Acrostic (Gr., made up of akros, 'pointed, first,' and stichos, 'a row'), a term for a number of verses the first letters of which follow some predetermined order, usually forming a word—most commonly a name—or a phrase or sentence. Sometimes the final letters spell words as well as the initial, and the peculiarity will even run down the middle of the poem like a seam. Sir John Davies composed twenty-six Hymns to Astrea (Queen Elizabeth), in every one of which the initial letters of the lines form the words ELISABETHA REGINA. The following is one of the twenty-six:
E v'ry night from ev'n to morn,
L ove's chorister amid the thorn
I s now so sweet a singer;
S o sweet, as for her song I scorn
A pollo's voice and finger.
B ut, nightingale, sith you delight
E ver to watch the starry night,
T ell all the stars of heaven,
H eaven never had a star so bright
A s now to earth is given.
R oyal Astrea makes our day
E tern with her beams, nor may
G ross darkness overcome her;
I now perceive why some do write
N o country hath so short a night
A s England hath in summer.
One of the most ancient and remarkable acrostics is the phrase in Greek, 'Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour,' the initial letters of which form the word ichthys, 'a fish,' to which a mystical meaning was attached. In the acrostic poetry of the Hebrews, the initial letters of the lines or of the stanzas were made to run over the letters of the alphabet in their order. Twelve of the psalms of the Old Testament are written on this plan. The 119th Psalm is the most remarkable. It is composed of twenty-two divisions or stanzas (corresponding to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet), each stanza consisting of eight couplets; and the first line of each couplet in the first stanza beginning, in the original Hebrew, with the letter aleph, in the second stanza with beth, &c. The divisions of the psalm are named each after the letter that begins the couplets, and these names have been retained in the English translation. With a view to aid the memory, it was customary at one time to compose verses on sacred subjects after the fashion of those Hebrew acrostics, the successive verses or lines beginning with the letters of the alphabet in their order. Such pieces were called Abecedarian Hymns.