pause may be put freely at any part of the line. This pause is called the "casura," and its flexibility in iambic pentameter goes far to account for the variety of effect found in blank verse, and for its consequent popularity in long narrative poems and dramas in English.

Study. Compose a line or two of verse, and note whether the metrical form chosen is frequently found in the poems of this volume. Note how certain stanza forms are made by combining lines of different lengths into a pattern." Does the rime scheme emphasize the pattern of the stanza? How? Comparing several stanzas of short dactylic lines, Byron's When We Two Parted and Scott's Gathering Song and Where Shall the Lover Rest, observe how naturally two lines can be read as one longer one; and note how this effect is aided by the occasional running together of light syllables at the end of one line and the beginning of the next. Illustrate the flexibility of blank verse cæsura from passages in Sohrab and Rustum. Observe that the sense sometimes requires a more marked pause at the cæsura than at the end of the line. Show how it is possible in reading aloud to indicate these pauses without losing the effect of the line-by-line structure of blank verse.

SPECIAL SUBJECTS IN POETRY

I. NATURE.-A very striking feature of English poetry is the part that Nature plays in it-and small

wonder, when it plays so large a part in life. There is this difference, however: in life, the impressions from nature stream in on us, are often broken and confused; whereas in poetry only one aspect appears at a time, and leaves a harmonious singleness of effect. This is easily illustrated.

One mood, the simplest in which we can approach nature, is that of pure physical enjoyment, like that expressed in A Boy's Song, by Hogg. A similar joy is felt by the man of strength in wrestling with the northeast wind, as Kingsley, in his stirring ode, shows so well. One step removed from this is the physical pleasure transferred from the actual experience to the memory, the best example of which is Wordsworth's poem on the daffodils. In another class of lyrics, some aspect of nature not only rouses the feelings but attracts the mind, setting up a chain of reflection leading back to the ever-present problem of man's own destiny. Of such poems

Shelley's ode To a Skylark will always stand as one of the greatest examples. Many others readily come to mind, notably Burns's address To a Mouse.

In some lyrics, however, the attitude of mind is reversed, and instead of man's responding to the influence of nature, nature seems to adapt itself to his mood, expressing it in external symbol and deepening it by reaction. Break, break, break, by Tennyson, comes at once to mind as an example, for the poet approaches the sea with the mood of grief strong

upon him, and finds his feeling reflected by the unconscious sympathy of the scene. In the Stanzas Written in Dejection Near Naples, again, the mildness of the soft, warm day expresses perfectly the quality of Shelley's mood. And note how the landscape, in Burns's poem Highland Mary, reflects the contrast of his own feeling, first at the time of courtship, later of bereavement.

Does all this indicate, then, that the feeling for nature is inherent in all poetry? By no means: in a large body of poetry, just as in a large part of life, nature either plays no part at all, or else is treated superficially, with conventional rather than real interest. Not very much of this last attitude toward nature is represented in this volume, but Pope's Rape of the Lock will offer sufficient illustration. During the so-called Age of Pope it was the philosophical, the social, the intellectual aspects of life, rather than the human, the personal, the emotional, that interested the poets. And since in that life nature played an insignificant part, in the poetry of the period its importance is no greater. Later came a time when interest centered on the individual man-his emotions and his destiny-and then nature became once more important as an influence shaping man's inner life and a means of interpreting that life to others. The feeling for nature thus became associated with the ideal of Democracy in the so-called Romantic Revival at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The connection can be traced in all the great English poets of

the period, but most notably in the case of Wordsworth.

Study. Compare the old ballads with the later narrative poems, to see whether nature plays a more important part in one than in the other. Illustrate concentrated singleness of effect in Tennyson's The Eagle or Wordsworth's Upon Westminster Bridge. In these poems we see vivid pictures of some scene in nature: contrast Shelley's To the Moon, or Keats's Ode to a Nightingale, observing that the appeal to the eye is less distinct in the poems dominated by strong feeling. Observe the use of nature as a parable in Campbell's The River of Life, Keats's The Human Seasons, and Browning's Prospice, and note how the interest is not in the scene for its own sake, but in the thoughts for which it stands. Note how the scene in Gray's Elegy, when once described, is felt as a harmonious atmosphere throughout the entire poem. Can Burns's Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon be contrasted with Collins's Ode Written in 1746 to illustrate direct as opposed to conventional language in the description of nature? To which class does Scott's Hunting Song belong? nature-scenes, birds,

How far have the aspects of and flowers-brought out in

these poems come within your own experience,

and how far do they describe unfamiliar things? Do you feel any scenes to be typically national or local?

II. DEATH.-Most of the poems dealing with the subject of death express the sense of bereavement; a

few express the poet's feeling as he contemplates the end of his own life. It is interesting to compare such of these last as are included in this volume-a sonnet by Keats and the last six in the group entitled Poems on the Problem of Life. With the exception of Bryant's Thanatopsis, each was written near the close of the poet's own life, and has a kind of autobiographical value. Of course the personal element is subordinated, as it is in all works of art, to the universal: the poet speaks not for himself alone, but for all those of like nature; and he is concerned that his expression be not only true but permanently beautiful. Nevertheless there is large scope left for the expression of personality, and in putting the poems side by side we may gain an insight into certain typical moods with which men approach the end of life.

At one extreme is Keats, the eager lover of life and the beauty of the world. Under the figure of a lover facing separation from his beloved, he expresses, in the sonnet beginning "Bright Star! would I were steadfast as thou art," a passionate yearning to retain permanently the exquisite privileges of the world he actually knows. Landor's calm reveals a very different nature: the world is beautiful, but its warmth grows less with advancing age, and he faces the end of life with neither longing nor regret. Clough has a less personal feeling: his days have been perplexed by the insoluble mysteries of life, and now, as they draw to a close, he follows the impulse of his heart in turning to the hopeful solution-one that he hopes a