Very often a line from a piece of prose or verse sticks in the memory.

Utilize the line by making it the refrain of a ballade or the ending of some similar verse form. Browning composed his "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," around that single line taken from a song in "King Lear." It is possible to go even further and with a stanza--say from some Elizabethan song--construct about it the completed poem. Rossetti has done this with one of Ophelia's songs in "Hamlet."

But keep up your interest and work for the love of working. There is drudgery in the learning of anything, but with verse one can at least make it interesting drudgery. Never give up; never be satisfied; and with all English literature to rove in, don't stick in a rut.

Now a general summing up for the verse maker--a summing up that applies just as much to painting or modeling as it does to verse writing.

Remember always that you are your own master and that your highest development must always come from yourself. On all matters of taste you are the court of last resort to decide for the hurt or betterment of your soul. So it is necessary in the beginning to be just with yourself.

If your verses are not good, throw them away or rewrite them. If they are good not only when written but after they have been laid aside for a month; if the rhymes are true and the meter perfect; if the words run naturally and clearly and embody a real idea, then you may be sure that you have something worthy of editorial consideration at least. If the idea is old and put in the form that has endured, lo! these many generations--"love," "dove," "kiss," "bliss," very probably it will not be accepted. When it comes back from five magazines be fair enough to recognize that perhaps the fault lies with you and lay the masterpiece away for another two months. Then examine it fair-mindedly and try to see just where it falls short of perfection. But you must be you own worst or rather best critic. Admit it when you are wrong and when you are right hold your opinion against all comers.

You must decide whether to write much verse or little. Sometimes improvement comes best with a great deal of carelessly constructed stuff. Again a smaller and more carefully regulated output is better. As a general thing, if your ear is correct and your verse comes easily, the better way is to write little and write carefully, spending your time on a few lines. If, however, your rhymes come hard and your expression is not fluent, try a larger output not so carefully revised.

a.n.a.lyze and imitate.

Make the mechanical construction correct. Two rhyming words with you should be either good or bad; you should not recognize half-way rhymes.

If they are not worthy to be cla.s.sed with the best, throw them out utterly. Even in your exercises do not tolerate a false rhyme or a line lacking in syllables.

Do not attempt too hard a thing at first. You will only be disappointed.

Do not write a ballade until you can write a limerick. Work up gradually.

And you must not become discouraged. If you write day in and day out, you are bound to improve, though the work of Wednesday be no better than that of Tuesday or even of Sat.u.r.day. Progress goes in jumps. Nine times we fail and on the tenth trial we succeed.

We cannot all be artists but we can all be good workmen. And the better we are able to handle our materials the better we shall be able, if it is in us, to produce something worth while.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

I

MARKET FOR VERSE

There is no market nowadays for the long poem except from writers of established reputation. As a rule the shorter the verse the better its chance of acceptance. Verse humorous is easier to dispose of than verse serious because there is a wider field. _Puck_, _Judge_, _Life_, _Smart Set_, _Ainslee's_, _Harper's_, _Century_, and an army of others are always willing to buy really amusing verse.

Serious verse is sold in lesser quant.i.ties, but the price is better--when the production is bought by a high-cla.s.s publication. The _Atlantic Monthly_ is always on the lookout for new writers and other magazines are prompt to recognize what pleases them even in the work of a newcomer. Perhaps the most standard popular forms of serious verse are the sonnet and the short love lyric.

Many editors are glad to buy quatrains and even couplets to fill out a page when a longer form would be rejected. The well-written triolet is also sure of a hearing for this same reason.

Newspapers pay little or nothing for verse except when a special writer is put on the staff to supply a column of verse a day. Occasionally some topical stanza which agrees with the editorial policy will be accepted from an outsider. It may be pointed out here that very often the humor or appropriateness of a production will overbalance faults in the rhyme and meter. In serious verse an exception of this sort will rarely be found and a thing must stand or fall on its real merits.

There is no sure way to determine the market except by personal investigation. Read the magazines till you find out where the editor's preference lies and then try him with something of your own, written not in imitation but on the same general lines. Do not send out your verse in a hit-or-miss fashion. Separate the limericks and the love songs and send them each to their appointed editor.

In spite of the protestations of interested publishers the reading public does not interest itself in the volume of "collected poems." A book of this sort is rarely looked at unless it runs very much out of the ordinary or comes as the product of some well-known author.

II

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING

This is not intended in any way to be an exhaustive list. It merely suggests the field which each student is bound to explore for himself.

TECHNIQUE OF VERSE.

The Rhymester--Tom Hood. Concise; with rhyming dictionary appendix.

Science of Verse--Sidney Lanier. Worth while for the advanced student.

--The Poetic Principle,

--Philosophy of Compensation,

--Rationale of Verse. Essays by Edgar Allan Poe; to be found in his collected works. Very interesting as showing the methods and viewpoint of a great poet.

COLLECTIONS OF POETRY.

Ward's English Poets. Four volumes ranging from Chaucer to Tennyson.

Oxford Book of English Verse. One large volume containing the work of many of the living writers as well as selections from all the standard poets.

--Victorian Anthology.

--American Anthology. Both compiled by Edmund Clarence Stedman. Valuable because they contain examples of the best work of to-day's verse makers.

THE SONNET.

Examples of the sonnet are to be found in almost any collection of verse. The older magazines, especially the _Atlantic Monthly_, use the form continually. The best known sonnet series are:

Astrophel and Stella--Sir Philip Sidney.

Sonnets of Shakespeare.

House of Life--Rossetti.

Sonnets from the Portuguese--Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

FRENCH FORMS.

Examples are to be found in the collected poems of Austin Dobson, Andrew Lang, W. E. Henley and H. C. Bunner, to mention only the more prominent.

The Ballade Book, edited by Gleeson White, Ex Libris Series, contains examples of all the forms and is probably the most convenient collection to be had.