_Lnt rOMELETl RHYMW6 EEYISED. • INCLUDING THE POET'S CRAFT BOOK Edited by CLEMENT WOOD Revised by RONALD J. BOGUS L# A U R E Published by Dell Publishing a division of Random House, Inc. 1540 Broadway New York, New York 10036 If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book." Book Design by Diane Stevenson/SNAP-HAUS GRAPHICS Copyright © 1936 by Blue Ribbon Books, Inc. Copyright © 1991 by Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address: Doubleday, New York, New York. The trademark Laurel® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. ISBN: 0-440-21205-7 Reprinted by arrangement with Doubleday Printed in the United States of America Published simultaneously in Canada April 1992 25 24 23 OPM ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Acknowledgment is gratefully made to the following publishers and poets for the portions of their work used as illustrations herein: Publisher Boni & Liveright The Century Company Dodd Mead & Company Dodd Mead & Company Doubleday, Doran & Company Henry Holt & Company Henry Holt & Company Henry Holt & Company Houghton, Mifflin & Company Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. The Macmillan Company Manas Press Author Samuel Hoffenstein Brander Matthews Austin Dobson Carolyn Wells Rudyard Kipling Walter de la Mare Robert Frost Carl Sandburg Guy Wetmore Carryll John V. A. Weaver Edwin Arlington Robinson Adelaide Crapsey Poem Source Poems in Praise of Practically Nothing En Route July; The Ballade of Prose and Rhyme Four Limericks The Sons of Martha The Listeners The Death of the Hired Man; The Black Cottage; "Out, Out—" Cahoots; Cool Tombs; Fog How the Helpmate of Bluebeard Made Free with a Door Sonnet Merlin; Roman Bartholow Triad v The Poets Press Charles Scribner's Sons Charles Scribner's Sons Charles Scribner's Sons Small, Maynard & Company Frederick A. Stokes Company Samuel Minturn Peck Clement Wood Henry Cuyler Bunner William Ernest Henley Edwin Arlington Robinson Charlotte Perkins Gilman Alfred Noyes "Before the Dawn" Canopus; The Flight of the Eagle A Pitcher of Mignonette; Behold the Deeds! Ballade of Dead Actors The House on the Hifl Homes; A Man Must Live Marchaunt Adventurers vi FOREWORD The desire to write poetry, or at least acceptable verse, is almost uni- versal. The achievement of this desire may be gained by anyone, without excessive effort. Almost everyone, at some stage of his or her life, has yielded to the seductive siren, and has done his or her best to write poetry. An adequate craftbook on versification is a necessity, when the urge becomes unconquerable. When the versifier's problem is narrowed down to rhyme, the need for a convenient and logically arranged rhyming dictionary soon becomes self-evident. Rhyme is exclusively a matter of sound: what the scientists call phonetics. The logically arranged rhyming dic- tionary must be arranged scientifically by sound; arranged phoneti- cally, to use the scientific word. The arrangement of rhyming sounds in the present volume is wholly phonetic. The introductory study of versification is so complete, that the book will answer almost every question on technique that any would- be poet or versifier desires to have answered. Moreover, it provides models for the most intricate forms of poetry and versification that English-speaking poets use. Following a model is at best finger exer- cise. But finger exercise must precede mastery of the keyboard. The phonetic devices in the volume are simplified from the leading standard dictionaries, by eliminating in general all phonetic signs except those placed above the accented or rhyming syllable. Once these simple phonetic devices are understood and absorbed, poets and versifiers will begin to think accurately, scientifically and phonet- ically about rhymes and rhyming. The technique of rhyming will become as automatic as the technique of walking: and the poetic energy will be proportionately released for the more effective creation of poetry. CLEMENT WOOD. Bozenkill. [...]... know the THE COMPLETE RHYMING DICTIONARY 8 poetry of the past and love it But the critical brain should carefully root out every echo, every imitation—unless some alteration in phrasing or meaning makes the altered phrase your own creation The present double decade has splendidly altered the technique of versification in poetry, by the addition of freer rhythms, consonance, and other devices in the. .. which the word is used as a trochee; He plunged ( head-long in which the word is used as an iamb THE COMPLETE RHYMING DICTIONARY 12 In actual verse and poetry, never forget that the actual rhythm of the words, as normally uttered in a conversational tone, differs from the artificial scansion pattern adopted Take one of the most regular five-foot iambic lines in the language: The curfew tolls the knell... Whitman used the artificial line division of poetry to present the third of these selections; the King James version of the Bible and Lincoln used the natural line division so familiar in the printing of prose Little or nothing is added by the artificial line division: Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle, Out of the Ninth-month midnight, Over the sterile... by removing the opening unaccented syllable The process may be reversed as easily, thus changing trochaic verse into iambic Start with this iambic version: And then the little Hiawatha Remarked unto the old Nokomis, I know that hills are edged with valleys THE COMPLETE RHYMING DICTIONARY 16 By adding an accented syllable at the beginning of each line, this becomes trochaic: Now and then the little... first i' | the charmed | pot, in which case there is an amphibrach in the third foot; or it might be scanned: / _ , / _ - / _ / Boil thou I first F | the char-1 med pot, regarding it as two trochees followed by two iambs But the accepted pattern is trochaic four-foot, and the custom is to prefer the first scansion given At any time, within reason dictated by the poet's own THE COMPLETE RHYMING DICTIONARY. .. natural speech It has altered the themes and subjects of poetry as much, until the Verboten sign is unknown to the present generations of poets, as far as themes are concerned If the speech is natural and conversational; the treatment sincere and original; the craftsmanship matured—there is no reason in the poet's effort to withhold him from a seat among the immortals • II • THE TECHNIQUE OF VERSIFICATION:... Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wandered alone, bareheaded, barefoot, Down from the showered halo, Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive It is poetry, to many, in either form; and the first form is the more natural and readable Scan the Whitman selection, or any of the others, and the tendency toward regularity... hope, forever past desire Yet still the forest lifts its leafy wings to flutter for a while before the chill And still the careless heart is gay, and sings in the green temple on the dusty hill And the gulls tumble, and the homing ships peer for the harbor And the sand drips The Flight of the Eagle, v, Clement Wood In an earlier volume, this had appeared with the usual line division of poetry as... Address, Abraham Lincoln Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, out of the mockingbird's throat, the musical shuttle, out of the Ninth-month midnight, over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wandered alone, bareheaded, barefoot, down from the showered halo, up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking,... dividing line To some, the borderline of poetry includes only the strict regularity of Pope or Dryden, or— Baby in the caldron fell,— See the grief on mother's brow! Mother loved her darling well Darling's quite hard-boiled by now Baby, Harry Graham THE COMPLETE RHYMING DICTIONARY 4 No one can quarrel with this, if it is an honest boundary To others, the magnificent wilder rhythms of Walt Whitman and Lincoln's . the glorious highland of his Hype- rion. Many lesser souls never emerge. It is valuable to know the THE COMPLETE RHYMING DICTIONARY 8 poetry of the. THE COMPLETE RHYMING DICTIONARY 10 Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory— Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they