This graceful object-lesson in sonnetry must also be included, though we borrow it from across the sea, and from an eminent sonnet-writer, now still further "Beyond 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 fullness reverent;

Carve it in ivory or in ebony,

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

A sonnet is a coin: its face reveals

The soul, its converse to what Power 't is 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 to Death.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

This may be the best place to insert Mr. Aldrich's poetic philosophy, which applies very well to sonnet-writing, and, once read, should be always remembered:

ENAMORED ARCHITECT OF AIRY RHYME.

ENAMORED architect of airy rhyme,

Build as thou wilt; heed not what each man says.

Good souls, but innocent of dreamers' ways,

Will come, and marvel why thou wastest time;

Others, beholding how thy turrets climb

'Twixt theirs and heaven, will hate thee all their

days;

But most beware of those who come to praise.

O Wondersmith, O worker in sublime

And heaven-sent dreams, let art be all in all;
Build as thou wilt, unspoiled by praise or blame,
Build as thou wilt, and as thy light is given:

Then, if at last the airy structure fall,

Dissolve, and vanish, take thyself no shame.

They fail, and they alone, who have not striven.

Perhaps the following sonnet is also pertinent to the poet's art, and it is put in as a counterweight to so much technical lore which has preceded. As it is written in deprecation of too laborious verse-making, that which may embody form, but, forgetting the aim of art, does not preserve the spirit, it may be tolerated in the loose, easy quatrains of the Shakespearean model :

-

THE SINGING THOUGHT.

It is the Thought that, like a bird, doth sing, –
So ran the fancy of an earlier song,

The words are but the gilded wires that ring
Around the spirit-voice to hold it strong,

And keep it within sound of human ears;

Yet some upon their verse so long have wrought, The singing voice within one never hears,

Because the cage hath hushed the captive Thought.

Were it not better far that we should weave
Our lines so light, like fretted work of frost,
The soul within might never think to grieve,
But sing out bold, in fancied freedom lost?
So that the song but help a single heart,
The world beside may criticise the art!

These poets, it is seen, do not exalt the form of poetry above its spirit, even in so intricate a poem as the sonnet. Nor is it any more incumbent on

the poet to write a sonnet in a masterly manner than it is to form a simple couplet or quatrain in the best possible way. Poetry is an art that crowns at the last nothing but the highest workmanship, and the only sure test for immortality in a poem is, that it shall put a truly precious thought in a form that has never been and never can be surpassed. The sonnets, the poems, that live prove this true. In this line, then, runs the true development of the sonnet; not in a change of form, but in an enlargement of its original scope. This book alone will show what varied chords of love, joy, grief, patience, hope, faith, worship, prayer, - what divers notes from nature be may struck on the instrument. One can hardly define that mystic form and quality of thought which has been termed "adequate sonnet-motive." But as the sonnet is a form of great dignity and artistic compass, it would be well not to task it with any theme that is not deeply felt, intrinsically beautiful, or of a lofty and precious significance. Fortunate for the sonnet if all three qualities are present!

Be sure your song is from the heart,
Not every theme is worth your art!
Seems, then, your subject worthy still?
Then give it nought but finest skill.

There is, indeed, a small class of objectors who maintain that the sonnet (i. e., the Petrarcan type) does not take kindly to the English tongue. They hold that because we cannot reproduce the liquid, wave-like words and the dulcet, dissyllabic and trisyllabic rhymes of the Italian serenader we should let the sonnet alone, leave it to the land of its origin.

It is readily admitted that we cannot in the English tongue reproduce the native tone and coloring which make the sonnet most at home in the country of its birth. But the argument that would prevent our borrowing the scheme of its construction and melody, its form and scope, would prevent the writing of English poetry at all. The sonnet has an inner music. It matters not greatly whether we hear the "Trovatore" sung in the Italian or English words, so we hear the melodies that perpetuate the soul of the composer. We may not be able to translate Heine satisfactorily, though it has been nearly accomplished, but that does not prevent enjoyment from many of his translated poems, nor does it furnish the least reason why an English writer may not write in Heine's stanzas. And we have the same right to the Italian forms of composition. No one can deny that as great sonnets have been written in English as in Italian. The best of Dante, Michael Angelo, Tasso, Petrarch, are no more than worthy to be compared with the best of Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, Mrs. Browning, or Longfellow. It is apparently with some a pet habit to lament the limitations of the tongue that Shakespeare spoke. There is a music of the pine as well as of the palm. The rugged melodies of the wind-struck harp of the forest, which are latent in the Anglo-Saxon tongue, should not be so neglected that we must needs satisfy our ennui by the languorous cadences of a language spoken where the air merely pulses on the terraced vineyards, or is gently heaved in slumber on the Mediterranean.

The writers of English may not improve the

sonnet's structure or melody, nor may they equal the charm as a serenade or love-song which it bears in the Italian. But as an expression of the loftiest thought, has not its usefulness been extended, if not enlarged? If its tone be not quite as mellow as in its old home, has not the instrument thrilled to inspirations that it would never have known in its native air?

Our acknowledgment of our debt to Italy for the origin of the sonnet must be frank and grateful. To Italy we must go to find its beginning and trace its development, as well as to discover some of the finest specimens ever penned. Italian literature is so studded with sonnets that all who are familiar with it scarcely need any guidance to follow the path of the sonnet from the thirteenth century to the present time, a path which we shall but briefly outline, knowing it to be so attractive as to lure to further study all lovers of the sonnet.

It may be remarked first that the word " sonnet" is a true index of the character of the poem. It is the equivalent of the Italian word sonetto, meaning "a little sound," or short melody. It is the diminutive of suono, that is, "sound." Music is "sounded" in the Italian, and therefore the word has a fuller meaning in this connection than does our word "sound." The sonnet is of similar derivation to the delightful compositions of a sister art, the sonata of music.

That some other stanza formed the basis on which the sonnet was built is altogether likely, though no authentic line of connection has been traced between them. Leaving out the supposi