Words; Their Use and Abuse

by William Mathews

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,

The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar.

When Ajax strives some rock’s vast weight to throw,

The line too labors, and the words move slow;

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o’er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.”

More striking still, in some respects, is Christopher Pitt’s translation of the corresponding passage in Vida’s “Art of Poetry”:

“When things are small the terms should still be so,