"
"The Strayed Reveller" is written without rhyme--(not being blank
verse, however,)--and not unfrequently, it must be admitted, without
rhythm. Witness the following lines:
"Down the dark valley--I saw."--
"Trembling, I entered; beheld"--
"Thro' the islands some divine bard."--
Nor are these by any means the only ones that might be cited in
proof; and, indeed, even where there is nothing precisely contrary to
rhythm, the verse might, generally speaking, almost be read as prose.
Seldom indeed, as it appears to us, is the attempt to write without
some fixed laws of metrical construction attended with success;
never, perhaps, can it be considered as the most appropriate
embodiment of thought. The fashion has obtained of late years; but it
is a fashion, and will die out. But few persons will doubt the
superiority of the established blank verse, after reading the
following passage, or will hesitate in pronouncing that it ought to
be the rule, instead of the exception, in this poem:
"They see the merchants
On the Oxus stream:--but care
_Must visit first them too, and make them pale:_
Whether, thro' whirling sand,
_A cloud of desert robber-horse has burst_
_Upon their caravan; or greedy kings,_
_In the walled cities the way passes thro',_
Crushed them with tolls; or fever airs
On some great river's marge
Mown them down, far from home.
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