Notice the arrangement of the rhymes in the following selections:—­

1.

My soul to-day is far away,
Sailing the Vesuvian Bay;
My winged boat, a bird afloat,
Swims round the purple peaks remote.

—­T.  Buchanan Read.

2.

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
  I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
  To bicker down the valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
  Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
  And half a hundred bridges.

—­Tennyson.

3.

I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
  At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat
And the breeches, and all that,
  Are so queer!

—­Holmes.

4.

  The splendor falls on castle walls
    And snowy summits old in story;
  The long light shakes across the lakes
    And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying;
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

—­Tennyson.

5.

Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
  This is my own, my native land! 
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned
  From wandering in a foreign strand! 
If such there be, go mark him well: 
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim: 
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch concentered all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

—­Scott.

+115.  Blank Verse.+—­When rhyme is omitted, we have blank verse.  This is the most dignified of all kinds of verse, and is, therefore, appropriate for epic and dramatic poetry, where it is chiefly found.  Most blank verse makes use of the iambic pentameter measure, but we find many exceptions.  Read the following examples of blank verse so as to show the rhythm:—­

1.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not like the quarry slave at night
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach the grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

—­Bryant.

2.

I stood upon the steps—­
The last who left the door—­and there I found
The lady and her friend.  The elder turned
And with a cordial greeting took my hand,
And rallied me on my forgetfulness. 
Her eyes, her smile, her manner, and her voice. 
Touched the quick springs of memory, and I spoke
Her name.  She was my mother’s early friend
Whose face I had not seen in all the years
That had flown over us, since, from her door,
I chased her lamb to where I found—­myself.