A Handbook of the English Language

by R. G. Latham

the corresponding syllable in the other, the long verse should be looked upon as broken up into two short ones; in other words, the couplets should be dealt with as a stanza. Where there is no rhyme except at the seventh measure, the verse should remain undivided. Thus:

Turn, gentle hermit of the glen, | and guide thy lonely way

To where yon taper cheers the vale | with hospitable ray—

constitute a single couplet of two lines, the number of rhymes being two. But,

Turn, gentle hermit of the dale,

And guide thy lonely way

To where yon taper cheers the vale

With hospitable ray—(Goldsmith)

constitute a stanza of four lines, the number of rhymes being four.

15. Ballad stanza.—Service metre broken up in the way just indicated. Goldsmith's Edwin and Angelina, &c.