Among our numerous English rhymes,
They say there’s none to month;
I tried and failed a hundred times,
But succeeded the hundred and onth.
But these are hardly fair. The rhyme is good, but the English is bad. Christina Rosetti has done better in the admirable book of nursery rhymes which she has published under the title of Sing-Song:—
How many weeks in a month?
Four, as the swift moon runn’th—
In both of these instances, however, the rhymes are evasions of the real issue. The problem is not to make a word by compounding two, or distorting one, but to find a word ready-made, in our unabridged dictionaries that will rhyme properly to month. We believe there is none. Nor is there a fair rhyme to the word silver, nor to spirit, nor to chimney. Horace Smith, one of the authors of the Rejected Addresses, once attempted to make one for chimney on a bet, and he did it in this way:—
Standing on roof and by chimney
Are master and ’prentice with slim knee.