obtained by this means.

Take the following from the 'Ode on

Intimations of Immortality':

Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
The rainbow comes and goes,

And lovely is the rose.

To me alone there came a thought of grief.

The fulness of your bliss I feel—I feel it all.
Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.

O joy! that in our embers

Is something that doth live.

Referring back to Pope, we find the employment of inversion very unsteady. It is not wanting, and the poet is, at times, well aware of its force; but takes no trouble to sustain the practice. The following lines are almost pure prose as regards order :—

In that soft season, when descending showers
Call forth the greens, and wake the rising flowers
When opening buds salute the welcome day,
And earth relenting feels the genial ray;
As balmy sleep had charm'd my cares to rest,
And love itself was banished from my breast
(What time the morn mysterious visions brings,
While purer slumbers spread their golden wings),
A train of phantoms in wild order rose,
And, join'd, this intellectual scene compose.

In the lines that follow, there are a few more inversions:-
I stood, methought, betwixt earth, seas, and skies:

The whole creation open to my eyes.

There would be nothing but rhyme at fault if we inverted thus :— Betwixt earth, seas, and skies, methought I stood:

To my eyes the whole creation open.

The next line shows a full inversion :

In air self-balanced hung the globe below.

It would be an advantage if the adverb 'below' could be made to commence; as it gives the comprehensive situation.

Where mountains rise, and circling oceans flow.

There is no poetic form here, beyond the metre, if we except the use of the adjective 'circling': the co-ordinating adjective of condensation not being so usual in prose as in poetry.

Here naked rocks and empty wastes were seen.

INVERSION IN POPE.

The same remark applies to this without the qualification.
Here sailing ships delight the wandering eyes

might be :

23

The wandering eyes here sailing ships delight. Passing over a line, we have, in the two that follow, examples of partial inversion :

Now a clear sun the shining scene displays,

The transient landscape now in clouds decays.

The first line transposes the object of the active verb, at the risk of ambiguity. The regular form would have been too palpably close upon prose. The second line, if accommodated to metre, would run more plain and more forcible, thus :—

And in clouds decays the transient landscape.

The two succeeding lines are also illustrative :—
O'er the wild prospect (as I gazed around)

-as around I gazed

Sudden (I heard a wild promiscuous sound)

--a wild promiscuous sound I heard.

The following lines repeat Pope's favourite inversion of the object of an active verb :—

Then gazing up a glorious pile beheld,

Whose towering summit ambient clouds conceal'd.

It is only the sense that saves the second from ambiguity.
High on a rock of ice (the structure lay)

-lay the structure.

The next line is the inversion of an adjective predicate:-
Steep its ascent, and slippery was the way.

The law of superior emphasis might here dictate the direct order :-
The ascent steep, the way slippery.

He goes on:

(The wondrous rock like Parian marble shone) -Like Parian marble shone the wondrous rockAnd (seem'd, to distant sight, of solid stone)

--to distant sight seemed of solid stone.

We should find, in going still farther back, that our poets are, on occasion, fully sensible of the power of inversion, but not consistent in the employment of it. Striking examples can be adduced from Milton, Shakespeare, and Chaucer; and equally striking cases where the inverted order would have told, and was not employed.

It remains now to quote recent examples as showing how the use of inversion stands at present. Generally speaking, our modern poets, in this particular, may be said to be up to the point of Campbell.

There is no want of inversion in Tennyson, yet he has passages like the following :—

But now the whole Round Table is dissolved,
Which was an image of the mighty world;
And I, the last, go forth companionless,

And the days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds.

This is a purely prose order, excepting the ellipsis in the two last lines. The last but one would seem to invite a small transposition- And round me darken the days'.

In general, it may be said that Tennyson mostly keeps to the direct order when there is no special elevation in the passage. This applies, for example, to the reflection and reasoning of 'In Memoriam' and to the calm narrative of the Idylls,' in both of which it is remarkable how seldom the inverted order is adopted. On the other hand, we find it frequent in poems of passion, such as 'Locksley Hall' and 'Enone'. The following is an instance :Of old sat freedom on the heights,

The thunders breaking at her feet,
Above her shook the starry lights,

She heard the torrents meet.

The case is different with William Morris. In his 'Earthly Paradise' inversion is abundantly employed, even in the most unimpassioned narrative. Take the following examples :—

But on the cold side looking toward the north,
A pillared council-house may you behold,
Within whose porch are images of gold.

Their arms were axe and spear, and shield and bow,
But nought of iron did they seem to know;

With cloths of cotton were their bodies clad,
But other raiment for delight they had.

The following is in more elevated style :—

Then high rose up the gleaming deadly blade,

Bared of its flowers, and through the crowded place

Was silence now, and midst of it the maid

Went by the poor wretch at a gentle pace,

And he to hers upturned his sad white face;

Nor did his eyes behold another sight

Ere on his soul there fell eternal night.

It would appear that Mr. Morris consciously uses the inverted sentence as one of the regular poetic forms, and often prefers it when the direct order would have been more suitable.

