syllables in length. However, if worse comes to worst, the Malay poet with true poetic license suits himself in preference to others, and frequently employs as few as six or as many as thirteen syllables in a line. The length of a syllable is determined by tonic accent, but penult syllables not ending in a consonant are long, those ending in silent i are short. But here, too, the Malay often departs from theory, and his rhymes, instead of being always exact, are constructed for the eye and not for the ear; and as for the short lines, they have to be drawled out into a legitimate scansion. The lines are not written one below another as with us, but the second opposite the first, the third under the second and opposite the fourth, and so on.
The {pantun} is much employed in improvisation, the stanzas being recited alternately by the two taking part. To the Malayan mind the beauty of this kind of verse lies in the artistic perfection of each quatrain by which it is made to veil some charming metaphor, which in turn serves in the last two lines to point a moral or express some sentiment of love or friendship, depending on the allegory of the preceding. To illustrate:
Tinggih tinggih pokok lamburi
Sayang puchok-nia meniapa awan
Habis teloh puwas kuchari
Bagei punei menchari kawan.
Bulan trang bintang berchaya
Burong gagah bermakan padi
Teka tuan tiada perchaya
Bela dada, melihat hati.
The lamburi tree is tall, tall,
Its branches sweep the sky;
My search is vain, and o'er is all,
Like a mate-lorn dove am I.
Clear is the moon, with stars agleam.
The raven wastes in the padi field;
O my beloved, when false I seem.
Open my breast, my heart is revealed.
The waves are white on the Kataun shore,
And day and night they beat;
The garden has white blossoms o'er,
But only one do I think sweet.
Deeper yet the water grows,
Nor the mountain rain is stilled;
My heart more longing knows,
And its hope is unfulfilled.
