WOMAN (continued). There's in you all that we believe of heaven; Eternal joy, and everlasting love. In infancy, a tender flower, A floating bark, in girlhood's hour, When woman grown, a fruitful vine, Tend and press her! A sacred charge, in life's decline, OTWAY. Shield and bless her!-W. T. MONCRIEFF. She was a phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament. Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; WORDSWORTH. O woman! in our hours of ease, By the light quivering aspen made,— SCOTT. Formed in benevolence of nature, MRS. BARBAULD. WOMAN (continued). Follow a shadow, it still flies you; BEN JONSON. WORDS. Words are like leaves, and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.-POPE. Words are but pictures of our thoughts.-DRYDEN. His words, replete with guile, Into her heart too easy entrance won.-MILTON. Teach me, some power, that happy art of speech, And never waken the tempestuous passions.—Rowe. You have, by Fortune and his highness' favours, Gone slightly o'er low steps, and now are mounted Where retainers; powers are your and your words, Domestics to you, serve your will, as 't please Yourself pronounce their office.-SHAKSPEARE. A CONCISE DICTIONARY OF PROPER RHYMES. OBSERVATIONS AND INSTRUCTIONS. DICTIONARY of Rhymes should never be consulted by an author unless he finds himself at an absolute standstill for a rhyme; to habituate himself to writing with it under his eye would give a stiffness to his composition which it is desirable that poetry should not possess. It is in comic and satirical verse, where a greater number of words are available, that it will be found to be the most useful, as a new or unthought of rhyme will frequently suggest a new idea. All rhymes proceed from the vowels A, E, I, O, U, and may be obtained by running over in the mind the words in which they are the dominant. Thus, to find "PERSUADE," and the words that rhyme with it, take “ ADE," and then run through "ade" with the consonant that precedes it, as, Bade-which suggests "forbade." Dade-which you reject, being no word. Fade. Lade-which suggests "blade," "slayed." "betrayed." 66 66 raid," trade," "degrade," Sade-which suggests "said." Tade-which suggests "rodomontade.” Vade-which suggests "pervade," "invade," &c. If neither of the rhymes in "ade" suit, in the like way run through" aid," which will give you the words, as suggested” above. 66 In consulting the dictionary for a rhyme, consider, in the like way, the vowel that precedes the last consonant of the word, and, if the word end in two or more consonants, then begin with the vowel that immediately précedes the first of them. For example, LAND: N is the first of the final consonants, a the vowel that precedes it. Turn to AND, and you will find band, grand, stand, &c. Many words ending in ty, my, ate, ance, ence, ness, &c., which have not their accent on the last syllable, are used indiscriminately by our best poets to rhyme with the simple sounds sigh, fate, chance, sense, bless, &c.; this, however, can only be regarded as a sacrifice of sound to sense. The words are given in the following pages, but such deviations from strict rule should be indulged in as sparingly as possible. For such words as ought not to form terminals, as well as to remarks on the formation of double and treble rhymes, the reader is referred to the chapter on Rhymes at the beginning of the Handbook. |