In longer stanzas the rhymes may be arranged in almost any way, provided that they follow some regular plan. Notice, for instance, the arrangement of rhymes in Browning's well-known song:—
The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in his heaven—
All's right with the world.
A convenient way of indicating briefly how the rhymes in a stanza are arranged is by the use of the letters of the alphabet: thus, a couplet would be said to have its rhymes arranged a a; a quatrain like the Brignal banks, a b a b; the stanza Now rings, a b b a.
There are, of course, many other combinations of syllables in feet, of feet in lines, and of lines in stanzas than have been given here, but these are the most common forms and those that you will be most likely to see in your reading and to use in your verse making.
Exercise 142.—I. Arrange the following in stanza form, letting yourself be guided by the recurrence of a regular number of feet in each line and by the rhyme.
1. Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
2. The ship was cheer'd, the harbor clear'd, merrily did we drop below the kirk, below the hill, below the light-house top. The sun came up upon the left, out of the sea came he, and he shone bright and on the right went down into the sea.
3. We watched her breathing through the night, her breathing soft and low, as in her breast the wave of life kept heaving to and fro. Our very hopes belied our fears, our fears our hopes belied—we thought her dying when she slept and sleeping when she died.
4. Where the bee sucks, there suck I; in a cowslip's bell I lie; there I crouch when owls do cry. On the bat's wing I do fly after summer merrily. Merrily, merrily, shall I live now under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
5. I loved the brimming wave that swam through quiet meadows round the mill, the sleeping pool above the dam, the pools beneath it never still, the meal sacks on the whiten'd floor, the dark round of the dripping wheel, the very air around the door made misty with the floating meal.
II. Complete the rhymes in the following:—
When I was sick and lay a-bed
I had two pillows at my ——
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the ——How do you like to go up in a swing
Up in the air so blue!
Oh, I do think it's the pleasantest ——
Ever a child can ——Through all the pleasant meadow-side
The grass grew shoulder high
Till the shining scythes went far and ——
And cut it down to ——.The fight did last from break of day
Till setting of the ——
For when they rang the evening bell
The battle was scarce ——In summer time in Breton
The bells they sound so clear.
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and ——
A happy noise to ——
An excellent exercise for training your ear is to have some one read verse aloud to you, leaving you to complete the rhymed lines.
You have now learned a few simple rules about the construction of two or three of the most common forms of verse, and you may ask yourself what use you can make of them.
One way in which you can employ verse is in writing a short story or incident. The simplest anecdote is often so set off by telling it in verse that its interest is doubled; and you will find this sort of familiar, conversational verse unexpectedly easy to write. One very good variety of story to tell in verse is the fable:—