When one is well away with this part of the poem it is almost impossible to stop. When you are writing in metre you come eventually to the eighth line of the last verse and you have to stop; but in _vers libre_ you have no assistance of that kind. This particular poem is being written for instructional purposes in a journal of limited capacity, so it will probably have to stop fairly soon; but in practice it would go on for a long time yet. In any case, however, it would end in the same way, like this:-- Mud, mud, Nothing but mud, O, my God! That reasserts, you see, in a striking manner, the original _motif_, and somehow expresses in a few words the poignant melancholy of the whole poem. Another advantage in finishing a long poem, such as this would be, in the same way as you began it is that it makes it clear to the reader that he is still reading the same poem. Sometimes, and especially in _vers libre_ of an emotional and digressive character, the reader has a hideous fear that he has turned over two pages and got into another poem altogether. This little trick reassures him; and if you are writing _vers libre_ you must not lose any legitimate opportunity of reassuring the reader. To treat the same theme in metre and rhyme will be a much more difficult matter. The great thing will be to avoid getting _mud_ at the end of a line, for the reasons already given. We had better have long ten-syllable lines, and we had better have four of them in each verse. GRAY wrote an elegy in that metre which has given general satisfaction. We will begin:-- As I came down through Chintonbury Hole The tide rolled out from Wurzel to the sea. In a serious poem of this kind it is essential to establish a locality atmosphere at once; therefore one mentions a few places by name to show that one has been there. If the reader has been there too he will like the poem, and if he hasn't no harm is done. The only thing is that locally Chintonbury is probably pronounced Chun'bury, in which case it will not scan. One cannot be too careful about that sort of thing. However, as an illustration Chintonbury will serve. It is now necessary to show somehow in this verse that the poem is about mud; it is also necessary to organise a rhyme for 'Hole' and a rhyme for 'sea,' and of the two this is the more important. I shall do it like this:-- And like the unclothed levels of my soul The yellow mud lay mourning nakedly. There is a good deal to be said against these two lines. For one thing I am not sure that the mud ought to be yellow; it will remind people of Covent Garden Tube Station, and no one wants to be reminded of that. However, it does suggest the inexpressible biliousness of the theme.