that can be quoted from Francis; it might be possible, too, to suggest
some improvement in the structure of the fourth line. But, however
managed, this stanza would, I think, be open to two serious objections;
the difficulty of finding three suitable rhymes for each stanza, and
the difficulty of disposing of the fourth line, which, if made to rhyme
with the fourth line of the next stanza, produces an awkwardness in the
case of those Odes which consist of an odd number of stanzas (a large
proportion of the whole amount), if left unrhymed, creates an obviously
disagreeable effect. We come then to the other alternative, the stanza
with alternate rhymes. Here the question is about the fourth line,
which may either consist of six syllables, like Coleridge's Fragment,
"O leave the lily on its stem," or of four, as in Pope's youthful "Ode
on Solitude," these types being further varied by the addition of an
extra syllable to form a double rhyme. Of these the four-syllable type
seems to me the one to be preferred, as giving the effect of the Adonic
better than if it had been two syllables longer. The double rhyme has,
I think, an advantage over the single, were it not for its greater
difficulty. Much as English lyric poetry owes to double rhymes, a
regular supply of them is not easy to procure; some of them are apt to
be cumbrous, such as words in-ATION; others, such as the participial-ING
(DYING, FLYING, &c.), spoil the language of poetry, leading to the
employment of participles where participles are not wanted, and of
verbal substantives that exist nowhere else. My first intention was to
adopt the double rhyme in this measure, and I accordingly executed
three Odes on that plan (Book I. Odes 22, 38; Book II. Ode 16);
afterwards I abandoned it, and contented myself with the single rhyme.
On the whole, I certainly think this measure answers sufficiently well
to the Latin Sapphic; but I have felt its brevity painfully in almost
every Ode that I have attempted, being constantly obliged to omit some
part of the Latin which I would gladly have preserved. The great number