Browning uses the inverted sentence rarely, and when he does, it is commonly in such forms as are permissible in ordinary prose.

In Matthew Arnold's ‘River of Time,' inversions and the direct

RECENT POETS.-ENGLISH BIBLE.

25

forms are nearly equal. The following lines may be taken as representative :

But what was before us we know not,

And we know not what shall succeed.

Compare this with Shakespeare's directness throughout :—

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

If inversion, in itself, be a source of strength and a part of poetic form, it should not be departed from merely to produce variety. As well might we vary a poem by infringing on the metre. No one would advocate the transposition of the order in one half of the Beatitudes, to take away the unavoidable monotony. There will always remain necessary instances of the direct order; and inversions may be used, wherever admissible, without the tedium of iteration. Monotony is more likely to be produced by neglecting to consider the proper occasions for deviating from prose order.*

* From the English Bible we have already made numerous quotations in exemplifying each separate form of inversion; but it will still be useful to add here a comprehensive statement on the general subject of how far our translators avail themselves of the advantages furnished by this form of sentence.

Inversion is not so largely used in the English Bible as is sometimes supposed, though it certainly occurs in cases where it would not be employed in the present day. In pure prose, such as the Gospels, the Epistles, and the historical books of the Old Testament, the inversion is more frequent than in modern English; at least, it is employed in many sentences that would not now be naturally so written. Examples have already been adduced. But when we examine the poetical books, such as the Psalms, Job, and many of the Prophets, where we might expect to meet with it much more frequently, we actually find that it is not so often resorted to as it would be in passages of the same style in modern English. The inversions in prose are principally archaic; the style of the Authorised Version, as is well known, dating, not from the time of King James I., but from that of Henry VIII., about a century earlier, when the Versions it was based on first took shape. These inversions are merely a survival from a still older period of the language when, inflections being more numerous, such variations of order were more common. In poetry it does not seem that the effect of the inversion was as yet very fully realised. Probably to the ears of our translators the specially poetical effect was not so perceptible as to ours, seeing that its general disuse in ordinary prose was necessary to this result being fully reached.

An examination of a few passages from the poetical books will illustrate these statements. We very often find that the emphasis could be improved or a more poetic form of sentence gained by a very obvious inversion that is, nevertheless, neglected. Here is a good example: This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell; for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provision; I will satisfy her poor with bread. I will also clothe her priests with salvation; and her saints shall shout aloud for joy.' The first sentence may stand; but the gain in emphasis and poetic form is clear in the following: 'Her provision will I abundantly bless; her poor will I satisfy with bread. Her priests will I clothe with salvation; and her saints shall shout aloud for joy'. The change also fully preserves the parallelism.

('The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made'=) 'In the pit that they made are the heathen sunk down; in the net which they hid is their own foot taken.' Cases like these three are very common, one member of the parallelism having the direct, the other the inverted form. Variety seems to have been the aim; but it is gained at the expense of poetic tone as well as complete parallelism. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence; and precious shall their blood be in his sight. And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba; prayer also shall be made for him continually; and daily shall he be praised.' The inversions here used are very effective; but the passage very naturally suggests an extension of the device, the result being an obvious advantage. Thus :- The poor

and needy shall he spare, and the souls of the needy shall he save. Their soul shall he redeem from deceit and violence; and precious shall their blood be in his sight. And he shall live, and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba; for him shall prayer also be made continually; and daily shall he be praised.'

The following is a curious instance: In Judah is God known; his name is great in Israel. In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Zion.' The proper name Judah,' at the beginning of the whole, deserves the emphasis it receives, since it really points out the locality referred to in all the four statements. The other proper names are little more than variations of it, and, therefore, have not much emphasis; the principal stress, after the opening phrase, really rests on the predicates. This will be gained, and parallelism preserved, by adopting inversion throughout: In Judah is God known; in Israel is his name great. In Salem also is his tabernacle, and in Zion his dwelling-place.'

'Surely, he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows'=' Our griefs hath he borne and our sorrows hath he carried'. 'But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed.' By inversion here there is clear gain in appropriate emphasis as well as in poetic form: For our transgressions was he wounded, for our iniquities was he bruised; upon him was the chastisement of our peace, and with his stripes are we healed'.

"The Lord is great, and greatly to be praised.' This is flat compared with the inverted order: Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised'. The one occurs in Psalm xcvi. 4, the other in Psalm cxlv. 3; and the varying translation from the same original illustrates the want of distinct aim in the translators' use of this form.

Partial inversion is exemplified in the verse: 'Unto us a child is born,' &c. There is an obvious improvement in making it thorough: Unto us is born a child; unto us is given a son; and on his shoulders shall be the government'.

These cases are not explained by any attention to the order of the original; indeed, no principle can be found in them beyond the desire for variety. The inversion in such examples is always a gain in poetic form, and very often a means of better expressing the correct emphasis. The parallelism of the members is an additional gain.