TO CHASTELLU October 1786

   Among the topics of conversation which stole off like so many minutes the few hours I had the happiness of possessing you at Monticello, the measures of English verse was one. I thought it depended like Greek and Latin verse, on long and short syllables arranged into regular feet. You were of a different opinion. I did not pursue this subject after your departure, because it always presented itself with the painful recollection of a pleasure which in all human probability I was never to enjoy again. This probability like other human calculations has been set aside by events; and we have again discussed on this side the Atlantic a subject which had occupied us during some pleasing moments on the other. A daily habit of walking in the Bois de Boulogne gave me an opportunity of turning this subject in my mind and I determined to present you my thoughts on it in the form of a letter. I for some time parried the difficulties which assailed me, but at length I found they were not to be opposed, and their triumph was complete. Error is the stuff of which the web of life is woven and he who lives longest and wisest is only able to weave out the more of it. I began with the design of converting you to my opinion that the arrangement of long and short syllables into regular feet constituted the harmony of English verse. I ended by discovering that you were right in denying that proposition. The next object was to find out the real circumstance which gives harmony to English poetry and laws to those who make it. I present you with the result. It is a tribute due to your friendship. It is due you also as having recalled me from an error in my native tongue and that, too, in a point the most difficult of all others to a foreigner, the law of its poetical numbers.

   Thoughts on English Prosody

   Every one knows the difference between verse and prose in his native language; nor does he need the aid of prosody to enable him to read or to repeat verse according to its just rhythm. It is the business of the poet so to arrange his words as that, repeated in their accustomed measures they shall strike the ear with that regular rhythm which constitutes verse.

   It is for foreigners principally that Prosody is necessary; not knowing the accustomed measures of words, they require the aid of rules to teach them those measures and to enable them to read verse so as to make themselves or others sensible of its music. I suppose that the system of rules or exceptions which constitutes Greek and Latin prosody, as shown with us, was unknown to those nations, and that it has been invented by the moderns to whom those languages were foreign. I do not mean to affirm this, however, because you have not searched into the history of this art, nor am I at present in a situation which admits of that search. By industrious examination of the Greek and Latin verse it has been found that pronouncing certain combinations of vowels and consonants long, and certain others short, the actual arrangement of those long and short syllables, as found in their verse, constitutes a rhythm which is regular and pleasing to the ear, and that pronouncing them with any other measures, the run is unpleasing, and ceases to produce the effect of the verse. Hence it is concluded and rationally enough that the Greeks and Romans pronounced those syllables long or short in reading their verse; and as we observe in modern languages that the syllables of words have the same measures both in verse and prose, we ought to conclude that they had the same also in those ancient languages, and that we must lengthen or shorten in their prose the same syllables which we lengthen or shorten in their verse. Thus, if I meet with the word praeteritos in Latin prose and want to know how the Romans pronounced it, I search for it in some poet and find it in the line of Virgil, "O mihi praeteritos referat si Jupiter annos!:" where it is evident that prae is long and te short in direct opposition to the pronunciation which we often hear. The length allowed

   Those who have undertaken to frame a prosody for the English language have taken quantity for their basis and have mounted the English poetry on Greek and Latin feet. If this foundation admits of no question, the prosody of Doctor Johnson, built upon it, is perhaps the best. He comprehends under three different feet every combination of long and short syllables which he supposes can be found in English verse, to wit: 1. a long and a short, which is the trochee of the Greeks and Romans; 2. a short and a long, which is their iambus; and 3. two short and a long, which is their anapest. And he thinks that all English verse may be resolved into these feet.

   It is true that in the English language some one syllable of a word is always sensibly distinguished from the others by an emphasis of pronunciation or by an accent as we call it. But I am not satisfied whether this accented syllable be pronounced longer, louder, or harder, and the others shorter, lower, or softer. I have found the nicest ears divided on the question. Thus in the word calenture, nobody will deny that the first syllable is pronounced more emphatically than the others; but many will deny that it is longer in pronunciation. In the second of the following verses of Pope, I think there are but two short syllables.

   Oh! be thou bless'd with all that Heav'n can send

   Long health, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend.

