Now the first thing that will strike you in reading poetical pieces is the fact that nearly all the lines end in rhymed words, or words ending in similar sounds, such as “kick, lick, stick,” “drink, ink, wink,” etc.
This constitutes the real difference between prose and poetry. For instance, the phrase, “The dread monarch stood on his head,” is prose, but
“The monarch dread
Stood on his head”
is undeniable poetry.
Rhyme is, in fact, the chief or only feature in modern poetry. Get your endings to rhyme and you need trouble your head about little else. A certain amount of common sense is demanded by severe critics; the general public, however, never look for it, would be astonished to find it, and, as a matter of fact, seldom or never do find it.
By careful study of the best authors you will soon discover what words rhyme with each other, and these you should diligently record in a small note-book, procurable at any respectable stationers for the ridiculously small sum of one penny.
Few researches afford keener intellectual pleasure than the discovery of rhymes, in such words, say, as “cat, rat, Pat, scat”; “shed, head, said, dead,” and it is excellent elementary training for the young poet to combine such words into versed sentences, and even sing them to a popular operatic air.
For example——
“With that the cat