Why do the Gentiles tumult, and the nations Muse a vain thing, the kings of earth upstand With power, and princes in their congregations Lay deep their plots together through each land Against the Lord and his Messiah dear? "Let us break off," say they, "by strength of hand Their bonds, and cast from us, no more to wear, Their twisted cords." He who in Heaven doth dwell Shall laugh. (MILTON: _Psalm II._ 1653.) O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odors plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and Preserver; hear, oh hear! (SHELLEY: _Ode to the West Wind._ 1819.) In this case the tercets are united in groups of three to form a strophe of fourteen lines together with a final couplet riming with the middle line of the preceding tercet. The true has no value beyond the sham: As well the counter as coin, I submit, When your table's a hat, and your prize a dram. Stake your counter as boldly every whit, Venture as warily, use the same skill, Do your best, whether winning or losing it, If you choose to play!--is my principle. Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will! (BROWNING: _The Statue and the Bust._ 1855.) The effort to translate Dante in the original metre is especially interesting, and marked by great difficulties; to furnish the necessary rimes, without introducing expletive words that mar the simplicity of the original, being a serious problem. The following are interesting specimens of translations where this problem is grappled with; the first is a well-known fragment, the second a portion of a still unpublished translation of the _Inferno_, reproduced here by the courtesy of the author.