hortest Forms o

Table of

llowing Greek taste, the Roman poets afterwards cultivated short forms of verse, but they chiefly used such verse for satirical purposes, unfortunately; I say, unfortunately, because the first great English poets who imitated the ancients were chiefly influenced by the Latin writers, and they also used the short forms for epigrammatic satire rarely for a purely esthetic object. Ben Jonson both wrote and translated a great number of very short stanzas-two lines and four lines; but Jonson was a satirist in these forms. Herrick, as you know, delighted in very short poems; but he was greatly influenced by Jonson, and many of his couplets and of his quatrains are worthless satires or worthless jests. However, you will find some short verses in Herrick th

is bread in

e lonely mid

on his bed

not, ye Heav

k of a most excellent kind has been done in Greek and Latin; and there is the celebrated case of an English student who won a prize by a poem of a single line. The subject given had been the miracle

er saw its Lor

y short measure begins one of Hugo's most remarkably early poems, "Les Djins," representing the coming of evil spirits with a storm, their passing over the house where a man is at prayer, and departing into the distance again. Beginning with only two syllables to the line, the measure of the poem gradually widens as the spirits approach, becomes very wide, very long and sonorous as they reach the house, and again shrinks back to lines of two syllables as the sound of them dies away. In Engla

age Landor, who, you know, was a rare Greek scholar, all his splendid English work being very closel

ne, for none was

d, and next t

hands before t

nd I am rea

a considerable part of the anthology consists of epitaphic literature. But the quatrain has a

cessful. As I said before, we have not enough good poems of this sort for a book; and the reason is not because English poets despise the short form, but because it is supremely difficult. The Greeks succeeded in it, but

y wisdom can

anglement of

owledge both,

arliest who see

ts joy and pain. It is best to revere the powers that make both good and evil, and to remember that the keenest, worldly, practical minds are not the min

m pain hath eve

unned with an

pity,-him ab

pless mortals

ruth in small space. Here is a little bit on the su

ainful steps a

mple's difficu

on his pedes

opeless when

tle his very best can achieve. It is the greatest artist, he who veritably enters the presence of God-that most feels his

he subject of love seem to me altogether failures. Emerson and various American poets also attempted the quatrai

ot wave thy

paddle in

s the bow of

es in rhyme t

rical lines, and full of beauty. You can pick hundreds of fine things in very short verse out of Emerson, but the verse is nearly always shapeless; the composition of the man invariably makes

shreds have wo

knaves her l

ome almost

be cr

ry much in the sort of verse that we have been talking about. Now this is a very remarkable thing,-because at the English universities beautiful work has been done in Greek or Latin-in poems of a single line, of two lines, of three lines and other very brief measures. Why can it not be done i

nd that you ought to obtain from the recognition of this fact a new sense of the real value of your own short forms of verse in the hands of a master. Effects can be produced in Japanese which the Greeks could produce with few syllables, but which the English can not. Now it strikes me that, instead of even thinking of throwing away old forms of verse in order to invent new on