CANDLE-LIGHT

BY THOMAS S. JONES, JR.

As in old days of mellow candle-light,
A little flame of gold beside the pane
Where icy branches blowing in the rain
Seem spectre fingers of a ghostly night;
Yet on the hearth the fire is warm and bright,
The homely kettle steams a soft refrain,
And to one's mind old things rush back again,
Sweet tender things still young in death's despite.
So, when the winter blasts across life's sea
Do beat about my door and shale the walls
Until the house must sink upon the sand,
Then on some magic wind of memory,
Borne swiftly to my heart a whisper falls,—
And on my arm the pressure of your hand!

Here is another famous modern sonnet, in which the three rhymes of the sestet are arranged in the order c, d, e, e, c, d.

THE ODYSSEY

BY ANDREW LANG

As one that for a weary space has lain
Lulled by the song of Circe and her wine
In gardens near the pale of Proserpine,
Where that Æaean isle forgets the main,
And only the low lutes of love complain,
And only shadows of wan lovers pine,—
As such an one were glad to know the brine
Salt on his lips, and the large air again,—
So gladly, from the songs of modern speech
Men turn, and see the stars, feel the free
Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers,
And through the music of the languid hours,
They hear like ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.

This sonnet has been criticized by Professor Brander Matthews, not on account of its rhyme scheme, but because of its lack of what he calls tone-color. I will discuss the subject of tone-color later, but it may be well at this point to explain that this criticism means that the rhymes of this sonnet are not sufficiently varied—that "lain" does not differ sufficiently from "wine," and "free" does not differ sufficiently from "beach" (the first two words being similar in consonantal value, and the second two in vowel value) to warrant their use—the theory being that the rhymes used in a sonnet should contrast strongly with each other—"lain" and "hide," for example, and "free" and "shore," for example, contrasting more strikingly than the words used. This contrast in tone-color, to use that phrase, may be noticed in this strongly-wrought sonnet of William Watson's. How strikingly the sound of "old," in the octave contrasts with that of "ing," and how strikingly in the sestet "ove" contrasts with "ire." The poet uses but two rhymes in the sestet, the arrangement being c, d, d, c, d, c.

TO ONE WHO HAD WRITTEN IN DERISION OF THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY

BY WILLIAM WATSON