6 The horsemen and the footmen From many a stately market-place; Meanwhile the Tuscan army, Came flashing back the noonday light, A peal of warlike glee As that great host with measured tread, Scott is the best exemplifier of the standard form of the lay, as in his Lady of the Lake,' 'Marmion,' 'Lay of the Last Minstrel,' &c. Next morn the Baron climbed the tower, To view afar the Scottish power, Encamped on Flodden edge: The white pavilions made a show, Long Marmion looked ;—at length his eye Amid the shifting lines: The Scottish host drawn out appears, The eastern sunbeam shines. The lay, among its other variations, occasionally allows quick-foot intermixture as freely as this. Or again, If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright, For the gay beams of lightsome day When the broken arches are black in night, And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die. Merrily, merrily goes the bark On a breeze from the northward free, And all the group of islets gray That guard famed Staffa round. It admits even a succession of triplets. And art thou cold and lowly laid, I'll weep for Alpine's honoured pine. Verses of five and four feet are occasionally found in the same admixture, though not often. The odes of Pindar have been done into English verse of this description by Abraham Moore, from which the subjoined. This writer admits an occasional verse of six feet also. Their past Olympic feats have graced my song; Hopes, promise, shall the muse display: Their countless wonders in Arcadia got. 2. If the lay were formed in tripping metre, a kind of verse used at large by no poet yet, it would comprise, among others, such forms as these. All are sleeping, weary heart! Thou, thou only, sleepless art! Couldst thou look as dear as when Couldst thou make me feel again All would wake, couldst thou but give me One dear smile like those of old.-T. MOORE. Soldier rest! thy warfare o'er, Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking! Dream of battled fields no more, Days of danger, nights of waking, In our isle's enchanted hall, Hands unseen thy couch are strewing, Fairy strains of music fall, Every muse in slumber dewing. Soldier rest! thy warfare o'er, Dream of fighting fields no more: Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Morn of toil nor night of waking.-SCOTT. 3. The Lay in Quick Metre.-If neither in quick metre the lay has much recognised standing, still it is convenient to group forms under, which otherwise must be presented as irregular varieties of stanza, on no principle whatever. Cold, by this, was the midnight air; When he saw a gasping knight lie there, And the loyal churchman strove in vain For he who writhed in mortal pain, The wine-month shone in its golden prime, But a deeper sonnd through the Switzer's clime, A sound through vaulted cave, A sound through echoing glen, Like the hollow swell of the rushing wave,— 'Twas the tread of steel-girt men. -MRS. HEMANS, The war-note of the Saracen Was on the winds of France; It had stilled the harp of the troubadour, And the clash of the tournay's lance. The sounds of the sea, and the sounds of the night, Were around Clotilde, as she knelt to pray On the old Provençal shore: Unstirred by the ringing trumpets' breath, His shroud of armour wore. But meekly the voice of the lady rose H XIII. MID-RHYME FORMATIONS. INTERMEDIATE between continuous linear use and the stave, having connections with one and the other, according as written, may be cited formations produced by mid-rhyme. A line of seven feet may have two interior rhymes at the end of the second and fourth feet alike, as well as a different one at the close. THE NUT-BROWN MAID. Be it right or wrong, these men among, on women do complain, To love them well, for never a deal they love a man again; For let a man do what he can their favour to attain, Yet if a new do them pursue, their first true lover then Laboureth for nought, for from her thought he is a banished man. I say not nay, but that all day it is both writ and said, This, like other seven feet formations, is more often written thus, having then a single mid-rhyme : I sift the snow on the mountains below, In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, It struggles and howls at fits.-SHELLEY. Sometimes certain stanzas of a ballad will have a midrhyme additional thus placed, others not. Coleridge's 'Ancient Mariner' is an instance. But a further subdivision following the membership is |