Then they
will be natural, and will furnish you with something worth
writing."
It is fair to myself to explain, however, that many of these
verses of mine were written chiefly as exercises in rhythmic
expression. I remember this distinctly about one of my poems with
a terrible title,--"The Murderer's Request,"--in which I made an
imaginary criminal pose for me, telling where he would not and
where be would like to be buried. I modeled my verses,--
"Bury ye me on some storm-rifted mountain,
O'erhaliging the depths of a yawning abyss,"--
upon Byron's,
"Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime;"
and I was only trying to see how near I could approach to his
exquisite metre. I do not think I felt at all murderous in
writing it; but a more innocent subject would have been in better
taste, and would have met the exigencies of the dactyl quite as
well.
It is also only fair to myself to say that my rhyming was usually
of a more wholesome kind.
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