Shelley is generally--and I think most justly--regarded as a peculiarly
melodious versifier: but it must not be supposed that he is rigidly
exact in his use of rhyme. The contrary can be proved from the entire
body of his poems. _Adonais_ is, in this respect, neither more nor less
correct than his other writings. It would hardly be reasonable to
attribute his laxity in rhyming to either carelessness, indifference, or
unskilfulness: but rather to a deliberate preference for a certain
variety in the rhyme-sounds--as tending to please the ear, and availing
to satisfy it in the total effect, without cloying it by any tight-drawn
uniformity. Such a preference can be justified on two grounds: firstly,
that the general effect of the slightly varied sounds is really the more
gratifying of the two methods, and I believe that, practised within
reasonable limits, it is so; and secondly, that the requirements of
sense are superior to those of sound, and that, in the effort after
severely exact rhyming, a writer would often, be compelled to sacrifice
some delicacy of thought, or some grace or propriety of diction. Looking
through the stanzas of _Adonais_, I find the following laxities of
rhyming: Compeers, dares; anew, knew (this repetition of an identical
syllable as if it were a rhyme is very frequent with Shelley, who
evidently considered it to be permissible, and even right--and in this
view he has plenty of support): God; road; last, waste; taught, not;
break, cheek (two instances); ground, moaned; both, youth; rise, arise;
song, stung; steel, fell; light, delight; part, depart; wert, heart;
wrong, tongue; brow, so; moan, one; crown, tone; song, unstrung; knife,
grief; mourn, burn; dawn, moan; bear, bear; blot, thought; renown,
Chatterton; thought, not; approved, reproved; forth, earth; nought, not;
home, tomb; thither, together; wove, of; riven, heaven. These are 34
instances of irregularity. The number of stanzas in _Adonais_ is 55:
therefore there is more than one such irregularity for every two
stanzas.

It may not be absolutely futile if we bestow a little more attention
upon the details of these laxities of rhyme. The repetition of an
identical syllable has been cited 6 times. In 4 instances the sound of
_taught_ is assimilated to that of _not_ (I take here no account of
differences of spelling, but only of the sounds); in 4, the sound of
_ground_ and of _renown_ to that of _moaned_, or of _Chatterton_; in 2,
the sound