all: As a piece of versification the one by Shelley is simply a stanza of fourteen heroics, rhyming alternately, with one couplet introduced. The last one is appended more as a literary curiosity, an experiment in monosyllables.

TO WORDSWORTH.

Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know

2.

That things depart which never may return:
Childhood and youth, friendship, and love's first glow,
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine,

Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore,
Thou wert as a lone star whose light did shine
On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar:
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood
Above the blind and battling multitude:
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty.
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,

"

Thus, having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.

MONOSYLLABIC SONNET.

Think not that strength lies in the big round word,
Or that the brief and plain must needs be weak.
For whom can this be true who once has heard
The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak
When want, or woe, or fear is in the throat,

So that each word gasped out is like a shriek
Pressed from the sore heart: or a strange, wild note
Sung by some fay or fiend! There is a strength

Which dies if stretched too far, or spun too fine;

Which has more height than breadth, more depth than length.

Let but this force of thought and speech be mine,
And he that will may take the sleek, fat phrase,
That glows but burns not, though it beam and shine,
Light, but no heat, a flash, but not a flame.*

The student who may desire to enter more fully into this interesting corner of poetic literature will find delight and instruction in the following works :

"A Treasury of English Sonnets," by David M. Main (Alexander Ireland & Co., Manchester, 1880). This is the most complete collection of English Sonnets yet published, and is accompanied by critical notes and extracts of an exhaustive and scholarly character.

"Sonnets of this Century," with a critical introduction by William Sharp, being one of the volumes of the Canterbury Poets. (Walter Scott. London. 1888.)

THE SONG.

PERHAPS the most popular of all forms of verse is the song, and it is easy to understand why this is so. The sentiment embodied in a song is simple, direct, and lies on the surface of our common nature. Love, patriotism, the blended associations of natural beauty with human feelings, the buoyant life and dangers of the deep,-these, and such-like materials of song, are topics that attract the fancy, and appeal to the hearts of all. Again, the song, if it is a good one, is short, its rhythm smooth and exact, its rhymes ring out clear, its words are simple and natural, and, moreover, it is generally wedded to a melody which lingers in the ear long after the sounds have died away. It makes no appeal to the intellect, but it stimulates. the sensuousness of our nature, and thrills into life the dormant phantoms of memory.

to

It does not flavour of the "superior person say that the bulk of human kind do not possess cultivated artistic tastes: a sonnet of Shakspere's or a fugue by Bach would doubtless fall flat on the general ear, while a simple ballad or a pathetic song rarely fails to touch a sympathetic chord, or moisten the eye of the most apathetic listener.

Who has not witnessed the almost electrical effect of The Marseillaise, Rule Britannia, and the Wearing of the Green upon gatherings of the different nationalities!

Song-writing, that to the uninitiated may seem an easy literary effort, is, indeed, one of the most difficult forms of metrical composition to accomplish satisfactorily. Some of our most eminent poets have failed in it entirely, and others have wisely refrained from attempting it. Milton, Pope, and Wordsworth may be cited as proofs of this assertion.

A song should embody some common human sentiment, which should meander through its verses and bind them together like a silken cord. The metre should be carefully selected, and smoothed into regularity, with a view to its musical setting; and if it be written to an air already composed, much ingenuity and taste are required in arranging the accents to the beats, the open vowel sounds to the long notes. As it is intended for singing rather than recitation, it should be built up of words having as many open vowels and as few guttural and hissing consonants as possible. The utterance of musical sounds. requires an open mouth, so that however beautiful the thought and dress of a line of poetry may be, if the sounds of its words keep the mouth closed, it is unsuitable to vocalisation. An instance of this may be taken from Shelley, whose exquisite taste in sensuous poetry is unrivalled :

I love that thou lovest,

Spirit of delight!

The fresh earth in new leaves drest,
And the starry night.

Here the third line of the stanza is a beautiful poetical image; but it is next to impossible to vocalise it, as nearly every word shuts the mouth in utterance. On the other hand, Burns may be singled out as supreme as a song-writer; the firmness of his rhythm and the musical flow of his numbers have never been surpassed. And, besides, his happy selection of open-vowelled words recommends his compositions for vocal purposes. Such lines as:

Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?

open the mouth as Italian words would.

The following remarks of Samuel Lover, himself no mean writer of tender and humorous songs, may be reproduced here:-"To awaken sympathy by the simplest words will go farther in a song than pomp of language and elaborate polish. But simplicity should never descend into baldness, or the stringing of nonsensical rhymes together. A song should have a thought in it, and that thought gracefully expressed at least; and if the tone of expression touch the head or the heart of the listener-appeal either to his fancy or his feeling— it has in it, I believe, the germ of success. If you preach too much, or philosophise too much, or if