The rhyming of this last stanza is irregular and remarkable, yet not unpleasant. It is contrary to rule, to omit any rhyme which the current of the verse leads the reader to expect. Yet here the word "shore" ending the first line, has no correspondent sound, where twelve examples of such correspondence had just preceded; while the third line, without previous example, is so rhymed within itself that one scarcely perceives the omission. Double rhymes are said by some to unfit this metre for serious subjects, and to adapt it only to what is meant to be burlesque, humorous, or satiric. The example above does not confirm this opinion, yet the rule, as a general one, may still be just. Ballad verse may in some degree imitate the language of a simpleton, and become popular by clownishness, more than by elegance: as,
"Father | and I | went down | to the camp
Along | with cap | -tain Goodwin,
And there | we saw | the men | and boys
As thick | as hast | -y pudding;
And there | we saw | a thun | -dering gun,—
It took | a horn | of powder,—
It made | a noise | like fa | -ther's gun,
Only | a na | -tion louder."
Original Song of Yankee Doodle.
Even the line of seven feet may still be lengthened a little by a double rhyme: as,
How gay | -ly, o | -ver fell | and fen, | yon sports | -man light
| is dashing!
And gay | -ly, in | the sun | -beams bright, | the mow |—er's blade
| is flashing!
Of this length, T. O. Churchill reckons the following couplet; but by the general usage of the day, the final ed is not made a separate syllable:—
"With hic | and hoec, | as Pris | -cian tells, | sacer | -dos was
| de_cli | -n~ed_;
But now | its gen | -der by | the pope | far bet | -ter is | de_fi
| -n~ed_."
Churchill's New Grammar, p. 188.
MEASURE III.—IAMBIC OF SIX FEET, OR HEXAMETER.
Example I.—A Couplet.
"S~o v=a | -r~y~ing still | th~eir m=oods, | ~obs=erv | -~ing =yet
| ~in =all
Their quan | -tities, | their rests, | their cen | -sures met
| -rical."
MICHAEL DRAYTON: Johnson's Quarto Dict., w. Quantity.