   Innumerable instances like this might be produced. It seems, therefore, too much to take for the basis of a system a postulatum which one-half of mankind will deny. But the superstructure of Doctor Johnson's prosody may still be supported by substituting for its basis accent instead of quantity; and nobody will deny us the existence of accent.

   In every word of more than one syllable there is some one syllable strongly distinguishable in pronunciation by its emphasis or accent.

   If a word has more than two syllables it generally admits of a subordinate emphasis or accent on the alternate syllables

   Well if thrown out as supernumerary,

   where the principal accent is on nu, but there is a lighter one on su and ra also. There are some few instances indeed wherein the subordinate accent is differently arranged, as parisyllabic, Constantinople. It is difficult, therefore, to introduce words of this kind into verse.

   That the accent shall never be displaced from the syllable whereon usage hath established it is the fundamental law of English verse.

   There are but three arrangements into which these accents can be thrown in the English language which entitled the composition to be distinguished by the name of verse. That is, 1. Where the accent falls on all the odd syllables; 2. Where it falls on all the even syllables; 3. When it falls on every third syllable. If the reason of this be asked, no other can be assigned but that it results from the nature of the sounds which compose the English language and from the construction of the human ear. So, in the infinite gradations of sounds from the lowest to the highest in the musical scale, those only give pleasure to the ear which are at the intervals we call whole tones and semitones. The reason is that it has pleased God to make us so. The English poet then must so arrange his words that their established accents shall fall regularly in one of these three orders. To aid him in this he has at his command the whole army of monosyllables which in the English language is a very numerous one. These he may accent or not, as he pleases. Thus is this verse:

   the monosyllable and standing between two unaccented syllables catches the accent and supports the measure. The same monosyllable serves to fill the interval between two accents in the following instance:

   The monosyllables with and in receive the accent in one of the following instances and suffer it to pass over them in the other.

   The following lines afford other proofs of this license.

   The Greeks and Romans in like manner had a number of syllables which might in any situation be pronounced long or short without offending the ear. They had others which they could make long or short by changing their position. These were of great avail to the poets. The following is an example:

   where the word Ages, being used twice, the first syllable is

   But though the poets have great authority over the monosyllables, yet it is not altogether absolute. The following is a proof of this:

   It is impossible to read this without throwing the accent on the monosyllable of and yet the ear is shocked and revolts at this.

   That species of our verse wherein the accent falls on all the odd syllables, I shall call, from that circumstance, odd or imparisyllabic verse. It is what has been heretofore called trochaic verse. To the foot which composes it, it will still be convenient and most intelligible to retain the ancient name of Trochee, only remembering that by that term we do not mean a long and a short syllable, but an accented and unac-cented one.

   That verse wherein the accent is on the even syllables may be called even or parisyllabic verse, and corresponds with what has been called iambic verse; retaining the term iambus for the name of the foot we shall thereby mean an unaccented and an accented syllable.

   That verse wherein the accent falls on every third syllable, may be called trisyllabic verse; it is equivalent to what has been called anapestic; and we will still use the term anapest to express two unaccented and one accented syllable.

   Accent then is, I think, the basis of English verse; and it leads us to the same threefold distribution of it to which the hypothesis of quantity had led Dr. Johnson. While it preserves to us the simplicity of his classification it relieves us from the doubtfulness, if not the error, on which it was founded.

   OBSERVATIONS ON THE THREE MEASURES.

   Wherever a verse should regularly begin or end with an accented syllable, that unaccented syllable may be suppressed.

   In the first example the unaccented syllable with which the imparisyllabic (odd) verse should end is omitted in the second and fourth lines. In the second example the unaccented syllable with which the parisyllabic (even) verse should begin is omitted in the first and fifth lines. In the third instance one of the unaccented syllables with which the trisyllabic (triple) verse should begin, is omitted in the first and second lines and in the first of the following line both are omitted:

   An accented syllable may be prefixed to a verse which should regularly begin with an accent and added to one which should end with an accent, thus:

   Again:

   
There Confusion, Terror's child,
Conflict fierce, and Ruin wild,
Agony, that pants for breath,
Despair, and honorable death. -- GRAY
2. What is this world? thy school Oh! misery!
Our only lesson is to learn to suffer;
And he who knows not that, was born for no*thing*.
My comfort is each moment takes away
A grain at least from the dead load that's on *me*
And gives a nearer prospect of the grave. -- YOUNG
3. Says Richard to Thomas (and seem'd half afraid),
"I'm thinking to marry thy mistress's maid;
Now, because Mrs. Lucy to thee is well known,
I will do't if thou bidst me, or let it alone."
Said Thomas to Richard, "To speak my opin*ion*,
There is not such a bitch in King George's domin*ion*;
And I firmly believe, if thou knew'st her as I *do*,
Thou wouldst choose out a whipping-post first to be
tied *to*.
She's peevish, she's thievish, she's ugly, she's old,
And a liar, and a fool, and a slut, and a scold."

