In Tennyson’s “Lord of Burleigh,” when the sorrowful husband comes to look upon his dead wife, the verse runs almost entirely in monosyllables:—
“And he came to look upon her,
And he looked at her, and said:
‘Bring the dress, and put it on her,
That she wore when she was wed.’”
An American writer has well indicated the force of the English monosyllable in the following sonnet:—
“Think not that strength lies in the big, round word,
Or that the brief and plain must needs be weak.
To whom can this be true who once has heard
The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak,