i8 77 ] POETRY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 435 



is not spasmodic, but rhythmical. And as a fit of un 

 controlled passion ends when physical exhaustion is 

 absolute, so the poetic enthusiasm gradually subsides 

 when the successive waves of utterance have completely 

 transmuted the poet s feeling into an intelligible form in 

 which he can rest and find his inspiration fully embodied. 



Rhythm, then, in the sense in which it is an essential 

 quality of poetry, is the measured rise and fall of feeling 

 and utterance, in which the poet s effort to become fully 

 master of his poetic inspiration finds harmonious expres 

 sion, and the external rhythm of sound is properly sub 

 ordinate to the rhythmic pulsation of thought. Where 

 the rhythm of thought is perfect, no prosodic rules are 

 necessary to produce a corresponding harmony of sound, 

 for the words employed naturally group themselves in 

 balanced members, in which the undulations of the 

 thought are represented to the ear. But as poetry be 

 comes more artificial there arises a tendency not to trust 

 wholly to the rhythm of thought, but to make the rhythm 

 of sound and words a special study. The balance of two 

 lines or metrical members is artificially marked by allitera 

 tion or by rhyme ; or, again, an exact balance of time 

 is introduced by counting the syllables or the morce of 

 the lines ; or, finally, a complete prosodic system carries 

 equilibrium of parts through all the details of the rise and 

 fall of the voice within each line. By these refinements 

 in artistic execution the external rhythm of sound has 

 become so independent, that we are apt to forget its 

 essential subordination to rhythmic flow of thought. 

 But it is still the latter kind of rhythm which distinguishes 

 the true poet from the mere versifier. 



We are able from these considerations to understand 

 what was so great a puzzle to Lowth and other early 

 writers that Hebrew poetry is truly rhythmic without 

 possessing any laws of metre. The whole form of a 

 Hebrew poem is directly dependent on the harmonious 

 undulation of the thought, line answering to line, not in a 



