The great body of English verse-Shakespeare's works, Milton's two Christian epics, Byron's Childe Harold and most of his narrative poems, Scott's rhythmical romances, Tennyson's In Memoriam, and nearly all the rest, and many others-is written in iambic rhythm, the measures being various.

The ANAPEST (~~) has two weak syllables before its accent, as in the name itself, and in such words as circumvent, contravene and opportune.

This rhythm appears pure in Byron's

"Like the leaves of the forest when summer is

י | ;green

in Swinburne's

"In the infinite spir | it is room |

For an infinite pain."

This foot is frequently found united with the iamb, in such examples as

"I come o'er the mountains with light | and song;|'

in Bourdillon's often-quoted lines,

"The night has a thous | and eyes,

The day has one; |

Yet the light of the bright | world dies |

With the dying sun. Į

The mind has a thous and eyes, |
And the heart | but one; |

Yet the light of a whole | life dies
When love is done;]

and in Jean Ingelow's

"For I hold the years in my heart, |

And all that was -is yet. I'

In this example we have the peculiarity of a pause, indicated by the dash, counting as a weak syllable; that is, the second verse closes with an anapest, of which the dash is the first quantity.

When the iambic system is relieved with anapests, it may be described as iamb-anapestic; and when the anapestic system is relieved in like manner by iambs, it may be described as anapest-iambic.

We have never seen a poem, not even a brief lyric, written in perfectly pure anapestic rhythm; the departures, appearing in substitutions of iambs here and there, almost always with fine effect. This circumstance -the improvement through variety-suggests very strongly that absolute and unbroken rhythms, which we have called pure, of either kind, are not in keeping with the ge

mius of our language. This need for easy variety and the constant rebellion against Procrustean forms either of rhythm, verse or stanza, will appear on a subsequent page, in our discussion of other forms.

The anapestic is a lighter movement than the iambic in general; but still it is capable of the highest and most impressive effects. We find it elevated and tragic in Byron's

The Assyrian came down | like a wolf on the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;"

and with even more solemn and majestic power in

"The chariot, the chariot, its wheels | roll in fire,

And the Lord | cometh down | in the pomp | of His ire; "

or in

"How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, | Is laid for your faith | in His excellent Word; " and reverently enough in "The family Bible that lay on the stand." Human trust and

devotion breathe in

"I know not, I ask | not, if guilt's | in thy heart; | I but know that I love | thee whatever thou art; | "

and conscious power inspires

"Farewell to the land where the gloom of my glory

Arose and o'ershadowed the earth with her name. | "

Here the reader may pause to observe that there is no hypermeter in the first verse; but that the two verses blend, and that "ry Arose" is an anapest.

But unquestionably the general use of the anapestic rhythm is in lighter sentiment; such as

"In the days of my youth, when the heart's in its spring,

And dreams | that affection can never take wing,

I had friends who has not? | -but what tongue |

can avow,

That friends, rosy wine, | are SO faithful as thou?

The MONE (-) from the Greek monos, alone--consists, as already stated, of one strong syllable, usually a monosyllabic word; as in the name itself, and in any other strong monosyllable, as work, stitch and break. There are complete monic verses, but there can be no monic rhythm. The time of a mone is de termined by that of the system in which it

appears, whether it be iambic or anapestic; and that time is filled either with a prolongation of the one sound, or with such pause before it as the system calls for- in the iambic one weak syllable, and in the anapestic two. A well-known example of the mone is the several-times-repeated verse in Hood's Song of the Shirt, namely,

"Work-work | -work; | "

and, again, in the same poem, in

Rolls, rolls, | rolls. "

In Hood's moral to Miss Kilmansegg we have an excellent example:

"Gold! | gold!| gold!¦ gold!|

Bright and yel | low, hard | and cold. | "

The poet here indicates that the time of the mones is the same as that of the iambs, the two verses being tetrameter.

In these examples, and indeed generally,