   An accented syllable can never be either omitted or added without changing the character of the verse. In fact it is the number of accented syllables which determines the length of the verse. That is to say, the number of feet of which it consists.

   Imparisyllabic verse being made up of Trochees should regularly end with an unaccented syllable; and in that case if it be in rhyme both syllables of the foot must be rhymed. But most frequently the unaccented syllable is omitted according to the license before mentioned and then it suffices to rhyme the accented one. The following is given as a specimen of this kind of verse.
Shepherd, wouldst thou here obtain
Pleasure unalloy'd with pain?
Joy that suits the rural sphere?
Gentle shepherd, lend an ear.
Learn to relish calm delight
Verdant vales and fountains bright;
Trees that nod o'er sloping hills,
Caves that echo tinkling rills.
If thou canst no charm disclose
In the simplest bud that blows;
Go, forsake thy plain and fold;
Join the crowd, and toil for gold.
Tranquil pleasures never cloy;
Banish each tumultuous joy;
All but love -- for love inspires
Fonder wishes, warmer fires
See, to sweeten thy repose,
The blossom buds, the fountain flows;

   Parisyllabic verse should regularly be composed of all iambuses; that is to say, all its even syllables should be accented. Yet it is very common for the first foot of the line to be a trochee as in this verse:
Ye who e'er lost an angel, pity me!
Sometimes a trochee is found in the midst of this verse. But this is extremely rare indeed. The following, however, are instances of it taken from Milton.
To do ought good never will be our task
Behests obey, worthiest to be obeyed.
Than self-esteem, grounded on just and right
Leans the huge elephant the wisest of brutes!

   In these instances it has not a good effect, but in the following it has:
This hand is mine -- oh! what a hand is here!
So soft, souls sink into it and are lost.
When this trochee is placed at the beginning of a verse, if it be not too often repeated it produces a variety in the measure which is pleasing. The following is a specimen of the parisyllabic verse, wherein the instances of this trochee beginning the verse are noted:
Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,
Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door.

   Trisyllabic verse consists altogether of anapests, that is, of feet made up of two unaccented and one accented syllable; and it does not admit a mixture of any other feet. The following is a specimen of this kind of verse:
I have found out a gift for my fair;
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed;
But let me that plunder forbear,
She will say 'twas a barbarous deed:
For he ne'er could be true, she averr'd,
Who could rob a poor bird of its young;

   The following are instances of an iambus in an anapestic verse:
Or under this turf, or ev'n what they will. -- POPE
It never was known that circular letters. -- SWIFT

   They are extremely rare and are deformities, which cannot be admitted to belong to the verse, notwithstanding the authority of the writers from whom they are quoted. Indeed, the pieces from which they are taken are merely pieces of sport on which they did not mean to rest their poetical merit.

   But to what class shall we give the following species of verse? "God save great Washington." It is triple verse, but the accent is on the first syllable of the foot instead of the third. Is this an attempt at dactylian verse? or shall we consider it still as anapestic, wherein either the two unaccented syllables which should begin the verse are omitted; or else the two which should end it are, in reciting, transposed to the next verse to complete the first anapest of that, as in Virgil in the following instance, the last syllable of the line belongs to the next, being amalgamated with that into one.

   I am not able to recollect another instance of this kind of verse and a single example cannot form a class. It is not worth while, therefore, to provide a foreigner with a critical investigation of its character.

   OF ELISION.

   The vowels only suffer elision except that "v" is also omitted in the word over and "w" in will, "h" in have. This is actually made in most cases, as it was with the Greeks. Sometimes, however, it is neglected to be done, and in those cases the reader must make it for himself, as in the following examples:

   OF SYNECPHONESIS.

