Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/70

 thought:—sometimes it is an illustrative supplement to it:—sometimes an exceptive caution; yet everywhere the ode or lyrical composition, regarded as a whole, is thus built up of members—limbs—apposed, one to the other—balancing one the other, and finding their reason, not simply in the requirements of Thought—uttered in the prosaic form—but, beyond this, in the rules or the usages of an arbitrary system of composition.

Then, besides this kind of structure, many of the odes of the Hebrew Scriptures obey a law of alliteration—which is still more arbitrary, inasmuch as it requires the first word of each verse, in a certain number of verses, to begin with the same letter, and these in alphabetic order. Any one who will try for himself a few experiments, in English, will find that, in yielding obedience to requirements of this kind. Thought must take a turn, or must very greatly mould itself to a fashion which it would not otherwise have chosen. Thought submits to a process of conditioning which intimately affects it, if not in substance, yet in its modes of utterance. The second verse in Milton's Christmas Hymn stands thus:—