90 FORMS OF HEBREW POETRY
first four poems in Lamentations, and remarks:
"We are not to suppose this peculiar form of
versification utterly without design or importance:
on the contrary, I am persuaded, that the prophet
adopted this kind of theme as being more diffuse,
more copious, more tender, in all respects better
adapted to melancholy subjects. I must add,
that in all probability the funeral dirges, which
were sung by mourners, were commonly corm.-
posed in this kind of verse: for whenever, in the
prophets, any funereal lamentations occur or any
passages formed upon that plan, the versification
is, if I am not mistaken, of this protracted kind.
... However, the same kind of metre is some-
times, though rarely, employed upon other occa-
sions.... There are, moreover, some poems
manifestly of the elegiac kind, which are com-
posed in the usual metre, and not in unconnected
stanzas, according to the form of a funeral dirge."^1
The peculiarities of this elegiac versification
are best summarised in the Isaiah, as follows :
"The closing pause of each line is generally very
full and strong: and in each line commonly,
towards the end, at least beyond the middle of
it, there is a small rest, or interval, depending on
the sense and grammatical construction, which
I would call a half-pause.... The conjunction
v... seems to be frequently and studiously
omitted at the half-pause : the remaining clause
1 Lectures, ii. pp. 136, 137.