iambus, the Spondee, and the Pyrrhic. Those consisting of three syllables are the Dactyle, the Amphibrach, the Anapæst, and the Tribrach.

The Trochee is composed of one long and one short syllable; as, glōry.
The Iambus consists of one short syllable and one long one; as, bētrāy.

The Spondee is composed of two long syllables; as, high day.

The Pyrrhic is composed of two short syllables; as, on the dry land.

The Dactyle is composed of one long syllable and two short ones; as, hōlinėss, quietly.

The Amphibrach is composed of a short, a long, and a short syllable; as, delightful, removal, còstúměr.

The Anapest is composed of two short syllables and a long one; as, còntrăvène, sèpărăte.

The Tribrach is composed of three short syllables; as, hăppiness.

The Iambus, the Trochee, the Anapest, and the Dactyle are most frequently used, and verses may be composed wholly or chiefly of them. The others are termed "secondary feet," because they are used only to vary the harmony of the verse.

English verse is divided into four classes, distinguished by the feet of which each is composed, viz.: the Iambic, the Trochaic, the Anapæstic, and the Dactylic. Some writers hold that the Dactylic is not, strictly speaking, a distinct division, but is nothing more than the Anapastic with the first two unaccented syllables omitted.

"Every species of English verse," says Parker, "regularly terminates with an accented syllable; but every species also admits at the end an additional unaccented syllable, producing (if the verse be in rhyme) a double rhyme; that is, a rhyme extending to two syllables, as the rhyme must always commence on the accented syllable. This additional syllable often changes the character of the verse from grave to gay, from serious to jocose; but it does not affect the measure or rhyme of the preceding part of the verse. A verse thus lengthened is called hypermeter, or over meter."

Specimens of the Various Styles.

Different kinds of feet frequently occur in all the different kinds of verse; but it is not always possible to determine them with accuracy. The Iambus, the Trochee, the Spondee, and the Pyrrhic are easily recognizable; but the Dactyle, the Anapest, and the Tribrach are not so readily discriminated, as poetic license allows the writer to make the foot in question a Trochee, a Spondee, or a Pyrrhic.

Jambic Verse.

Pure Iambic verse is composed of Iambusses alone. The accent is uniformly on the even syllables. We give below specimens of the various feet used in writing this style of verse:

Five feet.

Six feet.

Seven feet.

While to his arms | the blush | ing bride | he took,

To seeming | sadness she | composed | her look.

The day is past | and gone; | the ev | 'ning shades | appear.

When all thy mer | cies, O | my God, | my ris | ing soul | surveys,

Transport | ed with | the sight, | I'm lost | in wond | er, love, | and praise.

NOTE. This style of verse is rarely written as above in modern poetry, but is divided into four lines, as follows:

Eight feet.

Glory

When all thy mer | cies, O | my God,

My rising soul | surveys,

Transport | ed with | the sight, | I'm lost

In wonder, love, | and praise.

hee, | my God, | this night, | for all the blessings of the light: Keep me, | O keep | me, King | of kings, | under | thy own, almighty wings.

In Trochaic verse the accent is uniformly on the odd syllables.

One foot.

Two feet.

Three feet.

Four feet.

Five feet.

Six feet.

Seven feet.

Shining,
Twining.

Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure,

Go where | glory | waits thee,
Yet when fame e | lates thee.

Stars from out the | skies are | peeping,
Nature | now is | softly | sleeping.

Ye that do des | pise the | lowly | worker.

Farewell, brethren! | farewell, | sisters! | I am | dying!

Once upon a midnight | dreary, | while I | ponder'd | weak and | weary

Anapæstic Verse.

The accent in Anapæstic verse is upon the last syllable.