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represent conclusiveness, therefore confidence, assurance;

e. g.:

There no sigh of memory swelleth ;

There no tear of misery welleth ;

Past is all the cold world's scorning,

Gone the night and broke the morning.

-Hymn: Anon.

Here again, too, is anticipation, expectancy, hope :

Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer,

Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here;
Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast,
And a heart and a hand all thine own to the last.

-Come, Rest, etc.: Moore.

And here, conclusiveness, confidence, assurance :

Come in the evening, or come in the morning;

Come when you 're looked for, or come without warning;
Kisses and welcome you 'll find here before you,

And the oftener you come here, the more I'll adore you.
-The Welcome: T. Davis.

This again, like the rising inflection, represents in decision, doubt:

That men with knowledge merely played,

I told thee-hardly nigher made,
Though scaling slow from grade to grade;

Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind,
Named man, may hope some truth to find,
That bears relation to the mind.

-Two Voices: Tennyson.

And this, corresponding to the falling inflection, represents so much decision and disregard of doubtful considerations as to seem flippant :

Ah, but traditions, inventions,

(Say we and make up a visage,)

So many men with such various intentions,

Down the past ages must know more than this age!
Leave the web all its dimensions !

-Master Hugues of Saxe-Gotha: Browning.

The old fashioned narrative that dealt with facts, concerning which one could be decided and sure, could find a satisfactory expression in the hexameter; e. g. :

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it Leaped like the roe when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman ?

-Evangeline: Longfellow.

But the present age is analytic. Its narratives deal with motives, concerning which no one can be sure. Is this one reason why we prefer a more indecisive, hesitating movement? as in our heroic metre:

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world and all our woe, etc.

-Paradise Lost: Milton.

Or that we feel, instinctively, that the more decisive metre is fitter for the mock heroic?—

Tell me whither I may hie me-tell me, dear one, that I may know,
Is it up the highest Andes? down a horrible volcano ?

-Ferdinando and Elvira: Gilbert.

Or for the pathetic,-in a case like this, in which the very decisiveness of the mood, the remorseless assurance of being right, that is conveyed by the style, enhances the effect? Notice it:

One more unfortunate,
Weary of breath,

Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death.

-Bridge of Sighs: Hood.

CHAPTER X.

POETIC PITCH-MELODY AND RHYME.

Variety and Monotony in Elocution and Poetry representing less or more Control over Self and the Subject-True Significance of Alliteration, Assonance, etc.-Rhyme introducing Element of Sameness-Increases effects of Versification, of Unity of Poetic Form, of Emphasis of all Kinds, of Regularity of Movement, of Rapidity of Thought-Results of Changing the Order of the Occurrence of Rhymes in Tennyson's In Memoriam-Blank Verse admitting of Great Variety Preferable for Long Productions.

PASSING on now, to consider the poetic analogues for

variety and monotony in elocutionary melody, it will be recognized at once that the first is found in verse in which the sounds differ greatly, and the second in that in which they are very similar. The following, therefore, corresponding to varied melody, represent, and very appropriately, too, a buoyant, unrestrained mood, in which the soul is exercising very little control over either itself or its modes of expression (see page 95):

Her feet beneath her petticoat
Like little mice stole in and out,

As if they feared the light:
But oh, she dances such a way
No sun upon an Easter-day

Is half so fine a sight!

-Ballad upon a Wedding: Suckling.

Hast thou seen the down in the air,

When wanton blasts have tossed it?

Or the ship on the sea.

When ruder winds have crossed it?

-Lute Song: Suckling.

When Israel marched along the desert land,
Blazed through the night on lonely wilds afar,
And told the path-a never setting star :
So, heavenly Genius in thy course divine,
Hope is thy star, her light is ever thine.

-Pleasures of Hope: Campbell.

And the following, in which there is much alliteration (i. e., repetition of the same consonant-sounds), and assonance (i. e., repetition of the same vowel-sounds), represent a very high degree of restraint on the part of the soul, and control exercised over itself and its modes of expression.

Lo, the leader in these glorious wars,
Now to glorious burial slowly borne,
Followed by the brave of other lands,
He on whom from both her open hands;
Lavish honor showered all her stars,

And affluent fortune emptied all her horn.

-Ode on Duke of Wellington: Tennyson.

More strong than strong disaster,

For fate and fear too strong;

Earth's friend, whose eyes look past her,

Whose hands would purge of wrong;

Our lord, our light, our master,

Whose word sums up all song.

-Garden of Cymodoce: Swinburne.

These quotations, and the principle they illustrate, show us the true significance of passages in which we find grouped the same sounds, as in assonance and alliteration just mentioned; or similar sounds, as in poetic gradation (i. e., a series of vowels all different, in which each is at the smallest remove of all from the one following it), and syzygy (i. e., a combination of consonants easy to pro

nounce). All these sprang, originally, from that tendency at the basis of all art-construction, to bring together, as a result of comparison, things that are alike or allied. But their significance, which alone concerns us at present, is this if no attention whatever be paid to the succession of vowels and consonants; if those combined be arranged so that they cannot be pronounced easily and smoothly, the verses appear devoid of art, the chief effect of which is to reduce that with which it has to deal to order and form. In the following, for instance, the writer manifests no control over his own powers of expression or his ideas. He presumably meant to give them an artistic form, but as arranged they produce no artistic effect.

Numerous were the friends that gathered,

When in the good ship "Hibernia
They weighed anchor in the harbor
Of the Metropolitan City.

It would take too long to narrate

All the many things that happened

In their voyage across the ocean.

"

-Sketches of Palestine: Hammond.

If, on the contrary, the writer has made too much of qualities like assonance and alliteration, the impression conveyed is that of too much suppression and control. There seems to be no spontaneity in his work. The following produces, as is its intention, an artificial effect.

Holofernes, I will somewhat affect the letter, for it argues facility:
The preyful Princess pierced and prick'd a pretty pleasing pricket;
Some say a sore; but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting.
-Love's Labor's Lost, iv., 2: Shakespear.

Swinburne is sometimes almost equally artificial.

His eyes gat grace of sleep, to see

The deep divine dark day-shine of the sea,
Dense water-walls and clear dusk water-ways,

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