Throughout the following pages “verse” stands for any kind of metrical composition as distinguished from prose. It is not used as a synonym for “poetry.” Though most poetry is in verse form, most verse is not poetry. The ability to write verse can be acquired; only a poet can write poetry. At the same time, even a poet must learn to handle his verse with some degree of skill or his work is apt to fall very flat, and the mere verse writer who cannot rhyme correctly and fit his lines together in meter had much better stick to prose.

This book has been compiled with one end in view: to arrange in a convenient and inexpensive form the fundamentals of verse—enough for the student who takes up verse as a literary exercise or for the older verse writer who has fallen into a rut or who is a bit shaky on theory. It is even hoped that there may be a word of help for some embryo poet.

In construction the plan has been to suggest rather than to explain in detail and as far as possible to help the reader to help himself. No verse has been quoted except where the illustration of a point made it necessary. With the increasing number of libraries it ought to be an easy matter for any one to refer to most of the lesser verse writers as well as all the standard poets.