Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/276

GENIUS AND OTHER ESSAYS The faulty rhyme in this stanza is the least of its offences, but suggests others which have kept us in a stumbling and apprehensive condition throughout our reading of these lyrics:

"Rule—full,""shady—ready,""daily—railway,""God—bowed,""host—lost,""attracts-us—backs-us,""fingers—singers,""rudeness—voidness,""joy—by,""coin— shine,""kindred—hundred,""teeth—death,""grieve—shrive," etc.

Mrs. Howe wisely clings to quatrains in which only the second and fourth lines are paired, and if she would follow Mr. Walt Whitman's ingenious system, casting rhyme (no less than metre) beneath her feet, she would at least show it more consideration than in couplets with such endings as these. This may be technical criticism, but is not on a minor matter. The great poets know better than to do these things. A vile rhyme breaks in upon the full-flowing river of written song as rudely as a flat note upon the aria of a prima donna. It is, like dropping the ring at a wedding, a shock and an evil omen. But Mrs. Howe's carelessness in this regard is merely a part of the system by which she utters equally disjointed thought. There can be nothing more odd than the constant juxtaposition of vigorous and feeble verses in her poems. The third and fourth stanzas addressed "To the Critic" furnish an example. More frequently, however, she will commence a lyric with a really fine verse, and let the reader down so woefully [262]