Soon were heard on | board the | shouts and | songs of the | sailors, Heaving the windlass | round, and | hoisting the | ponderous | anchor. Then the yards were | braced, and all sails | set to the west-wind, Blowing steady and | strong; and the | May Flower | sailed from the

harbour.

Courtship of Miles Standish.

HEXAMETERS AND PENTAMETERS.

Wouldst thou know thy self? Observe what thy neighbours are doing,

Wouldst thou thy | neighbours | know? || Look through the depths of thy heart.

Dr. Whewell.

Come all ye weary and | worn, ye | heavily | laden and | sighing— Wanderers mournfully | plodding a long through the | vale of des pondence

Come ye, Oh, come ye to | Christ- || Saviour, | Comforter, | King; Cast all your burdens on | Him; || He will enshroud you with | peace,

Cherish your souls with His | love, || Hover a round you in | sleep.

SAPPHICS.

Hatred and vengeance, | my eternal | portion,
Scarce can endure dellay for | execution,-
Wait with im patient | readiness to seize my
Soul in a moment.

Man disa vows and | Deilty dis owns me;

Hell might afford my | miserlies a shelter,

Therefore, hell | keeps her | ever | hungry | mouths all

Bolted against me.

Cowper.

Cold was the night wind, | drifting | fast the | snow fell,
Wide were the downs and | shelter | less and | naked,
When a poor wanderer | struggled | on her | journey,
Weary and waysore.

Southey,

Needy knife-grind er! whither | are you going?
Rough is the road, | your wheel is | out of | order;
Bleak blows the | blast-your | hat has | got a | hole in't,
So have your breeches.

I give thee sixpence! | I will see thee | hanged first

Wretch whom no | sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance-
Sordid, un feeling, | reprobate, de graded,

Spiritless outcast!

Canning.

ALCAICS.

O might|y mouth'd | in|ventor of | harmonies,
O skill'd to sing | of | Time or Eternity,
God giftjed or gan-voice | of England,

Milton, a name to re sound for | ages;

Whose Tiltan angels, | Gabriel, | Abdiel,
Starr'd from Jehovah's | gorgeous | armouries,
Tower as the deep- | domed em|pyrë | an

Rings to the roar of an | angel | onset.

Tennyson.

A sufficient number of examples has been quoted, it is hoped, to show the thoroughly un-English character of these metres, hexameter alone excepted.

VARIETIES OF STANZAS.

A stanza has been already defined to be a group of verses, varying in number according to the poet's fancy, and forming a regular division of a poem. It would be next to impossible to enumerate all the variations of such groupings that poets have adopted, but the chief of them which require to be noted are as follow:

The Spenserian Stanza.-This consists of eight heroics and an Alexandrine. Spenser's Faerie Queene, Thomson's Castle of Indolence, Beattie's Minstrel, Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night, and Byron's Childe Harold, are written in it.

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny :
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace;
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,

Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace

The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve:
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave:
Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave.

Castle of Indolence.

Ottava Rima.--This consists of eight heroics, the first six rhyming alternately, the last two in succession. Many of the great poems of Italy, Spain, and Portugal are arranged in this stanza: Byron's translation of Morgante Maggiore and his Don Juan are the best English examples of it.

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell

Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave-
Then some leaped overboard with dreadful yell,
As eager to anticipate their grave;

And the sea yawned round her like a hell,

And down she sucked with her the whirling wave,

Like one who grapples with his enemy,

And strives to strangle him before he die.

Don Juan.

Terza Rima. This is made up of heroics with three rhymes at intervals. Byron's Prophecy of Dante is the best English specimen of it :

Many are poets who have never penned

Their inspiration, and perchance the best:

They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend
Their thoughts to meaner beings; they compressed
The god within them, and rejoined the stars
Unlaurelled upon earth, but far more blest
Than those who are degraded by the jars

Of passion, and their frailties linked to fame,
Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars.
Many are poets, but without the name;
For what is poesy but to create
From overfeeling good or ill; and aim

At an external life beyond our fate,

And be the new Prometheus of new men,
Bestowing fire from heaven, and then, too late

Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain.

Prophecy of Dante.

Rhyme Royal.-Seven heroics, the first five rhyming at intervals, the last two in succession. This stanza was often used by our early writers, Chaucer, Spenser, &c., but has found few imitators in more modern poets :

So every spirit, as it is most pure,

And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer body doth procure
To habit in, and it more fairly dight
With cheerful grace and amiable sight;
For of the soul the body form doth take;

For soul is form, and doth the body make.

Spenser.

The Elegiac Stanza, consisting of four heroics rhyming alternately, the Ballad or Service Stanza, of four and three iambics, have already been noticed. A slight variation of the latter goes by the name of Gay's Stanza :—

All melancholy lying,

Thus wailed she for her dear;
Repaid each blast with sighing,
Each billow with a tear.
When o'er the white wave stooping

His floating corpse she spied,

Then, like a lily drooping,

She bowed her head and died.

Gay.

No other arrangements of verses have, as yet, received

definite names.

A few more examples are added to show

the infinite variety that can be made of rhyme and metre:—

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,

Why do you fall so fast?

Your date is not so past,

But you may stay yet here awhile
To blush and gently smile,
Then go at last.

She wept with pity and delight,

She blushed with love and virgin shame;

And like the murmur of a dream

I heard her breathe my name.

Herrick.

Coleridge.

So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng,

So would I seem amid the young and gay
More grave than they,

That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the holly tree.

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower,
Thou 's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem;

To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonnie gem.

Better than all measures

Of delight and sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Southey.

Burns.

Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

I hold it truth with him who sings

To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones

Shelley.

Of their dead selves to higher things.

Tennyson.