The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-03-05
Bright Discourse By
One Called Brander.
ALLOWABLE RHYMES
ELIAS and Advertisers Not
Among Them.


If verse is something to be said or
sung, if'lts appeal is to the ear pri-
raaFily, if rhyme is q terminal identity
of sound, then any theory of ':allow-
able rhymes is impossible, since an
allowable" rhyme is necessarily in
exact and thus may tend to withdraw
attention from the matter of the poem
to its. manner, says Brandon Matthews
if- The Bookman. No doubt there are
readers who do not notice the incom-
patibility of these matings, and there
are others who notice, yet who do not
care; but the more accurately trained
the. ear is, the more likely these alli-
al1ces are. to annoy, and the less exact
theRrhyme the more likely the ear is
tesdiscoper the discrepancy. The only
safety, for the rhymster who wishes
to be void of all offense is to risk no
union of sounds against whose mar
riage anybody knows any just cause
Of impeachment. Perhaps a wedding
withinIsthe prohibited degrees may be
allowed to pass without protest now
and again, but sooner or later some
body will surely forbid the banns.
Just rs a misplaced accent or d SUI
pernunerary syllable gives us a shock,
so does the attempt of Mrs. Browning
TO pair off remember and cham
ber'";; so may, also the attempt of Mrs
Browning's correspondent to mate
heaven and given" and of Tenny
son to unite river and forever" and
Of Poe to link together valleys and
palace? The lapse from the perfect
ideal may be but a trife, but a lapse
1t is, nevertheless. A certain percentage
of our available attention may thus be
wasted, and worse than wasted; it may
be called away from the poem itself,
and absorbed suddenly by the mere
versif1cation. For a brief moment we
may be forced to consider a defect of
form, when we ought to have our
minds absolutely free to receive the
poets meaning. Whenever a poet
cheats US of our expectancy of perfect
rhyme, he forces us to pay exorbitant
freight charges on the gift he has pre-
scented to us.
1t is to be noted however, that as
rhyme is matching of sounds, certain
pairs of words whose union is not be-
yond reproach can hardly be rejected
without pedantry, since the ordinary
pronunciation Of cultivated men takes
no account of the slight differences of
sound audible if the words are uttered
with absolute precision. Thus Tenny-
son in the "ReXenge" rhymes Devon
and !" Heaven. : and thus Lowell IN the
Fable fol, Critics" rhymes '1rresist-
ibles and 11'unwfstable." In Elsie Ven
ner'' DIR. Holmes held up to derision
the inevitable rhyme of cockney and
Yankee beginners, morn and dawn;
but, at the risk of revealing myself as
q Yankee of New York, l must confess
that, any pEonun ciatiGnT Of this pair Of
words seems to me stilted that does not
make them quite impeccable as a
rhyme.
1t is in Adventures of Philip" that
Thackeray records his hero's disap-
prevail Of a poet who makes fire"
rhyme with r Marire. Even if the
rhyme is made accurate to the ear, it
is only by convicting the lyrist of care
lessness of speech-not to call it vul-
garity of pronunciation. But Doctor
Holmes himself, sharp as he was upon
those who rhymed dawn" and
morn was none the less guilty. of
peccadillo quite as reprehensible-
ELIAS and advertisers" Whit
tier ventured to chain Eva" not only
with s'leave her" and receive her,
WHICH SuRSeSI d StONtilly ultCA ohNty pot
also with "give her. river" and
never, which are all of them
wrenched from their true sounds to
force them unto vain and empty SEM
blance of rhyme. A kindred cockrey
recklessness can be found in one OF
Mrs. Brownings misguided moderniza-
tions of Chaucer:-
Now grantmyl ship some smooth haven
win her,
/ follow Status first, and then Cor
i lima. nE
In each Of these cases the poet takes
out az w eddin9 license for his couplet
only att the cost of compelling the
reader to miscall the names of these
ladies', and to address them as Ma
Fare,' ''Tlzer," Ever" and CORN
ner,' aud though the rhymes them
selves are thus placed beyond reproach,
the poet is revealed as regardless of
all, delicacy and precision of speech
Surely such 81 vulgarity of pronuncia-
ton is as Disseminating as any Yul-
gsrity7 in grammar.
Far less offensive than TINS Wll1nl
slovenliness, and yet akin to it, is the
trick of forcing an emphasis upon
final syllable which is naturally short
in order, that it may be made TO rhyme
with syllable which is naturally
long For example, in this exquisite
Lyric ofl,Lovelaces ITO Altnea from
Prison." in the second quatrain OF the
second stanza we find that we must
prplong the final syllable of the 1lnal
wqId:3- ,.'-..
WIhsr thirsty grief in wine we steep
fNhen3 healths and draughts go free,
Fishes that tipple in the deep
,lTnoW no such liberty.
sIJhf;a tlIe.- rh1-,oe e,-a dos rs unless we