Chapter 8

The Cesura is called _masculine_ when it follows an accented syllable. (For examples, see previous specimen from Gascoigne.) It is called _feminine_ when it follows an unaccented syllable. Two varieties of the feminine cesura are also distinguished: the Lyric, when the pause occurs inside a foot; _e.g._:

"This wicked traitor, whom I thus accuse;"

the Epic, when the pause occurs after an extra (hypermetrical) light syllable; _e.g._:

"To Canterbury with ful devout corage."

"But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives."

The "epic" cesura is quite as characteristic of dramatic blank verse as of epic.

The pause occurring at the end of a line is equally regular with the medial pause, and corresponds in the same way to a phrase-pause in music. It is an element of the same character, then, as the cesura, though not bearing the same name. It coincides less closely than the cesura with syntactical and rhetorical pauses. When there is no corresponding syntactical or rhetorical pause at the end of the line (in other words, when the metrical pause marking the end of the verse cannot be prominently represented in reading without interfering with the expression of the sense), the line is said to be "run-on." Such an ending is also called _enjambement_. The importance of this distinction between "end-stopped" and "run-on" lines will appear in the notes on the Decasyllabic Couplet and Blank Verse, in Part Two.

(_b_) Pauses filling the time of syllables.

A second class of silent time-intervals, or pauses, is to be distinguished from the cesural pause by the fact that in this case the time of the pause is counted in the metrical scheme. Pauses of this class correspond to rests in music; and as in the case of such rests, their occurrence is exceptional.

Of fustian he wered a gipoun [^] Al bismotered with his habergeoun.

For him was lever have at his beddes heed [^] Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed.

(CHAUCER: Prologue to _Canterbury Tales_, 75 f. and 293 f.)

This omission of the first light syllable is characteristic of Chaucer's couplet and of Middle English verse generally. (See Schipper, vol. i. p. 462, and ten Brink's _Chaucer's Sprache und Verskunst_, p. 175.) In modern verse it is not usually permitted.

The time doth pass, [^] yet shall not my love.

(WYATT: _The joy so short, alas!_)

The omitted syllable following the medial pause is closely parallel to that at the beginning of the verse.

Stay! [^] The king hath thrown his warder down.

(_Richard II_, I. iii. 118.)

Kneel thou down, Philip. [^] But rise more great.

(_King John_, I. i. 161.)

In drops of sorrow. [^] Sons, kinsmen, thanes.

(_Macbeth_, I. iv. 35.)

Than the soft myrtle. [^] But man, proud man.

(_Measure for Measure_, II. ii. 117.)

These specimens of pauses in Shakspere's verse indicate the natural varieties of dramatic form. In such cases the pause often occurs between speeches, or where some action is to be understood as filling the time; as in the second instance, where the accolade is given in the middle of the line. (See Abbott's _Shakespearian Grammar_, pp. 413 ff.)

[^] Break, [^] break, [^] break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.

(TENNYSON: _Break, Break, Break._)

In Lanier's _Science of English Verse_, p. 101, this stanza is represented in musical notation, with rests, to show that rhythm "may be dependent on silences."

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld [^] lang [^] syne?

(BURNS: _Auld Lang Syne._)

Here the syllables "auld" and "lang" may be regarded as lengthened so as to fill the time of the missing light syllables. So in many cases there is a choice between compensatory lengthening and compensatory pause.

Thus [^] said the Lord [^] in the Vault above the Cherubim, Calling to the angels and the souls in their degree: "Lo! Earth has passed away On the smoke of Judgment Day. That Our word may be established shall We gather up the sea?"

Loud [^] sang the souls [^] of the jolly, jolly mariners: "Plague upon the hurricane that made us furl and flee! But the war is done between us, In the deep the Lord hath seen us-- Our bones we'll leave the barracout', and God may sink the sea!"

(KIPLING: _The Last Chantey._)

This is an instance of a pause forming a regular part of the verse-rhythm. Thus in the first verse of each stanza the second and sixth syllables are omitted, and the result gives the characteristic effect of the rhythm. In measures where there is regular catalexis (that is, where the last light syllable of the verse is regularly omitted) the phenomenon is really of the same kind.

