"Beams of noon, like burning lances, through the tree-tops flash and glisten, As she stands be -fore her lover, with raised face to look and listen.
Dark, but comely, like the maiden in the ancient Jewish song, Scarcely has the toil of task-fields done her graceful beauty wrong.
He, the strong one, and the manly, with the vassal's garb and hue, Holding still his spirit's birthright, to his higher nature true;
Hiding deep the _strengthening_ purpose of a freeman in his heart, As the Greegree holds his Fetish from the white man's gaze a -part.
Ever foremost of the toilers, when the driver's morning horn Calls a -way to stifling millhouse, or to fields of cane and corn;
Fall the keen and burning lashes never on his back or limb; Scarce with look or word of censure, turns the driver unto him.
Yet his brow is always thoughtful, and his eye is hard and stern; _Slavery's_ last and humblest lesson he has never deigned to learn."
"And, at evening when his comrades dance be -fore their master's door, Folding arms and knitting forehead, stands he silent ever -more.
God be praised for every instinct which re -bels a -gainst a lot Where the brute sur -vives the human, and man's upright form is not!"
--J. G. WHITTIER: _National Era, and other Newspapers_, Jan. 1848.
_Example IV.--"The Present Crisis"--Two Stanzas out of sixteen._
"Once to _every_ man and nation comes the moment to de -cide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, God's new Mes -siah, _offering_ each the bloom or blight, Parts the goats up -on the left hand, and the sheep up -on the right, And the choice goes by for -ever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
Have ye chosen, O my people, on whose party ye shall stand, Ere the Doom from _its_ worn sandals shakes the dust a -gainst our land?
Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the Truth a -lone is strong, And, al _beit she_ wander outcast now, I see a -round her throng Troops of beauti -ful tall angels to en -shield her from all wrong."
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL: _Liberator_, September 4th, 1846.
_Example V.--The Season of Love.--A short Extract_.
"In the Spring, a fuller crimson comes up -on the robin's breast; In the Spring, the wanton lapwing gets him -self an other crest; In the Spring, a _livelier_ iris changes on the burnished dove; In the Spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
Then her cheek was pale, and thinner than should be for one so young; And her eyes on all my motions, with a mute ob -servance, hung.
And I said, 'My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me; Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee.'"
_Poems by_ ALFRED TENNYSON, Vol. ii, p. 35.
Trochaic of eight feet, as these sundry examples will suggest, is much oftener met with than iambic of the same number; and yet it is not a form very frequently adopted. The reader will observe that it requires a considerable pause after the fourth foot; at which place one might divide it, and so reduce each couplet to a stanza of four lines, similar to the following examples:--
PART OF A SONG, IN DIALOGUE.
SYLVIA.
"Corin, cease this idle teasing; Love that's forc'd is harsh and sour; If the lover be dis -pleasing, To per -sist dis -gusts the more."
CORIN.
"'Tis in vain, in vain to fly me, _Sylvia_, I will still pur -sue; Twenty thousand times de -ny me, I will kneel and weep a -new."
SYLVIA.
"Cupid ne'er shall make me languish, I was born a -verse to love; Lovers' sighs, and tears, and anguish, Mirth and pastime to me prove."
CORIN.
"Still I vow with patient duty Thus to meet your proudest scorn; You for unre -lenting beauty I for constant love was born."
_Poems by_ ANNA LaeTITIA BARBAULD, p. 56.
PART OF A CHARITY HYMN.
1.
"Lord of life, all praise ex -celling, thou, in glory uncon -fin'd, Deign'st to make thy humble dwelling with the poor of humble mind.
2.
As thy love, through all cre -ation, beams like thy dif -fusive light; So the scorn'd and humble station shrinks be -fore thine equal sight.
3.
Thus thy care, for all pro -viding, warm'd thy faithful prophet's tongue; Who, the lot of all de -ciding, to thy chosen _Israel_ sung:
4.
'When thine harvest yields thee pleasure, thou the golden sheaf shalt bind; To the poor be -longs the treasure of the scatter'd ears be -hind.'"
_Psalms and Hymns of the Protestant Episcopal Church_, Hymn LV.
A still more common form is that which reduces all these tetrameters to single rhymes, preserving their alternate succession. In such metre and stanza, is Montgomery's "Wanderer of Switzerland, a Poem, in Six Parts,"
and with an aggregate of eight hundred and forty-four lines. Example:--
1.
"'_Wanderer_, whither wouldst thou roam?
To what region far a -way, Bend thy steps to find a home, In the twilight of thy day?'
2.
'In the twilight of my day, I am hastening to the west; There my weary limbs to lay, Where the sun re -tires to rest.
3.
Far be -yond the At -lantic floods, Stretched be -neath the evening sky, Realms of mountains, dark with woods, In Co -lumbia's bosom lie.
4.
There, in glens and caverns rude, Silent since the world be -gan, Dwells the virgin Soli -tude, Unbe -trayed by faithless man:
5.
Where a tyrant never trod, Where a slave was never known, But where nature worships God In the wilder -ness a -lone.