Practical Guide to English Versification / With a Compendious Dictionary of Rhymes, an Examination / of Classical Measures, and Comments Upon Burlesque and / Comic Verse, Vers de Société, and Song-writing

by Tom Hood

Such a web, simple and subtle,

Weave we on earth here, in impotent strife

Backward and forward each throwing his shuttle—

Death ending all with a knife?"

—Master Hugues.

"And yonder at foot of the fronting ridge,

That takes the turn to a range beyond,

Is the chapel, reach'd by the one-arch'd bridge,

Where the water is stopp'd in a stagnant pond,

Danced over by the midge."