These, these will give the world another heart, And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum Of mighty workings?---- Listen awhile, ye nations, and be dumb.

(Keats: _Sonnet to Haydon_.)

Call her once before you go,-- Call once yet! In a voice that she will know,-- "Margaret! Margaret!" Children's voices should be dear (Call once more) to a mother's ear; Children's voices, wild with pain,-- Surely she will come again! Call her once, and come away; This way, this way!...

Come, dear children, come away down: Call no more! One last look at the white-walled town, And the little gray church on the windy shore; Then come down! She will not come, though you call all day; Come away, come away!

(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _The Forsaken Merman_.)

In this specimen no attempt has been made to indicate the pauses, as different readers would interpret the verse variously. It will be found that this whole poem is a study in delicate changes and arrangements of time-intervals. The four stresses characteristic of the rhythm can be accounted for in such short lines as the second and tenth, properly read.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Transactions of the Philological Society_, 1875-76.

[2] According to a more elaborate system Mr. Ellis recognized nine varieties of force or stress, which he named in order as follows: subweak, weak, superweak, submean, mean, supermean, substrong, strong, superstrong. In like manner he named nine degrees each of length, pitch, weight, and silence. Length and Silence are both terms of duration of time. The meaning of Weight has not been generally understood, nor is the term ordinarily recognized. Mr. Ellis described it as "due to expression and mental conceptions of importance, resulting partly from expression in delivery, produced by quality of tone and gliding pitch, and partly from the mental effect of the constructional predominance of conceptions." On this whole scheme of Mr. Ellis's, Mr. Mayor remarks interestingly: "Whilst I admire, I with difficulty repress a shudder at the elaborate apparatus he has provided for registering the minutest variations of metrical stress. Not only does he distinguish nine different degrees of force, but there are the same number of degrees of length, pitch, silence, and weight, making altogether forty-five varieties of stress at the disposal of the metrist ... If the analysis of rhythm is so terribly complicated, let us rush into the arms of the intuitivists and trust to our ears only, for life is not long enough to admit of characterizing lines when there are forty-five expressions for each syllable to be considered." (_Chapters on English Metre_, p. 69.)

[3] The term "wrenched" was used originally, it would seem, as one of reprobation. Thus Puttenham, in his _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589), said; "There can not be in a maker a fowler fault, than to falsifie his accent to serve his cadence, or by untrue orthographie to wrench his words to helpe his rime." (Arber ed., p. 94.)

[4] It is interesting to compare with these irregular lines another stanza of similar form, of about the same date, from an Elegy on Edward I., in Böddeker's Collection, p. 140, and Wright's _Political Songs_, p. 246.

Alle þat beoþ of huerte trewe, a stounde herkneþ to my song of duel, þat deþ haþ diht vs newe (þat makeþ me syke ant sorewe among!) of a knyht, þat wes so strong, of wham god haþ don ys wille; me þuncheþ þat deþ haþ don vs wrong, þat he so sone shal ligge stille.

The comparatively great regularity of the measures in this second stanza is due to the fact that it was under the syllable-counting influence of the French, being in fact a translation of a French original.

[5] Leigh Hunt said that "Coleridge saw the mistake which had been made with regard to this measure, and restored it to the beautiful freedom of which it was capable, by calling to mind the liberties allowed its old musical professors the minstrels, and dividing it by _time_ instead of _syllables_." (See the entire passage on _Christabel_, in the Introduction, on "What is Poetry?", to _Imagination and Fancy_. For a criticism of the metrical structure of _Christabel_, see Robert Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_ (ed. 1901, pp. 73-75).)