   Diphthongs are considered as forming one syllable. But vowels belonging to different syllables are sometimes forced to coalesce into a diphthong if the measure requires it. Nor is this coalescence prevented by the intervention of an "h," a "w" or a liquid. In this case the two syllables are run into one another with such rapidity as to take but the time of one.

   The following are examples:
And wish the avenging fight
Be it so, for I submit, his doom is fair.
When wint'ry winds deform the plenteous year
Droop'd their fair leaves, nor knew the unfriendly soil
The radiant morn resumed her orient pride
While born to bring the Muse's happier days
A patriot's hand protects a poet's lays
Ye midnight lamps, ye curious homes
That eagle genius! had he let fall --
Fair fancy wept; and echoing sighs confest
The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm
Thy greatest influence own
Issueing from out the portals of the morn
What groves nor streams bestow a virtuous mind
With many a proof of recollected love.
With kind concern our pitying eyes o'erflow
Lies yet a little embryo unperceiv'd --

   The elision of a vowel is often actually made where the coalescence before noted be more musical. Perhaps a vowel should never suffer elision when it is followed by a vowel or where only an "h," a "w" or a liquid intervenes between that and a next vowel, or in other words there should never be an elision where synecphonesis may take place. Consider the following instances:
Full of the dear ecstatic pow'r, and sick
Dare not th' infectious sigh; thy pleading look
While ev'ning draws her crimson curtains round
And fright the tim'rous game
Fills ev'ry nerve, and pants in ev'ry vein.
Full of the dear ecstatic power, and sick
Dare not the infectious sigh; thy pleading look
While evening draws her crimson curtains round
And fright the timorous game
Fills every nerve, and pants in every vein.
The pronunciation in these instances with the actual elision is less agreeable to my ear than by synecphonesis.

   OF RULES FOR THE ACCENT.

   Accent deciding the measure of English verse as quantity does that of the Latin, and rules having been formed for

   If he can find in the piece any one word the accent of which he already knows, that word will enable him to distinguish if it be parisyllabic or imparisyllabic. Let us suppose, for example, he would read the following piece:
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;

   He finds the word sweeter, the accent of which he has already learned to be on the first syllable, sweet. He observes that that is an even syllable, being the sixth of the line. He knows then that it is parisyllabic verse and from that he can accent the whole piece. If he does not already know the accent of a single word he must look in his dictionary for some one, and that will be a key to the whole piece. He should take care not to rely on the first foot of any line, because, as has been before observed, that is often a trochee even in the parisyllabic verse. Without consulting his dictionary at all, or knowing a single accent, the following observation will enable him to distinguish between these two species of verse when they are in rhyme. An odd number of syllables with a single rhyme, or an even number with a double rhyme, prove the verse to be imparisyllabic. An even number of syllables with a single rhyme, or an odd number with a double one, prove it to be parisyllabic, e. g.:
Learn by this unguarded lover
When your secret sighs prevail
Not to let your tongue discover
Raptures that you should conceal. -- CUNNINGHAM
He sung and hell consented
To hear the poet's prayer
Stern Proserpine relented
And gave him back the fair. -- POPE

   If in thus examining the seat of the accent he finds it is alternately on an odd and an even syllable, that is to say, on the third, sixth, ninth, twelfth syllables, the verse is trisyllabic.
With her how I stray'd amid fountains and bowers!
Or loiter'd behind, and collected the flowers!

   It must be stated that in this kind of verse we should count backward from the last syllable, if it be a single rhyme, or the last but one if it be double; because one of the unaccented syllables which should begin the verse is so often omitted. This last syllable in the preceding example should be the twelfth. When the line is full it is accented of course. Consulting the dictionary, therefore, we find in the first line the ninth syllable accented; in the second, the sixth; in the third line the accented syllables there being alternately odd and even, to wit, the third, sixth, ninth and twelfth, we know the verse must be trisyllabic.

