ONLY.

   Only a spark of an ember,
      Only a leaf on the tree,
   Only the days we remember,
      Only the days without thee. 
   Only the flower that thou worest,
      Only the book that we read,
   Only that night in the forest,
      Only a dream of the dead,
   Only the troth that was broken,
      Only the heart that is lonely,
   Only the sigh and the token
      That sob in the saying of Only!

In literature this is a certain way of failing, but I believe a person might make a livelihood by writing verses like these—­for music.  Another good way is to be very economical in your rhymes, only two to the four lines, and regretfully vague.  Thus: 

   SHADOWS.

   In the slumber of the winter,
      In the secret of the snow,
   What is the voice that is crying
      Out of the long ago?

   When the accents of the children
      Are silent on the stairs,
   When the poor forgets his troubles,
      And the rich forgets his cares.

   What is the silent whisper
      That echoes in the room,
   When the days are full of darkness,
      And the night is hushed in gloom?

   ’Tis the voice of the departed,
      Who will never come again,
   Who has left the weary tumult,
      And the struggle and the pain. {5}

   And my heart makes heavy answer,
      To the voice that comes no more,
   To the whisper that is welling
      From the far off happy shore.

If you are not satisfied with these simple ways of not succeeding, please try the Grosvenor Gallery style.  Here the great point is to make the rhyme arrive at the end of a very long word, you should also be free with your alliterations.

   LULLABY.

   When the sombre night is dumb,
   Hushed the loud chrysanthemum,
      Sister, sleep! 
   Sleep, the lissom lily saith,
   Sleep, the poplar whispereth,
      Soft and deep!

   Filmy floats the wild woodbine,
   Jonquil, jacinth, jessamine,
      Float and flow. 
   Sleeps the water wild and wan,
   As in far off Toltecan
      Mexico.

   See, upon the sun-dial,
   Waves the midnight’s misty pall,
      Waves and wakes. 
   As, in tropic Timbuctoo,
   Water beasts go plashing through
      Lilied lakes!

Alliteration is a splendid source of failure in this sort of poetry, and adjectives like lissom, filmy, weary, weird, strange, make, or ought to make, the rejection of your manuscript a certainty.  The poem should, as a rule, seem to be addressed to an unknown person, and should express regret and despair for circumstances in the past with which the reader is totally unacquainted.  Thus: 

   GHOSTS.