420 Transactions. 



There is a slight stress on " passed," " old " and " got," but otherwise 

 the lines fall perfectly naturally into four-syllabled units, giving lines of 

 alternately four and three stresses — nothing more than English ballad-metre : 

 in fact, the whole stanza is a perfect bal'ad stanza, but with four-syllabled 

 units. 



In Paterson's two volumes of poems, out of their eighty-one pieces there 

 are twelve in the four-syllabled metre ; in Lawson's two volumes, out of 

 ILi pieces no less than twenty-eight bear the unmistakable stamp of this 

 metre ; Ogilvie has eleven out of a hundred ; Boake four out of thirty- 

 two ; Brunton Stephens the high average of twelve out of fifty-seven. 



Two pieces may be taken as contrast. In Kendall's imaginative poem 

 ^' Hy-Brasil " occur the lines, — 



There iudeed was singing Eden, where the great gold river runs 

 Past the porch and gates of crystal, ringed by strong and shining ones ! 

 There indeed was God's own garden, sailing down the sapphire sea — 

 Lawny dells and slopes of summer, dazzling stream and radiant tree I 



Here it is impossible, except perhaps in two instances, to slur the stressed 

 odd syllables ; but read in the same way the following stanzas from Law- 

 son's " Australian Bards and Bush Reviewers," and instead of humorous 

 they are ridiculous : — ■ 



If you sing of waving grasses where the plains are dry as bricks. 

 And discover shining rivers where there's only mud and sticks ; 

 If you picture " mighty forests " where the mulga spoils the view — 

 You're superior to Kendall, and ahead of Gordon too. 



Two British poems containing suggestions of the metre are the Hon. 

 Mrs. Norton's " Bingen on the Rhine," and S. Ferguson's Irish ballad " The 

 Fairy Thorn." A stanza from each follows : — 



A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers — 



There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears ; 



But a comrade stood beside hiiu while his life-blood ebb'd away, 



And bent, with pitying glances, to hear what he might say. 



The dying soldier falter'd, as he took that comrade's hand. 



And he said. " I never more shall see my own, my native land ; 



Take a message and a token to some distant friends of mine. 



For I was born at Bingen — at Bingen on the Rhine." 



They're glancing through the glimmer of the quiet eve. 



Away in milky wavings of neck and ankle bare ; 

 The heavy-sliding stream in its sleepy song they leave. 



And the crags in the ghostly air. 



Scott has a rare example of the metre appearing in three-syllabled sur- 

 roundings : — 



He is gone on the mbnntdin, 



He is Uist to the ibyefit. 

 Like a .sTonmer-dried fbautnin. 



When our need was the sorest. 

 The fount reappear/n.*/ 



Fr(wi the ?v(U)-drops shall hbrrow, 

 But to lis comes no cheermg. 



To Duncan no morrow ! 



When found in three-syllabled metres its existence can be shown to be 

 accidental rather than intentional. The poet has made feminine or weak 

 rimes at the half-line or line-endings, as in the example given, and, an ana- 

 pest following, a four-syllabled unit results. A line from the Irish ballad 

 " Mary le More " shows this :— 



As I stray'd o'er the common on Cork's rugged hbrder, 

 IJ hile the rfejc-drops of morn the sweet primrose array'd. 



