1919.] 
New Zealand Institute Science Congress. 
321 
Upon reading this, one is not in the least inclined to stop suddenly in the 
reading and say, “ Oh, but this is poetry ” ; yet it is intended as blank 
verse. Written as blank verse, it is read in quite a different way:— 
It was of a strange order, that the doom 
Of these two creatures should be thus traced out 
Almost like a reality—the one 
To end in madness—both in misery. 
It is now divided into four lines or verses, each containing five definite 
units or periods ; and so definite are these periods that once a few of them 
have been heard the beat of the succeeding ones can be anticipated. This 
definite recurrence is altogether absent from prose. The rhythm of prose 
is irregular and unobtrusive ; the rhythm of poetry is regular and obtru¬ 
sive. The outward indication that the matter is to be read as poetry is 
the printing of the words in lines and stanzas of regular but apparently 
indefinite lengths. 
Prose, as a rule, appeals to the intellect, poetry to the emotions; and, 
in oratory, as the sentiments become more emotional the language tends 
to become more regularly rhythmical. This is well seen in the appeals of 
Brutus and Mark Antony to the populace, in “Julius Caesar.” So marked 
is the effect of rhythm on the emotions that the lilt of a stanza even in 
a foreign tongue gives pleasure. 
The first regular and most readily discerned division is that marked 
by the rime in lyric poetry. There is a regular succession of sentences, 
the ends being indicated by the rimes. 
There blew a drowsy, drowsy wind, deep sleep upon me fell, 
The Queen of Fairies she was there and took me to hersel. 
Here each sentence forms a verse, and the verses rime in pairs. It will 
be noted, however, that besides the pause at the rime there is a minor 
pause in each verse that divides the sentence of which it is composed into 
two clauses:— 
There blew a drowsy, drowsy wind, deep sleep upon me fell, 
The Queen of Fairies she was there and took me to hersel. 
Advantage is taken of this pause in printing ; the verse is divided into 
two parts, so that the above verses, when printed, are printed in four lines, 
making the common four-lined stanza with which we are so familiar. And, 
as the rime usually marked the end of the verse, when the verse was 
broken into lines the ends of all the lines were often tagged with rimes, 
the result being in this case the cross-rimed four-lined stanza :-— 
Bid me to live, and I will live 
Thy protestant to be ; 
Or bid me love, and I will give 
A loving heart to thee. 
Further, as the rimes appeared at pauses, the multiplying of the pauses 
in the grammatical construction often meant the multiplication of the 
nnies *_ 
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew. 
The furrow followed free ; 
We were the first that ever burst 
Into that silent sea. 
Still smaller pause divisions are indicated in Browning’s 
How sad and mad and bad it was, 
But then how it was sweet. 
Apparently, then, the first great subdivision, the verse, resolves itself 
into quite a number of smaller subdivisions. In the foregoing examples 
the subdivisions are rendered apparent by the rimes ; but even in the 
absence of rimes there is a recurrence almost as palpable—a recurrence of 
24—Science. 
