at least balance in value the eight lines preceding. It should sustain the interest to the last line and word, and if the last line or word is the key to the whole poem, so much the better. Suggestion is better than a didactic style in the sestet; and the effect at the close should be as if one had heard music played by unseen fingers, or seen the veil lifted from a masterpiece of painting or sculpture, without catching a glimpse of the hand that did it; as if a window had suddenly opened for us, and we looked out on a lovely, never-dreamed-of landscape,

"Swelling loudly up to its climax and then dying proudly."

The first, eighth, and last lines of a sonnet should be especially strong ones. They give not only an appearance of ripe design, but real strength, binding it and making it memorable. They are main beams in the structure. The Italian sonneteers often make a break or volte at the end of the third line in the sestet, and musically it is of value, especially where the "one, two, three, one, two, three," order of rhymes is used. A rhyme-word should be a word of value, of force of meaning and sound, as its position gives it a double emphasis, and the rhymes in octave and sestet should offer pleasing contrasts of sound. It should not be forgotten that unity is essential to the sonnet. A single thought, well worked out, will fill its little limits, and be far better than dividing the attention by numerous unrelated images or ideas. It is unity that makes the sonnet memorable. The desirability of climax is emphasized by Petrarch, who says the thought "should

be borne in on the reader at the close." This need not lead to any baldness of epigrammatic statement; such would be unpoetical. Leigh Hunt, also, states that the close should be "equally impressive and unaffected." Grammatical inversions are somersaults of construction which always hinder the flow of thought, cumber the mind, and are most mischievous when they allow of two interpretations of the meaning.

Of minor defects in sonnet structure may be instanced a sequence of small, weak words in a line, or a multiplicity of ponderous ones; a too great number of grammatical breaks, which necessitate numerous dashes, semicolons, colons, or periods, especially in the middle of the line, where they detract from the rhyme values. Not but that an occasional break in a line is a relief, and often helps instead of hinders musical effect. In short, the rules of versification should be observed in the sonnet with special care, as a defect shows all the more plainly in so short a poem.

While all these small points should be observed where possible, it is true that many of the best sonnets contain one or more such faults. One has to make the most of his material, and not sacrifice his thought to correct a minor defect in form. It would not do to change the form of a statue for the sake of cutting out a minute flaw. And yet, by selecting new rhymes and working a rearrangement, one sometimes will even improve on his own ideal. Several writers on the sonnet have formulated a number of rules for writing the poem. The essence of those rules has been given in what has preceded, and to put them in a cate

gory seems too much like invading the domain of mechanics, and inviting an increase of the class of sonnets which are written by rule and not by inspiration. If the reader can gather herein a sympathy with the character of the sonnet, and familiarity with its forms, as he proceeds, he need not look up a list of rules in order to detect a true sonnet, nor consult a category of recipes in order to write a sonnet, should he have the inspiration and versifying talent which should precede the task.

Leigh Hunt has put one of the fundamental requirements of the sonnet in excellent shape. He says: "The student is to bear in mind that the music of the lines is to be at once as sweet and as strong and as varied as possible, and that there should be something of a difference discernible in the major and minor portions, as there is in the divisions of music so called, or in the two strains of an air or melody." A good sonnet can be well described as luminous: the thought shines out, it has life and movement and proclaims its right to exist.

It must be admitted that it is more pleasant to study poetry through object-lessons than by finespun theories. These notes from the sonnet-lute will tell in music all that we have been laboriously learning; the place of honor being given to Wordsworth's familiar but mighty composition:

THE SONNET.

Scorn not the sonnet. Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honors. With this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;

A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief;
The sonnet glittered a gay myrtle-leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow; a glow-worm lamp,

It cheered mild Spenser, called from Fairyland
To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains, alas! too few.

This sonnet on the sonnet by Mr. Gilder would be charming as a poem, even if it were not full of suggestive ideas of the sonnet, closing as it does with a fine description of Nature in the last line :

A SONNET ON THE SONNET.

WHAT is a sonnet? 'T is the pearly shell
That murmurs of the far-off murmuring sea;
A precious jewel carved most curiously;

It is a little picture painted well.
What is a sonnet? "T is the tear that fell
From a great poet's hidden ecstasy;
A two-edged sword, a star, a song
Sometimes a heavy-tolling funeral bell.

ah me!

This was the flame that shook with Dante's breath;
The solemn organ whereon Milton played,

And the clear glass where Shakespeare's shadow falls : A sea this is, - beware who ventureth!

For like a fjord the narrow floor is laid

Mid-ocean deep to the sheer mountain walls.

Another American sonneteer,

a lady of

whom it has been said that "the sonnet is her native language," - Mrs. Dorr, has shown how the sonnet should be regarded by the critic, and how by the poet, as follows:

"It is but cunning artifice," you say?
"To it no throb of nature answereth?

It hath no living pulse, no vital breath,
This puppet, fashioned in an elder day,

Through whose strait lips no heart can cry or pray?"
O deaf and blind of soul, these words that saith!
If that thine ear is dull, what hindereth

That quicker ears should hear the bugles play

And the trump call to battle? Since the stars
First sang together, and the exulting skies

Thrilled to their music, earth hath never heard, Above the tumult of her worldly jars,

Or loftier songs or prayers than those that rise
Where the high sonnet soareth like a bird!

II. TO A POET.

Thou who wouldst wake the sonnet's silver lyre,
Make thine hands clean! Then, as on eagle's wings,
Above the soiling touch of sordid things,

Bid thy soul soar till, mounting high and higher,

It feels the glow of pure celestial fire,

Bathes in clear light, and hears the song that rings Through heaven's high arches when some angel

brings

Gifts to the Throne, on wings that never tire!

It hath a subtile music, strangely sweet,
Yet all unmeet for dance or roundelay,

Or idle love that fadeth like a flower:
It is the voice of hearts that strongly beat,
The
cry of souls that grandly love and pray,
The trumpet-peal that thrills the battle-hour!