   The foreigner then first determining the measure of the verse, may read it boldly. He will commit a few errors, indeed; let us see what they are likely to be. In imparisyllabic verse none, because that consists of trochees invariably; if an unaccented syllable happens to be prefixed to the verse, he will discover it by the number of syllables. In parisyllabic verse, when a trochee begins the verse, he will pronounce that foot wrong. This will perhaps happen once in ten lines; in some authors more, in others less. In like manner he will pronounce wrong the trochee in the middle of the line. But this he will encounter once in some hundreds of times. In the trisyllabic verse he can never commit an error if he counts from the end of the line. These imperfections are as few as a foreigner can possibly expect in the beginning; and he will reduce their number in proportion as he acquires by practice a knowledge of the accents.

   The subject of accent cannot be quitted till we apprise him of another imperfection which will show itself in his reading, and which will be longer removing. Though there be accents on the first, the second or the third syllables of the foot, as has been before explained, yet is there subordination among these accents, a modulation in their tone of which it is impossible to give a precise idea in writing. This is intimately

   We will proceed to give examples which may explain what is here meant, distinguishing the accents into four shades by these marks '''' ''' '' ' the greater number of marks denoting the strongest accents.
Oh when the growling winds contend and all
The sounding forest fluctuates in the storm
To sink in warm repose, and hear the din
Howl o'er the steady battlements, delights
Above the luxury of vulgar sleep. -- ARMSTRONG
Life's cares are comforts; such by heav'n design'd
He that has none, must make them or be wretched
Cares are employments; and without employ
The soul is on a rack, the rack of rest. -- YOUNG
O! lost to virtue, lost to manly thought,
Lost to the noble sallies of the soul!
Who think it solitude, to be alone.
Communion sweet! communion large and high!
Our reason, guardian angel, and our God!
Then nearest these, when others most remote;
And all, ere long, shall be remote, but these. -- YOUNG

   I am far from presuming to give this accentuation as perfect. No two persons will accent the same passage alike. No person but a real adept would accent it twice alike. Perhaps two real adepts who should utter the same passage with infinite perfection yet by throwing the energy into different

   
Here, in cool grot and mossy cell,
We rural fays and faeries dwell;
Though rarely seen by mortal eye,
When the pale Moon, ascending high,
Darts through yon lines her quivering beams,
We frisk it near these crystal streams.
Her beams, reflected from the wave,
Afford the light our revels crave;
The turf, with daisies broider'd o'er,
Exceeds, we wot, the Parian floor;
Nor yet for artful strains we call,
But listen to the water's fall.
Would you then taste our tranquil scene,
Be sure your bosoms be serene:
Devoid of hate, devoid of strife,
Devoid of all that poisons life:
And much it 'vails you, in their place
To graft the love of human race.
And tread with awe these favor'd bowers,
Nor wound the shrubs, nor bruise the flowers;
So may your path with sweets abound;

   OF THE LENGTH OF VERSE

   Having spoken of feet which are only the constituent part of verse, it becomes necessary to say something of its larger divisions, and even of the verse itself. For what is a verse? This question naturally occurs, and it is not sufficiently answered

   Os eipon oy paidos orezato phaidimos Ektor. aps d' o pais pros kolpon eyzonoio tithenes eklinthe iachon, patros philoy opsin atychtheis, tarbesas chalkon te ide lophon ippiochaiten, deinon ap akrotates korythos neyonta noesas ek d' egelasse pater te philos kai potnia meter. aytik' apo kratos koryth' eileto phaidimos Ektor, kai ten men katetheken epi chthoni pamphanoosan aytar o g' on philon yion epei kyse pele te chersin, eipen epeyxamenos Dii t' alloisin te theoisi Zey alloi te theoi, dote de kai tonde genesthai paid' emon, os kai ego per, ariprepea Troessin, ode bien t' agathon kai 'Ilioy iphi anassein kai pote tis eipoi, 'patros g' ode pollon ameinon' ek polemoy anionta pheroi d' enara brotoenta kteinas deion andra, chareie de frena meter. Os eipon alochoio philes en chersin etheke paid' eon e d' ara min keodei dexato kolpo dakryoen gelasasa posis d' eleese noesas, cheiri te min katerexen epos t' ephat' ek t' onomaze