II. THE FOOT AND THE VERSE

English verse is commonly measured by feet, a determinate number of which go to form a verse or line. The foot is determined by the distance from one accented syllable to another in the regular scheme of the metre. The usual metrical feet are either dissyllabic or trisyllabic. The dissyllabic foot is commonly called an _iambus_ (or _iamb_) if the unaccented syllable precedes the accented, and a _trochee_ if the accented precedes the unaccented. The trisyllabic foot is commonly called an _anapest_ if the two unaccented syllables precede the accented syllable, and a _dactyl_ if they follow the accented syllable.[6] It will be observed that the fundamental rhythm of both iambic and trochaic verse is the same, as is also that of both anapestic and dactylic verse; the distinction belonging only to the metre as measured into regular lines. Iambic and anapestic verse (in which the light syllables commonly open the verse) are sometimes called "ascending rhythm"; trochaic and dactylic verse (in which the accented syllables commonly open the verse) "descending rhythm." Ascending rhythm is very greatly in predominance in English poetry.

The normal verse of any poem is therefore described by indicating the name of the foot and the number of feet in the verse. The number of feet is always indicated by the number of stresses or principal accents in the normal verse. As the light or unaccented syllables may vary from the typical number, it may also be necessary to indicate that the line is longer than its name would imply, by reason of Feminine Ending (a light syllable added at the end) or Anacrusis (a light syllable prefixed); or that it is shorter than its name would indicate by reason of Catalexis or Truncation (the light syllable at the end--or less frequently at the beginning--being omitted).

In like manner, any particular verse or line is fully described by indicating: (1) the typical foot; (2) the number of feet; (3) the place of the cesura; (4) the presence or absence of a final pause ("end-stopped" or "run-on"); (5) the presence of such irregularities as

(_a_) Anacrusis or feminine ending, (_b_) Catalexis (or truncation), (_c_) Substitution of exceptional feet for the typical foot, (_d_) Pauses other than the cesural.

_One-stress iambic_.

Thus I Pass by And die As one Unknown And gone.

(HERRICK: _Upon his Departure Hence_. 1648.)

(In combination with two-stress and three-stress:)

No more I'll vaunt, For now I see Thou only hast the power To find And bind A heart that's free, And slave it in an hour.

(HERRICK: _His Recantation._ 1648.)

_Two-stress iambic_.

Most good, most fair, Or things as rare To call you 's lost; For all the cost Words can bestow So poorly show,...

(DRAYTON: _Amouret Anacreontic._ ab. 1600.)

Because I do Begin to woo, Sweet singing Lark, Be thou the clerk, And know thy when To say Amen.

(HERRICK: _To the Lark._ 1648.)

The raging rocks, And shivering shocks, Shall break the locks Of prison-gates; And Phibbus' car Shall shine from far, And make and mar The foolish Fates.

(SHAKSPERE: Bottom's song in _Midsummer Night's Dream_, I. ii. ab. 1595.)

(In combination with three-stress:)

Only a little more I have to write; Then I'll give o'er, And bid the world good-night.

'Tis but a flying minute That I must stay, Or linger in it; And then I must away.

(HERRICK: _His Poetry his Pillar._ 1648.)

In the second stanza we have the same measure with feminine ending.

(In combination with four-stress:)

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.

(POPE: _Ode on Solitude._ ab. 1700.)

_Two-stress trochaic_.

Could I catch that Nimble traitor, Scornful Laura, Swift-foot Laura, Soon then would I Seek avengement.

(CAMPION: Anacreontics, in _Observations in the Art of English Poesie_. 1602.)

(In combination with four-stress:)

Dust that covers Long dead lovers Song blows off with breath that brightens; At its flashes Their white ashes Burst in bloom that lives and lightens.

(SWINBURNE: _Song in Season._)

(Catalectic, and in combination with three-stress:)

Summer's crest Red-gold tressed, Corn-flowers peeping under;-- Idle noons, Lingering moons, Sudden cloud, Lightning's shroud, Sudden rain, Quick again Smiles where late was thunder.

(GEORGE ELIOT: Song from _The Spanish Gypsy_, Bk. i. 1868.)

The trochaic measures in _The Spanish Gypsy_ are in imitation of the similar forms in Spanish poetry. See p. 114, below.

_Two-stress anapestic._

(In combination with three-stress:)

Like a gloomy stain On the emerald main Alpheus rushed behind,-- As an eagle pursuing A dove to its ruin Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

(SHELLEY: _Arethusa._ 1820.)

