arrangement the last line of each sonnet became the first line of the succeeding one, and the concluding line of the last sonnet was the same as the opening line of the first.

Sonnets on the sonnet have been written by many poets; we give several of the most famous, beginning with the sestet from Theodore Watts-Dunton's "The Sonnet's Voice," because it includes the theory of the sonnet:

A sonnet is a wave of melody:

From heaving waters of the impassioned soul

A billow of tidal music one and whole
Flows in the octave; then, returning free,
Its ebbing surges in the sestet roll
Back to the deeps of Life's tumultuous sea.

THE SONNET

A Sonnet is a moment's monument,—
Memorial from the Soul's eternity

To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be,
Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,
Of its own arduous fulness reverent:
Carve it in ivory or in ebony,

As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see
Its flowering crest impearl'd and orient.

A Sonnet is a coin; its face reveals

The soul, its converse, to what power 'tis due:Whether for tribute to the august appeals

Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue,

It serve: or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath,
In Charon's palm it pay the toll of Death.

-ROSSETTI.

SCORN NOT THE SONNET

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just hours; with this key

Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; :
With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow; a glow-worm lamp

It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains-alas, too few.

-WORDSWORTH.

THE SONNET

What is a sonnet? 'Tis the pearly shell
That murmurs of the far-off murmuring sea;
A precious jewel carved most curiously:

It is a little picture painted well.

What is a sonnet? 'Tis the tear that fell
From a great poet's hidden ecstasy;

A two-edged sword, a star, a song-ah me!
Sometimes a heavy tolling funeral bell.

This was the flame that shook with Dante's breath;

The solemn organ whereon Milton played,

And the clear glass where Shakespeare's shadow falls:

A sea this is-beware who ventureth!

For like a fiord the narrow floor is laid

Mid-ocean deep to the sheer mountain walls.
-RICHARD WATSON GILDER.

In making a study of this fascinating poetic type, read Milton's "Sonnet on His Blindness," Wordsworth's "On Westminster Bridge," and "The World is too much with us," Keats's "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," Mrs. Browning's "How do I love Thee? Let me count the Ways," Gilder's "My love for thee doth march like armed men," and "I count my time by times that I meet thee."

Practise sonnet writing. It is not difficult to gain the needed facility of rhyme, but after you have closed with a trite and hackneyed figure, take up at random a sonnet of Milton or of Wordsworth, and note the dignity of its phrase and the richness of its figures. Take, for instance, this vigorous passage from Mrs. Browning:

As if a ship-wrecked Pagan, safe in Port,
His guardian sea-god to commemorate,
Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort,
And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate.

The sonnet writer must be willing to take pains. The great master of the sonnet, Petrarch, wrote in a letter to a friend, "The courier knocks at my door but I prefer to send him away empty rather than publish things at which I should afterwards blush. Could I like you write verses by the thousand I would not do so, unless the rhythm were rigorously accurate, unless they had a certain poetical

charm, unless they diffused a light capable of raising and edifying the mind;" and in a devout Latin note to one of his sonnets he says, "I began this by the impulse of the Lord, 10th September, at the dawn of day, after my morning prayers."

In conclusion, it will be well to notice Leigh Hunt's old rules of the sonnet, which a recent writer in The Century said should be reprinted by every magazine in the country.

Rules of the Italian Sonnet1

"The sonnet, then, in order to be a perfect work of art, and make no compromise with a difficulty, must in the first place be a Legitimate Sonnet after the proper Italian fashion; that is to say, with but two rhymes to the octave and not more than three in the sestette.

"Secondly, it must confine itself to the one leading idea, thought, or feeling.

"Thirdly, it must treat this one leading idea, thought, or feeling in such a manner as to leave in the reader's mind no sense of irrelevancy or insufficiency.

"Fourthly, it must not have a speck of obscurity.

“Fifthly, it must not have a forced rhyme.

"Sixthly, it must not have a superfluous word.

"Seventhly, it must not have a word too little; that is to say, an omission of a word or words, for the sake of convenience.

"Eighthly, it must not have a word out of its place.

"Ninthly, it must have no very long word, or any other 1 Leigh Hunt, "The Book of the Sonnet."

that tends to lessen the number of accents, and so weaken the verse.

"Tenthly, its rhymes must be properly varied and contrasted and not beat upon the same vowel,-a fault too common with very good sonnets. It must not say, for instance, rhyme, tide, abide, crime; or play, game, refrain, way; but contrast i with o, or with some other strongly opposed vowel and treat every vowel on the same principle.

'Eleventhly, its music throughout, must be as varied as it is suitable; more or less strong, or sweet, according to the subject; but never weak or monotonous, unless monotony itself be the effect intended.

"Twelfthly, it must increase, or, at all events, not decline in interest, to its close.

"Lastly, the close must be equally impressive and unaffected; not epigrammatic, unless where the subject warrants it, or where point of that kind is desirable; but simple, conclusive, and satisfactory; strength being paramount, where such elevation is natural, otherwise on a level with the serenity; flowing in calmness, or grand in the manifestation of power withheld."

EXERCISES FOR CLASS USE AND SELF-INSTRUCTION

1. Which of the several forms of sonnets outlined in this chapter is in your opinion the best? Give your reasons. 2. What is the rhyme-scheme of the Italian sonnet? This should be memorized by every student.

3. Do you consider a sonnet an especially difficult poem to construct? Why?

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