VARIETIES OF RHYTHM 165
rhymes instead of one so that they rhyme alter-
nately, and the form of the typical short metre
of our hymn-books is the result. But in some
cases the origin of short metre asserts itself, and
within the same hymn the first and third lines
sometimes rhyme and sometimes do not; as,
for example, in these two consecutive verses of
Wesley's translation of Gerhardt's hymn
Give to the winds thy fears,
Hope and be undismayed;
God hears thy sighs, and counts thy tears,
God shall lift up thy head.
Through waves and clouds and storms
He gently clears thy way:
Wait thou His time; so shall that night
Soon end in joyous day--
and so throughout the hymn, though in no
regular alternation, we may observe rhymed and
unrhymed first and third lines. Rhythmically
the two long lines of the old poulter's measure
and the four short lines of modern short metre
'are identical: where rhymes regularly mark off
the shorter periods, it is obviously convenient
to make this prominent by dividing into four
lines ; but where the first and third sections
only occasionally rhyme, either course might be
adopted : and so with a Hebrew poem in which
parallelism sometimes, but not invariably or
even predominantly, exists between the halves
of successive periods of four stresses.
Yet, clearly allied as 2 : 2 and 4 : 4 are, at