(With feminine ending:)

He is gone on the mountain, He is lost to the forest, Like a summer-dried fountain, When our need was the sorest. The font, reappearing, From the raindrops shall borrow, But to us comes no cheering, To Duncan no morrow!

(SCOTT: Coronach, from _The Lady of the Lake_, Canto 3. 1810.)

(In combination with four-stress:)

Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face. When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the storm, The post of the foe; Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, Yet the strong man must go.

(BROWNING: _Prospice._ 1864.)

These specimens, as is usual in anapestic verse, show considerable freedom in the treatment of the part of the foot containing the light syllables, substituted iambi being very common. Note the iambi in the Shelley stanza, line 1, second foot, and line 5, first foot. In the latter case, however, the first light syllable of line 5 is really supplied by the syllable added to make the feminine ending of line 4. In like manner, in the Scott stanza, the first syllable of line 8 is really supplied by the _-ing_ of line 7; and where we have both feminine ending (in line 1) and a full anapest following, the effect is that of a hypermetrical syllable which must be hurried over in the reading. In the specimen from Browning we find an iambus in the opening foot in lines 2 and 6 (also, of course, in lines 1 and 5).

_Two-stress dactylic._

One more Unfortunate, Weary of breath, Rashly importunate, Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly, Lift her with care; Fashioned so slenderly, Young, and so fair!

(THOMAS HOOD: _The Bridge of Sighs._ ab. 1830.)

Here the alternate lines are catalectic, both light syllables being wanting.

Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred.

(TENNYSON: _Charge of the Light Brigade._ 1854.)

Here the fourth and ninth lines are catalectic.

Loudly the sailors cheered Svend of the Forked Beard, As with his fleet he steered Southward to Vendland; Where with their courses hauled All were together called, Under the Isle of Svald Near to the mainland.

(LONGFELLOW: _Saga of King Olaf_, xvii. 1863.)

In the reading of these stanzas from Tennyson and Longfellow there is so marked a stress on the final syllable as to make the second dactyl (except in the opening lines of the Tennyson stanza) more like a Cretic (in the classical terminology); _i.e._ a foot made up of two heavy syllables with a light syllable between them. But no such foot is generally recognized in English verse.

_Two-stress irregular._

On the ground Sleep sound: I'll apply To your eye, Gentle lover, remedy. When thou wak'st, Thou tak'st True delight In the sight Of thy former lady's eye.

(SHAKSPERE: Puck's Song in _Midsummer Night's Dream_, III. ii. ab. 1595.)

What I hate, Be consecrate To celebrate Thee and Thy state, No mate For Thee; What see For envy In poor me?

(BROWNING: Song in _Caliban upon Setebos_. 1864.)

In the usual printing of _Caliban upon Setebos_ this song is brought into the form of the five-accent lines. It is evidently intended, however, to be read in two-accent groups. Professor Moulton has remarked interestingly that Browning gives the unique figure of Caliban not only a grammar but a prosody of his own.

Though my rime be ragged, Tattered and jagged, Rudely raine-beaten, Rusty and moth-eaten; If ye take wel therewith, It hath in it some pith.

(JOHN SKELTON: _Colyn Cloute_. ab. 1510.)

This is a specimen of what Mr. Churton Collins calls "that headlong voluble breathless doggrel which, rattling and clashing on through quick-recurring rhymes, ... has taken from the name of its author the title of Skeltonical verse." (Ward's _English Poets_, vol. i. p. 185.) The number of accents, as well as the number of syllables, is irregular, being quite as often (perhaps more often) three as two.

_Three-stress iambic._

O let the solid ground Not fail beneath my feet Before my life has found What some have found so sweet; Then let come what come may, What matter if I go mad, I shall have had my day.

(TENNYSON: Song in _Maud_, xi. 1855.)

(In combination with verse of four, five, and six stresses:)

The Oracles are dumb; No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving: No nightly trance or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

(MILTON: _Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity_. 1629.)

Here, in line 5, we have an instance of a verse truncated at the beginning,--rare in modern English poetry.

(With feminine ending:)

The mountain sheep are sweeter, But the valley sheep are fatter; We therefore deemed it meeter To carry off the latter. We made an expedition; We met an host and quelled it; We forced a strong position, And killed the men who held it.

(THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK: War Song of Dinas Vawr, from _The Misfortunes of Elphin_. 1829.)

In line 2 is an instance of anacrusis.

_Three-stress trochaic._

(In combination with iambic:)

Go where glory waits thee, But, while fame elates thee, Oh! still remember me. When the praise thou meetest To thine ear is sweetest, Oh! then remember me.

(THOMAS MOORE: _Go Where Glory Waits Thee_. ab. 1820.)

(In combination with six-stress verses:)

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest, Like a cloud of fire The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

(SHELLEY: _To a Skylark_. 1820.)

Here lines 2 and 4 are catalectic.

_Three-stress anapestic._

I am monarch of all I survey; My right there is none to dispute; From the centre all round to the sea I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

(COWPER: _Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk._ 1782.)

In this specimen lines 2, 5, 6, and 8 show initial truncation, the first light syllable being missing.

(With two-stress verse:)

His desire is a dureless content, And a trustless joy; He is won with a world of despair And is lost with a toy....

But true love is a durable fire, In the mind ever burning, Never sick, never old, never dead, From itself never turning.

(SIR WALTER RALEIGH (?): _Pilgrim to Pilgrim_. In MS. Rawl. 85; in Schelling's _Elizabethan Lyrics_, p. 3.)

"The metres of the earlier years of Elizabeth's reign are so overwhelmingly iambic," Professor Schelling observes, "that this perfectly metrical, if somewhat irregular, anapæstic movement comes like a surprise. Professor Gummere, of Haverford College, calls my attention to three epigrams--printed among the poems of Raleigh, ed. Hannah, p. 55--all of them in more or less limping anapæsts, but not of this measure. It is quite possible that the time to which these verses were sung may have affected the measure." (Notes to _Elizabethan Lyrics_, pp. 211, 212.)

(With initial truncation:)

She gazed, as I slowly withdrew, My path I could hardly discern; So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she bade me return.

(SHENSTONE: _Pastoral Ballad._ 1743.)

Mr. Saintsbury praises highly the anapests of Shenstone (Ward's _English Poets_, vol. iii. p. 272), saying that he "taught the metre to a greater poet than himself, Cowper, and these two between them have written almost everything that is worth reading in it, if we put avowed parody and burlesque out of the question." But this is probably to be regarded as overstating the case.

(With feminine ending:)

If you go over desert and mountain, Far into the country of sorrow, To-day and to-night and to-morrow, And maybe for months and for years; You shall come, with a heart that is bursting For trouble and toiling and thirsting, You shall certainly come to the fountain At length,--to the Fountain of Tears.

(ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY: _The Fountain of Tears._ 1870.)

Here the extra light syllable at the end of the line is really the initial light syllable of the following line, as in the specimen on p. 29, above.

So this is a psalm of the waters,-- The wavering, wandering waters: With languages learned in the forest, With secrets of earth's lonely caverns, The mystical waters go by me On errands of love and of beauty, On embassies friendly and gentle, With shimmer of brown and of silver.

(S. WEIR MITCHELL: _A Psalm of the Waters._ 1890.)

Here, also, the final light syllable might be said to take the place of the missing initial syllable; but the structure of the verse, with the fact that the initial anapest is always truncated and that the final syllable is never accented, indicates that the verse as it stands is the norm of the poem--three-stress anapestic, with initial truncation and feminine ending.

_Three-stress dactylic._

(Catalectic:)

This is a spray the Bird clung to, Making it blossom with pleasure, Ere the high tree-top she sprung to, Fit for her nest and her treasure.

(BROWNING: _Misconceptions_. 1855.)

_Four-stress iambic._

(For specimens, see Part Two.)

_Four-stress trochaic._

Maiden, crowned with glossy blackness, Lithe as panther forest-roaming, Long-armed naiad, when she dances, On a stream of ether floating.

(GEORGE ELIOT: Song from _The Spanish Gypsy_, Book i. 1868.)

Westward, westward Hiawatha Sailed into the fiery sunset, Sailed into the purple vapors, Sailed into the dusk of evening.

