This is likewise iambic pentameter; but in the second line a clumsy anapestic foot is inserted to correspond to the nature of the monster described. No doubt irregularities sometimes occur by oversight or from lack of skill; but with our greater poets, whose thought and emotion instinctively assume the proper metrical form, the irregularities are motived.
51. Rhyme. Rhyme, or as it is more correctly spelled rime, is a similarity of sound between words or syllables. Identity of sound, as heir, air, site, sight, is not rhyme. It usually occurs between words at the end of a verse, and serves to lend both beauty and emphasis to poetry. The order in which rhymes occur is various. They may be found in succeeding lines; as,—
"The tear down childhood's cheek that flows
Is like the dewdrop on the rose;
When next the summer breeze comes by,
And shakes the bush, the flower is dry."
They may occur in alternate lines; as,—
"The sun has long been set;
The stars are out by twos and threes;
The little birds are piping yet
Among the bushes and the trees."
Or the rhymes may occur at longer intervals; as,—
"I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods."
In double rhyme the correspondence of sound extends to two syllables, and in triple rhyme to three. A double rhyme, as pleasure, measure, is also called feminine, while single rhymes are called masculine. The following illustrates both double, or feminine, and masculine rhymes:
"'Tis the hour when happy faces
Smile around the taper's light;
Who will fill our vacant places?
Who will sing our songs to-night?"
The following from Hood illustrates triple rhyme: