A beautiful combination of verses of this kind but slightly varying is seen in Shelley's Prometheus. This measure is sufficiently lengthy for continuous composition, and seems to be a favourite with all our modern poets. Longfellow's Hiawatha, a poem of upwards of five thousand lines, is composed in it in unrhymed verse. Tennyson and Shelley also furnish numerous examples, chiefly with symmetrical and truncated verses intermingled. Why so pale ǎnd | wan, fond | lověr, Will, if | looking | well can't move her, Looking ill prevail? Prythee, why so pale? Suckling. Thus it is our | daughters | leave us, Though in distant lands we sigh, Wha will be a traitor knave? Wha will fill a coward's grave? Wha sae base as be a slave? Traitor coward! turn and flee! Longfellow. Burns. The following quatrains exhibit the four-foot line in both its complete and truncated forms; this is the 8,7 measure of our hymns. Composition in this measure is very rare, and even when combined with truncated and hypermetrical verses it has been but little cultivated. Spake full well in language | quaint ănd | ōlděn, Longfellow. What is yon so white beside the greenwood? Aytoun. Then methought I heard a hollow sound, Tennyson. (f). TROCHAIC HEXAMETER. Normal line, Twelve Syllables 1 - -1 - -1 ་ There are but few examples of this measure. Holy, holy, holy, | all the | saints a dore Thee, sea. Heber. Here is a specimen of this verse truncated. Love with rosy | fetter | held us | firmly | bound; (g and h). TROCHAIC HEPTAMETER AND OCTAMETER. Normal lines Fourteen and Sixteen Syllables. There are but few symmetrical poems in these measures, although they have been freely used by Longfellow, Lord Lytton, Aytoun, and Tennyson in irregular combinations. Tennyson's Locksley Hall and Poe's Raven supply good examples. Cursed be the social wants that sin against the | strength of youth! Cursed | be the ¦ social | lies that | warp us from the | living truth! Cursed be the sickly | forms that err from honest | na ture's rule! Cursed be the gold that gilds the straitened | foreof the fool! head Tennyson. Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow-sorrow for the lost Lenore-For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore Nameless here for evermore. Poe. In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown: Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town. As the summer morn was breaking on that lofty tower I stood, And the world threw off the darkness like the weeds of widowhood. Longfellow. Then we bounded from our covert. Judge how looked the Saxons then, When they saw the rugged mountain start to life with armed Aytoun. men. Come, my lad, and sit beside me; we have often talked before Of the hurricane and tempest, and the storms on sea and shore : When we read of deed and daring done for dear old England's sake, We have cited Nelson's duty and the enterprise of Drake. Clement Scott. 3.-ANAPESTIC MEASURE. Trisyllabic measures have not been much used by our poets for reasons that are not far to seek. They require the constant recurrence of two syllables both unaccented and short to one syllable accented, and our language does not afford that proportion. Their construction being thus rendered |