severely exact rhyming, a writer would often, be compelled to sacrifice
some delicacy of thought, or some grace or propriety of diction. Looking
through the stanzas of _Adonais_, I find the following laxities of
rhyming: Compeers, dares; anew, knew (this repetition of an identical
syllable as if it were a rhyme is very frequent with Shelley, who
evidently considered it to be permissible, and even right--and in this
view he has plenty of support): God; road; last, waste; taught, not;
break, cheek (two instances); ground, moaned; both, youth; rise, arise;
song, stung; steel, fell; light, delight; part, depart; wert, heart;
wrong, tongue; brow, so; moan, one; crown, tone; song, unstrung; knife,
grief; mourn, burn; dawn, moan; bear, bear; blot, thought; renown,
Chatterton; thought, not; approved, reproved; forth, earth; nought, not;
home, tomb; thither, together; wove, of; riven, heaven. These are 34
instances of irregularity. The number of stanzas in _Adonais_ is 55:
therefore there is more than one such irregularity for every two
stanzas.

It may not be absolutely futile if we bestow a little more attention
upon the details of these laxities of rhyme. The repetition of an
identical syllable has been cited 6 times. In 4 instances the sound of
_taught_ is assimilated to that of _not_ (I take here no account of
differences of spelling, but only of the sounds); in 4, the sound of
_ground_ and of _renown_ to that of _moaned_, or of _Chatterton_; in 2,
the sound of _o_ in _road, both_, and _wove_, to that in _God, youth_,
and _of_; in 3, the sound of _song_ to that of _stung_; in 2, the sound
of _ee_ in _compeers, steel, cheek_, and _grief_, to that in _dares,
fell, break_ and _knife_; in 2, the sound of _e_ in _wert_ and _earth_
to that in _heart_ and _forth_; in 3, the sound of _o_ in _moan_ and
_home_ to that in _one, dawn_, and _tomb_; in 2, the sound of _thither_
to that of _together_. The other cases which I have cited have only a