To show | a heart | grief-rent;
      To starve | thy sin,
        Not bin: 
    Ay, that’s | to keep | thy Lent.” 
        ROBERT HERRICK:  Clapp’s Pioneer, p. 48.

Example II.—­“To Mary Ann.”

[This singular arrangement of seventy-two separate iambic feet, I find without intermediate points, and leave it so.  It seems intended to be read in three or more different ways, and the punctuation required by one mode of reading would not wholly suit an other.]

“Your face         Your tongue         Your wit
So fair            So sweet            So sharp
First bent         Then drew           Then hit
Mine eye           Mine ear            Mine heart

Mine eye           Mine ear           Mine heart
To like            To learn           To love
Your face          Your tongue        Your wit
Doth lead          Doth teach         Doth move

Your face           Your tongue       Your wit
With beams          With sound        With art
Doth blind          Doth charm        Doth rule
Mine eye            Mine ear          Mine heart

Mine eye           Mine ear          Mine heart
With life          With hope          With skill
Your face          Your tongue       Your wit
Doth feed          Doth feast         Doth fill

O face             O tongue          O wit
With frowns        With cheek        With smart
Wrong not          Vex not           Wound not
Mine eye           Mine ear          Mine heart

This eye           This ear          This heart
Shall joy          Shall bend        Shall swear
Your face          Your tongue       Your wit
To serve           To trust          To fear.”

        ANONYMOUS:  Sundry American Newspapers, in 1849.

Example III.—­Umbrellas.

“The late George Canning, of whom Byron said that ’it was his happiness to be at once a wit, poet, orator, and statesman, and excellent in all,’ is the author of the following clever jeu d’ esprit:”  [except three lines here added in brackets:]

“I saw | a man | with two | umbrellas,
(One of | the lon |—­gest kind | of fellows,)
When it rained,
M=eet =a | l=ady
On the | shady
Side of | thirty |-three,
Minus | one of | these rain |-dispellers. 
‘I see,’
Says she,
‘Your qual | -ity | of mer | -cy is | not strained.’
[Not slow | to comprehend | an inkling,
His eye | with wag |-gish hu |-mour twinkling.]
Replied | he, ’Ma’am,
Be calm;
This one | under | my arm
Is rotten,
[And can |-not save | you from | a sprinkling.]
Besides | to keep | you dry,
’Tis plain | that you | as well | as I,
‘Can lift | your cotton.’”
See The Essex County Freeman, Vol. i, No. 1.

Example IV.—­Shreds of a Song.

I. SPRING.

“The cuck |—­oo then, | on ev |—­ery tree,
Mocks mar |—­ried men, | for thus | sings he, Cuckoo’;
Cuckoo’, | cuckoo’,—­ | O word | of fear,
Unpleas |-ing to | a mar |-ried ear!”