Page:Some soldier poets.djvu/94

Rh But we wonder whether he had himself heard the rhythm of the first three lines when we next read—

A doubt arises even over the second three lines—the fatal influence of a trick of facile rhyming seems already to tame in them the soaring stroke—but with this last couplet we are waddling on ground.

This poem has great beauty of structure; it follows an inevitable course from outstart to the happy last line. Yet the first line for the sake of a pat rhyme is contorted and rendered ambiguous to the ear and really runs—

90