throws off intellectual restraint, and "lets his illumined being
o'errun" with music and song. This Arnold could not or would not
do. Then, too, Arnold's lyrics are often at fault metrically.
This, combined with frequent questionable rhymes, argues a not too
discriminating poetical ear. He also lacked genius in inventing verse
forms, and hence found himself under the necessity of employing or
adapting those already in use. In this respect he was notably inferior
to Tennyson, many of whose measures are wholly his own. Again,
considerable portions of his lyric verse consist merely of prose, cut
into lines of different length, in imitation of the unrhymed measures
of the Greek poet, Pindar. The Bishop of Derry, commenting on these
rhythmic novelties, likens them to the sound of a stick drawn by a
city gamin sharply across the area railings,--a not inapt comparison.
That they were not always successful, witness the following stanza
from _Merope_:--

"Thou confessest the prize
In the rushing, blundering, mad,
Cloud-enveloped, obscure,
Unapplauded, unsung
Race of Calamity, mine!"

Surely this is but the baldest prose. At intervals, however, Arnold
was nobly lyrical, and strangely, too, at times, in those same uneven
measures in which are found his most signal failures--the unrhymed
Pindaric. _Philomela_ written in this style is one of the most
exquisite bits of verse in the language. As one critic has put it,
"It ought to be written in silver and bound in gold." In urbanity of
phrase and in depth of genuine pathos it is unsurpassed and shows
Arnold at his best. _Rugby Chapel, The Youth of Nature, The Youth of