(LONGFELLOW: _Hiawatha_. 1855.)

Honour, riches, marriage-blessing, Long continuance, and increasing, Hourly joys be still upon you! Juno sings her blessings on you.

(SHAKSPERE: Juno's Song in _The Tempest_, IV. i. ab. 1610.)

(Catalectic:)

On a day, alack the day! Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair Playing in the wanton air: Through the velvet leaves the wind, All unseen, can passage find; That the lover, sick to death, Wish himself the heaven's breath.

(SHAKSPERE: _Love's Labor's Lost_, IV. 3. ab. 1590.)

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful jollity, Quips and cranks and wanton wiles, Nods and becks and wreathed smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek.

(MILTON: _L'Allegro_. 1634.)

Souls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? Have ye tippled drink more fine Than mine host's Canary wine? Or are fruits of Paradise Sweeter than those dainty pies Of venison? O generous food! Drest as though bold Robin Hood Would, with his maid Marian, Sup and bowse from horn and can.

(KEATS: _Lines on the Mermaid Tavern_. 1820.)

_Four-stress anapestic._

What I speak, my fair Chloe, and what I write, shows The difference there is betwixt nature and art: I court others in verse; but I love thee in prose: And they have my whimsies; but thou hast my heart.

(PRIOR: _A Better Answer_. ab. 1710.)

Prior's anapests well illustrate the appropriateness of the measure for light tripping effects, such as are sought _vers de société_. See also the measure of Goldsmith's _Retaliation_, especially the passage beginning--

"Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can; An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man."

The small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning, The murmuring streamlet winds clear through the vale; The hawthorn trees blow in the dews of the morning, And wild scatter'd cowslips bedeck the green dale.

(BURNS: _The Chevalier's Lament_. 1788.)

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

(BYRON: _The Destruction of Sennacherib_. 1815.)

(With three-stress:)

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, Which I gaze on so fondly to-day, Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms, Like fairy-gifts fading away, Thou wouldst still be ador'd, as this moment thou art, Let thy loveliness fade as it will, And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart Would entwine itself verdantly still.

(THOMAS MOORE: _Believe me, if all those endearing young charms._ ab. 1825.)

_four-stress dactylic_.

After the pangs of a desperate lover, When day and night I have sighed all in vain; Ah, what a pleasure it is to discover In her eyes pity, who causes my pain!

(DRYDEN: Song in _An Evening's Love_. 1668.)

Of this song Mr. Saintsbury says that it is "one of the rare examples of a real dactylic metre in English, where the dactyls are not, as usual, equally to be scanned as anapests." (_Life of Dryden_, Men of Letters Series, p. 62.) Here, as almost always in English, the measure is catalectic, a final dactyl being instinctively avoided, except in short two-stress lines.

Warriors and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord, Heed not the corse, though a king's, in your path: Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!

(BYRON: _Song of Saul before his Last Battle._ 1815.)

Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King, Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing: And, pressing a troop, unable to stoop And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop, Marched them along, fifty-score strong, Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.

(BROWNING: _Cavalier Tunes._ 1843.)

Here the metre is varied interestingly by pauses. Thus in lines 1 and 5 the light syllables of the second foot are wholly wanting.

_Five-stress iambic._

(For specimens, see Part Two.)

_Five-stress trochaic._

What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy? Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos), She would turn a new side to her mortal, Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman-- Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, Blind to Galileo on his turret, Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats--him, even!

(BROWNING: _One Word More._ 1855.)

This is a rare specimen of unrimed verse in other than iambic rhythm.

(Catalectic:)

Then methought I heard a mellow sound, Gathering up from all the lower ground; Narrowing in to where they sat assembled Low voluptuous music winding trembled, Wov'n in circles: they that heard it sighed, Panted, hand-in-hand with faces pale, Swung themselves, and in low tones replied; Till the fountain spouted, showering wide Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail.

(TENNYSON: _The Vision of Sin._ 1842.)

_Five-stress anapestic._

As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being beloved! He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak. 'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!

(BROWNING: _Saul._ 1845.)

Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a wind, We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still, And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind; It is better to fight for the good than to rail at the ill; I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind, I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom assign'd.

(TENNYSON: _Maud_, III. vi. 1855.)

Here frequent iambi are substituted for anapests; as in line 1, second and fourth feet; lines 2 and 3, fifth foot; line 5, third foot.

_Five-stress dactylic._

This form is almost unknown. In the following lines we find five-stress catalectic verse of dactyls and trochees combined:

Surely the thought in a man's heart hopes or fears Now that forgetfulness needs must here have stricken Anguish, and sweetened the sealed-up springs of tears.

(SWINBURNE: _A Century of Roundels._)

_Six-stress iambic._

(For specimens, see Part Two.)

_Six-stress trochaic._

(With alternate lines catalectic:)

Day by day thy shadow shines in heaven beholden, Even the sun, the shining shadow of thy face: King, the ways of heaven before thy feet grow golden; God, the soul of earth is kindled with thy grace.

(SWINBURNE: _The Last Oracle._)

_Six-stress anapestic._

For I trust if an enemy's fleet came yonder round by the hill, And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out of the foam, That the smooth-faced snubnosed rogue would leap from his counter and till, And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating yard-wand, home.

(TENNYSON: _Maud_, I. i. 1855.)

(See note on p. 41.)

All under the deeps of the darkness are glimmering: all over impends An immeasurable infinite flower of the dark that dilates and descends, That exalts and expands in its breathless and blind efflorescence of heart As it broadens and bows to the wave-ward, and breathes not, and hearkens apart.

(SWINBURNE: _The Garden of Cymodoce_, in _Songs of the Springtides_.)

_Six-stress dactylic._

(For this, see chiefly Part Two.)

(Catalectic:)

Dosn't thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awaay? Proputty, proputty, proputty--that's what I 'ears 'em saay. Proputty, proputty, proputty--Sam, thou's an ass for thy paains: Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs nor in all thy braains.

(TENNYSON: _Northern Farmer--new style._ ab. 1860.)

Thee I behold as a bird borne in with the wind from the west, Straight from the sunset, across white waves whence rose as a daughter Venus thy mother, in years when the world was a water at rest.

(SWINBURNE: _Hesperia._)

_Seven-stress iambic._

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay; 'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast, But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

(BYRON: _Stanzas for Music._ 1815.)

Here we have anacrusis in lines 2 and 4.

Beyond the path of the outmost sun, through utter darkness hurled-- Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled-- Live such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our world.

(KIPLING: _Wolcott Balestier._)

(See also under Seven-stress Verse, in Part Two.)

_Seven-stress trochaic._

(Catalectic:)

Clear the way, my lords and lackeys, you have had your day. Here you have your answer, England's yea against your nay; Long enough your house has held you: up, and clear the way!

(SWINBURNE: _Clear the Way._)

_Seven-stress anapestic._

(With feminine ending:)

Come on then, ye dwellers by nature in darkness, and like to the leaves' generations, That are little of might, that are moulded of mire, unenduring and shadowlike nations, Poor plumeless ephemerals, comfortless mortals, as visions of creatures fast fleeing, Lift up your mind unto us that are deathless, and dateless the date of our being.

(SWINBURNE: _The Birds_, from Aristophanes.)

Of this translation Mr. Swinburne says that it was undertaken from a consideration of the fact that the "marvellous metrical invention of the anapestic heptameter was almost exactly reproducible in a language to which all variations and combinations of anapestic, iambic, or trochaic metre are as natural and pliable as all dactylic and spondaic forms of verse are unnatural and abhorrent." ... "I have not attempted," he says further, "the impossible and undesirable task of reproducing the rare exceptional effect of a line overcharged on purpose with a preponderance of heavy-footed spondees.... My main desire ... was to renew as far as possible for English ears the music of this resonant and triumphant metre, which goes ringing at full gallop as of horses who

'dance as 'twere to the music Their own hoofs make.'"

(_Studies in Song_, p. 68.)

