ufficient to make the
lines musical. Thus, Leopoldo Lugones (born 1875?), of
Argentina, in verses which he calls "_libres_" (cf.
_Lunario sentimental_, Buenos Aires, 1909):

Luna, quiero cantarte
iOh ilustre anciana de las mitologias!
Con todas las fuerzas de mi arte.

Deidad que en los antiguos dias
Imprimiste en nuestro polvo tu sandalia,
No alabare el liturgico furor de tus orgias
Ni su erotica didascalia,
Para que alumbres sin mayores ironias,
Al poligloto elogio de las Guias,
Noches sentimentales de _mises_ en Italia.
(_Himno a la luna_)

This is largely a harking back to primitive conditions,
for in the oldest Castilian narrative verse the rule of
"counted syllables" apparently did not prevail. Cf. the
_Cantar de mio Cid_, where there is great irregularity in
the number of syllables. And, although in the page xlvii
old _romances_ the half-lines of eight syllables largely
predominate, many are found with seven or nine syllables,
and some with even fewer or more. The adoption of the rule
of "counted syllables" in Spanish may have been due to one
or more of several causes: to the influence of medieval
Latin rhythmic songs;[10] to French influence; or merely
to the development in the Spanish people of a feeling for
artistic symmetry.

[Footnote 10: Such as:

Stabat Mater dolorosa
Juxta crucem lachrymosa
Dum pendebat filius.]

Other poets of to-day write verses in which the line
contains a fixed number of syllables or any multiple of
that number. Thus, Julio Sesto (_Blanco y Negro_, Nov. 5,
1911):

iComo desembarcan..., como desembarcan
esas pobres gentes...!
Desde la escalera de la nave todo Nueva York abarcan
de un vistazo: muelles, rio, casas, puentes...
Y despues que todos sus cinco sentidos
ponen asombrados en ver la ciudad,
como agradecidos,
miran a la estatua de la Libertad.
iElla es la Madona, ella es la Madona,
que de la Siberia saca a los esclavos,
que a los regicidas la vida perdona,
y que salva a muchos de contribuyentes, pobres, perseguidos,
subditos y esclavos!...

(_La tierra prometida_)

Spanish poets have often tried to write verses in
classical meters with the substitution of stress for
quantity. Thus, Villegas in the following hexameters:

Seis veces el verde soto corono su cabeza
de nardo, de amarillo trebol, de morada vioela,
en tanto que el pecho frio de mi casta Licoris
al rayo del