Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/70

 60 becomes it!" Lithe-bodied men shout in unison their war chant, as they tread the circle of the dance. Youths and maidens in common festival recite in turn the verses of a ballad, caught and flung back in the refrain. The principle holds true throughout the age-long evolution of poetry. From the earliest to the latest manifestations of the poetic impulse, in the instinctive voicing of physical movement and in the highly wrought creations of mature art, the great deep pulse at the heart of things finds utterance.

This is the origin and reason-why of rhythm in poetry. Whatever the poet's mood, whether it be an outburst of sheer joy or the chastened calm of meditation, his verse is the counterpart, made audible, of his emotion, and moves to an accordant rhythm. The swift but sustained flow of Homer's dactylic hexameters, reciting the deeds of heroes; the stately procession of Milton's iambic pentameter, unfolding a drama of Heaven and Hell; the soaring flight of Shelley's skylark; the pounding hoof-beats of Browning's mad ride,