Words Without Rhyme

WORDS WITHOUT RHYME.

Some Difficulties the Poets Cannot Overcome.

In a well known musical comedy the kingly poet of a mythical state makes a frantic demand on his subjects for a rhyme with sarsaparilla. The question calls to mind the surprisingly few words there are n the comparatively harsh English tongue, with its plethora of consonants, for which there are no rhyming equivalents. Sarsaparilla, as a manufactured name, is hardly a fair example, but there are said to be only three familiar words of everyday speech which loom up ferociously before the student of metrical possibilities. They are silver, month and carpet. Of these silver alone remains absolutely unassailable, for Swinburne has in one of his poems a word of Greek derivation which may be said at a pinch to rhyme with month, and W. S. Gilbert of "Pinafore and "Mikado" fame has in the "Bab Ballads" ingeniously conquered carpet as follows:

One day that Turk he sickened sore,

Which threw him straight into a sharp pet.

He threw himself upon the floor

And rolled about his carpet.

The same author has also established a record in "Patience" for rhyming unfamiliar words that look extremely formidable to the novice. The verse runs:

When from the poet's plinth

The amorous calocynth, etc.

which, although it be very beautiful, is hardly intelligible.

But silver is still obstinate, and the young Musaen who ends his first line with that fatal word had better stick to blank verse. --Philadelphia Record.