188 FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
strophe the clear but slight sense-pause within
the distich, and the greater sense-pause at the
end of each distich, are matched by a regularly
recurring still greater sense-division at the end
of every third distich in Lamentations i. and ii.,
of every second in Lamentations iv.; and for
this reason a single use of the alphabetic letter
at the beginning of each group of distichs suffices,
for the sense holds the group together and gives
it a unity. On the other hand, in Lamentations
iii., and, I think, the same may be said of Psalm
cxix., the distichs united under the same letter
have no regular close sense-connexion with one
another, or sense-separation from the distichs
united under the neighbouring letters of the
alphabet; and indeed in Lamentations iii., it
will be remembered, the best examples of distichs
parallel to one another, and, therefore, closely
related to one another in sense, are distichs
belonging to different alphabetic groups.^1 Now
it is remarkable that precisely in this poem, where
the successive distichs of an alphabetic section
are not welded together by sense-connexion and
so form no organic unity, their union is secured
by the purely external device of repeating the
same initial letter at the beginning of each
distich of the alphabetic section; and so in
Psalm cxix. Lamentations i., ii., and iv. each
consists of twenty-two equal verse-paragraphs
1 See above, p. 141.