Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/67

 fortuitous law of a jingle in the last syllable of each line must prevail. On these conditions the same meaning might thus be conveyed—

For any purposes of political instruction, or of warning, the Thought, whether it be that of the platform speaker, or that of a philosophical writer, may be fully expressed, either when made to conform itself to the laws of cadence, or when subjected to the still more technical necessities of rhyme. Nevertheless it must be granted, that, if the utterance of the orator—figurative and impassioned as it is—be the fittest possible for conveying his meaning, and if the words he uses, and the order in which he arranges these words, be the best possible, then the reduction of these same thoughts to the rules of blank verse, and, still more, their reduction to the conditions of rhyme, involve a disadvantage which must be of more or less consequence.

There are, however, instances in which Thought, embodied in the language of symbols, and of material images, is of a kind which sustains no damage under these conditions in truth, the poetic style may be the very fittest for giving utterance to feelings, or to moods of mind; or, as already