etry to verses such as Southey's "Lodore," Poe's "Bells," or
Lanier's "Song of the Chattahoochee," which do little more than sing
to our ears the harmonies of sound, the ultimate rhythms of nature.
Yet it is not merely the brook or the bell or the river, that we hear
in the poem, but the echoing of that large harmony of nature of which
the sound of the brook or the bell is only the single strain. Through
the particular it suggests the universal, as does all poetry, leading
through nature up to something greater, far beyond. This rhythm is
best studied in poems that were written to be sung or chanted. If one
could read Greek, or Anglo-Saxon, or Old High German, or the English
of Chaucer's day, he could quickly train his ear to be independent of
the hand-books on versification, by reading aloud, or listening as one
read aloud, the "Odyssey" or the "Beowulf," or the "Nibelungen Lied"
or the "Canterbury Tales." These would be better for this purpose than
any modern verses, for the reason that they were intended to be sung
or chanted, and so all the rhythms are real to the senses. Since the
barrier of language bars out for most of us this older verse, we can
read the early ballads, the lyrics of the Elizabethan time, when as
yet verses spoke mainly to the ear, or some modern poems of the
simpler type, such as "Evangeline" or "Hiawatha."

Such poetry, which is mainly to delight and charm the ear, is really a
primal form of verse and we may properly call it the poetry of the
Senses. In studying it Lanier's "Science of English Verse" is a
delightful companion, and many minor hand-books besides those named
above, such as are found in most schools, and some of the shorter
accounts of versification such as are found in works on rhetoric, will
give assistance.

Yet the pathway to the mastery of the problems of metre is for each
student to tread alone. The best plan is to read aloud a considerable
quantity. Then the technical language of the books will lose its
terrors and the simplicity of construction of good poetry will become
apparent. If the student will read so much of this poetry that his
senses become responsive to its music, he will no longer need a
hand-book. For this purpose let him read such poems as can be sung,
chanted, or spoken to the ear; such as Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient
Rome," Scott's "Marmion," Browning's "Pied Piper" and "How They
Brought the Good News," Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade." Let
him read