A SCHOOL OF POETS


upon, of "illustrating " the mythologies of the world,
Southey turned to the meter of the Dramatic Sketches as
his proper vehicle. Yet he took some months in deciding
the question. He began by resolving against blank verse
in order to avoid mannerism and feebleness, and he planned
at first to use irregular rimed stanzas, possibly with blank
verse at dramatic moments in the narrative.' But in
August, 1799, he had composed the first book and a half in
the irregular unrimed stanzas. In this he met encourage-
ment from William Taylor,2 who cited Klopstock's choral
dramas, Stolberg's odes, and Cesarotti's translation of
Ossian into Italian. Sayers, however, was constantly ac-
knowledged by Southey to be his model.
The metrical beauties of Thalaba can easily be over-
stated. There were so many faults that Southey might so
easily have committed but foresaw and avoided, that we
are apt to praise the verse of the poem as a positive success.
The lines, undistinguished as they are by rime, and irregular
as they are in length, do not run into insignificant prose.
On the other hand, the pauses are managed with such
skill that one gets no impression that one is reading the
conventional blank verse unconventionally printed. The
absence of rime is not an annoyance to the ear, largely be-
cause the mind is constantly satisfied by the use of parallel-
ism. What Southey prided himself particularly upon was
his skill in constantly varying the beat of the rhythm and
the time-length of the verses to fit the changing sentiments
expressed.   "The Arabian youth knelt down,
And bowed his forehead to the ground
And made his evening prayer.
When he arose the stars were bright in heaven,
The sky was blue, and the cold Moon
Shone over the cold snow.
A speck in the air!
Taylor, I, 272.       2 Ibid., 284.


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