d in manuscript. Most small newspapers are glad to publish
fairly good verse when the poet is willing to let it go for nothing. Be
sure that rhyme and meter are correct and then send it in and let the
General Public stand from under.

If it is a lack of verse ideas that bothers you, try a drama. Write it
in blank verse and crowd the action with incidental songs. This is not
for publication, of course; not even to show your dearest friend, but
just for practice. Put in a troubadour if you like, or anything else a
romantic imagination may suggest, and let them sing themselves hoarse in
every scene. In this prosaic century you might not be able to write a
stirring love song, but if you become thoroughly identified with the
characters, your troubadour or your fair lady would be bound to get off
something creditable. The plot of the drama is a thing of no
consequence; it may have as much or as little as you choose. Write the
scenes as the mood strikes you and when you have lost interest think of
it only as an exercise.

Tennyson's "Maud" shows how a narrative poem may be treated in a series
of lyrics and suggests imitation. The German poets, as well as some
English writers, have song cycles, a series of poems all bearing on one
central theme. A pedestrian trip; the life of a bird couple; the coming
of winter, and innumerable other subjects lie close at hand suitable for
such treatment. Henley's city types and hospital sketches lead the way
for similar verses of things familiar to you.

Very often a line from a piece of prose or verse sticks in the memory.
Utilize the line by making it the refrain of a ballade or the ending of
some similar verse form. Browning composed his "Childe Roland to the
Dark Tower Came," around that single line taken from a song in "King
Lear." It is possible to go even further and with a stanza--say from
some Elizabethan song--construct about it the completed poem. Rossetti
has done this with one of Ophelia's songs in "Hamlet."

But keep up your interest and work for the love of working. There is
drudgery in the learning of anything, but with verse one can at least
make it interesting drudgery. Never give up; never be satisfied; and
with all English literature to rove in, don't stick in a rut.

Now a general summing up for the verse maker--a summing up that applies
just as much to painting or modeling as it does to verse writing.

Remember always that you are your own master and that your highes