Nothing but mud,
O, my God!
That reasserts, you see, in a striking manner, the original motif, and somehow expresses in a few words the poignant melancholy of the whole poem. Another advantage in finishing a long poem, such as this would be, in the same way as you began it is that it makes it clear to the reader that he is still reading the same poem. Sometimes, and especially in vers libre of an emotional and digressive character, the reader has a hideous fear that he has turned over two pages and got into another poem altogether. This little trick reassures him; and if you are writing vers libre you must not lose any legitimate opportunity of reassuring the reader.
To treat the same theme in metre and rhyme will be a much more difficult matter. The great thing will be to avoid having mud at the end of a line, for the reasons already given. We had better have long ten-syllable lines, and we had better have four of them in each verse. Gray wrote an elegy in that metre which has given general satisfaction. We will begin:—
As I came down through Chintonbury Hole
The tide rolled out from Wurzel to the sea.
In a serious poem of this kind it is essential to establish a locality atmosphere at once; therefore one mentions a few places by name to show that one has been there. If the reader has been there too he will like the poem, and if he hasn’t no harm is done. The only thing is that locally Chintonbury is probably pronounced Chun’bury, in which case it will not scan. One cannot be too careful about that sort of thing. However, as an illustration Chintonbury will serve.
It is now necessary to show somehow in this verse that the poem is about mud; it is also necessary to organize a rhyme for “Hole” and a rhyme for “sea,” and of the two this is the more important. I shall do it like this:—
And like the unclothèd levels of my soul
The yellow mud lay mourning nakedly.