   it would still be verse; it would still immortalize its author were every other syllable of his compositions lost. The poet then does not depend on the printer to give a character to his work. He has studied the human ear. He has discovered that in any rhythmical composition the ear is pleased to find at certain regular intervals a pause where it may rest, by which it may divide the composition into parts, as a piece of music is divided into bars. He contrives to mark this division by a pause in the sense or at least by an emphatical word which may force the pause so that the ear may feel the regular return of the pause. The interval then between these regular pauses constitutes a verse. In the morsel before cited this interval comprehends six feet, and though it is written in the manner of prose, yet he who can read it without pausing at every sixth foot, like him who is insensible to the charm of music, who is insensible of love or of gratitude, is an unfavored son of nature to whom she has given a faculty fewer than to others of her children, one source of pleasure the less in a world where there are none to spare. A well-organized ear makes the pause regularly whether it be printed as verse or as prose.

   Here the parisyllabic alone bears one foot more.

   The last line furnishes an instance of six feet, usually called an Alexandrian; but no piece is ever wholly in that measure. A single line only is tolerated now and then, and is never a beauty. Formerly it was thought that the language bore lines of seven feet in length, as in the following:
`Tis he whose ev'ry thought and deed by rules of virtue
moves;
Whose gen'rous tongue disdains to speak the thing his heart
disproves
Who never did a slander forge his neighbor's fame to
wound;
Nor listen to a false report by malice whisper'd round. -- PSALM 15

   But a little attention shows that there is as regular a pause at the fourth foot as at the seventh, and as verse takes its denomination from the shortest regular intervals, this is no more than an alternate verse of four and of three feet. It is, therefore, usually written as in the following stanzas of the same piece:
Who to his plighted vows and trust
Has ever firmly stood
And, though he promise to his loss,
He makes his promise good.
The man who by this steady course
Has happiness ensur'd
When earth's foundations shake, will stand
By Providence secur'd.

   We may justly consider, therefore, verses of five feet as the longest the language sustains, and it is remarkable that not only this length, though the extreme, is generally the most esteemed, but that it is the only one which has dignity enough to support blank verse, that is, verse without rhyme. This is attempted in no other measure. It constitutes, therefore, the most precious part of our poetry. The poet, unfettered by rhyme, is at liberty to prune his diction of those tautologies, those feeble nothings necessary to introtrude the rhyming word. With no other trammel than that of measure he is able to condense his thoughts and images and to leave nothing but what is truly poetical. When enveloped in all the pomp and majesty of his subject he sometimes even throws off the restraint of the regular pause:
Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, heavenly Muse! that on the sacred top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning, how the Heavens and Earth
Rose out of Chaos.
Then stay'd the fervid wheels, and in his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe, and all created things
One foot he centred, and the other turn'd
Round, through the vast profundity obscure
And said, "Thus far extend." There are but two regular pauses in this whole passage of seven verses. They are constantly drowned by the majesty of the rhythm and sense. But nothing less than this can authorize such a license. Take the following proof from the same author:

   I have here placed Moses and Milton side by side, that he who can may distinguish which verse belongs to the poet. To do this he will not have the aid either of the sentiment, diction or measure of poetry. The original is so servilely copied that though it be cut into pieces of ten syllables, no pause is marked between these portions.

   What proves the excellence of blank verse is that the taste lasts longer than that for rhyme. The fondness for the jingle leaves us with that for the rattles and baubles of childhood, and if we continue to read rhymed verse at a later period of life it is such only where the poet has had force enough to bring great beauties of thought and diction into this form. When young any composition pleases which unites a little sense, some imagination, and some rhythm, in doses however small. But as we advance in life these things fall off one by one, and suspect we are left at last with only Homer and Virgil, perhaps with Homer alone. He like
Hope travels on nor quits us when we die. Having noted the different lengths of line which the English poet may give to his verse it must be further observed that he may intermingle these in the same verse according to his fancy.

   The following are selected as examples:
A tear bedews my Delia's eye,
To think yon playful kid must die;
From crystal spring, and flowery mead,
Must, in his prime of life, recede!

   Though the license to intermingle the different measures admits an infinitude of combinations, yet this becomes less and less pleasing in proportion as they depart from that simplicity and regularity of which the ear is most sensible. When these are wholly or nearly neglected, as in the lyric pieces, the poet renounces one of the most fascinating charms of his art. He must then look well to his matter and supply in sublimity or other beauties the loss of regular measure. In effect these pieces are seldom read twice.