1919.] 
New Zealand Institute Science Congress. 
337 
trust misplaced — though at times his dull-eared commentators would 
mislead us. 
There is a curious and rare shortening that occurs in a line that has 
already been doubled :— 
Saw ve the blazing star ? 
The heavens looked dowTL on freedom’s war 
And lit her torch on high. 
Bright on her dragon crest 
It tells that glory’s wing shall rest 
When warriors meet to die. 
The palpable pause after star shows that a single unit has been dropped 
from the line, and the filling of the pause results in the natural Dowsabel 
doubling:— 
Saw ye (above) the blazing star ? 
The heavens looked down on freedom’s war 
And lit her torch on high. 
Bright on her (lifted) dragon crest 
It tells that glory’s wing shall rest 
When warriors meet to die. 
These varying stanzas, a few selected from a very great number, show 
some of the many forms assumed by the common four-lined stanza. Very 
often two four-lined stanzas are run together as one stanza of eight lines, 
when the same variations may occur. The enormous number of variations 
these shortenings and doublings in different combinations make possible 
is quite bewildering ; it quickly runs into millions ; yet the four-lined basis 
is clear right through. And every poet tries to write in stanzas that shall 
differ from those of every other poet ; to write the same as others is 
intolerable to him ; and if at times, caught by the beauty of a certain effect, 
he does imitate another poet, he at once becomes intolerable to his readers. 
Yet so numerous are the possible forms springing from the simple four-lined 
stanza that poet after poet arises and proves the store inexhaustible : the 
song-flowers that spring to life differ from generation to generation. 
For the purpose of classification it is essential to decide on a character¬ 
istic that, whilst it may vary, does so in a definite and constant manner. 
For this purpose the verse-unit most commends itself. . In declamatory 
verse every verse-unit normally contains five stress-units ; and classification 
here is comparatively simple. There are, firstly, two great divisions— 
rimed and unrimed. The rimed division falls into two classes—continuous 
verse, such as Chaucer’s “ Canterbury Tales,” and verse in stanza form, 
such as Spenser’s “ Fairy Queen.” These poems in stanza form, again, 
fall into various well-known divisions, such as sonnet, Spenserian stanza, 
rime royal, &c. The second great division, the unrimed, likewise falls into 
two classes—the epic, such as Milton’s “ Paradise Lost,” and the dramatic, 
which includes drama generally. Further subdivisions are possible, but 
they are subdivisions in manner and matter rather than in specific form. 
In lyrical verse, the main characteristic of which is that each verse contains 
eight units instead of five as in declamatory, there are firstly four great 
divisions—Romance, Ballad, Nibelungen, and Alexandrine. These are 
distinguished one from another by the absence or presence of certain units : 
as, the absence of the last unit of a Romance verse makes a Ballad 
verse ; the absence of the fourth unit as well as the last makes an Alex¬ 
andrine verse ; the absence of the accented syllable of the fourth unit as 
well as the whole of the last makes a Nibelungen verse. From this it is 
clear that the specific differences are caused by differences at the verse and 
line ends ; and it will be found that lesser variations are formed by lesser 
differences in these places. As the same variations apply to all four of 
25—Science. 