_Seven-stress dactylic._

This form of verse may be said to be wanting. Schipper quotes as possible examples some lines which (as he remarks) seem to be made merely for the metrical purpose:

"Out of the kingdom of Christ shall be gathered, by angels o'er Satan victorious, All that offendeth, that lieth, that faileth to honor his name ever glorious."

(_Englische Metrik_, vol. ii. p. 419.)

_Eight-stress iambic._

This is almost unknown in English verse, because where conceivably occurring it shows an irresistible tendency to break up into two halves of four stresses each. William Webbe, in his _Discourse of English Poetrie_ (1586), quoted these lines as "the longest verse in length which I have seen used in English":

"Where virtue wants and vice abounds, there wealth is but a baited hook, To make men swallow down their bane, before on danger deep they look."

_Eight-stress trochaic._

(Catalectic:)

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands; Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.

(TENNYSON: _Locksley Hall._ 1842.)

Open then I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door,-- Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door.

(POE: _The Raven._ 1845.)

Night, in utmost noon forlorn and strong, with heart athirst and fasting, Hungers here, barred up forever, whence as one whom dreams affright, Day recoils before the low-browed lintel threatening doom and casting Night.

(SWINBURNE: _Night in Guernsey._)

In the last line of this specimen we have a nine-accent verse,--very rare in English poetry.

The tendency of all eight-accent lines being to break up into halves of four accents, the distinction between four-stress and eight-stress verse may be at times only a question of printing. Thus, Thackeray's _Sorrows of Werther_ might be regarded as eight-stress trochaic, though commonly printed in short lines:

"Werther had a love for Charlotte Such as words could never utter. Would you know how first he saw her? She was cutting bread and butter."

_Eight-stress anapestic._

Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and the splendor of winter had passed out of sight, The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that fulfil us in sleep with delight; The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and branches that glittered and swayed Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow, or of frost that out-lightens all flowers till it fade, That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night than the day, nor the day than the night, Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had the madness and might in thee made, March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that enkindle the season they smite.

(SWINBURNE: _March._)

_Eight-stress dactylic._

Onward and onward the highway runs to the distant city, impatiently bearing Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of hate, of doing and daring.

(LONGFELLOW: _Golden Legend_, iv. 1851.)

The breathlessly continuous character of such long anapestic or dactylic lines may of course be interrupted, by way of relief, by the substitution of iambi or trochees. In the specimen from Swinburne such a resting-place is found in line 3, where a light syllable is omitted after _winds_. In the specimen from Longfellow the words _high-way_, _distant_, _human_, of course, fill the places of complete dactyls.

COMBINATIONS AND SUBSTITUTIONS

i. _Verses in which different sorts of feet are more or less regularly combined_.

In the morning, O so early, my beloved, my beloved, All the birds were singing blithely, as if never they would cease: 'Twas a thrush sang in my garden, "Hear the story, hear the story!" And the lark sang "Give us glory!" and the dove said "Give us peace."

(JEAN INGELOW: _Give us Love and Give us Peace._)

Fair is our lot--O goodly is our heritage! (Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!) For the Lord our God Most High He hath made the deep as dry, He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the Earth!

(KIPLING: _A Song of the English._)

In both these specimens the full accent regularly recurs in only the alternate feet. Thus while the first specimen is technically eight-stress trochaic, there are in the normal reading of it only four full accents to the line. In other words the first, third, fifth, and seventh feet are regularly pyrrhics. (See p. 55.) The same thing appears in the specimen from Kipling: _ye_, _and_, _in_ (in line 2) are accented only in a distinctly secondary fashion. Some have suggested, for such rhythms as these, the recognition of a foot made up of one stressed and three unstressed syllables. Lanier represents such measures (in _The Science of English Verse_) in four-eight time.

Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the storm, The post of the foe; Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, Yet the strong man must go.

(BROWNING: _Prospice._)

Here the tendency is to use iambi and anapests in alternate feet; see especially lines 2, 3, and 5.

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist; Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.

The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; Enough that He heard it once: we shall hear it by-and-by.

(BROWNING: _Abt Vogler._)

Here we have a hexameter which is neither iambic nor anapestic, but a combination of the two rhythms. So in the following specimens dissyllabic and trisyllabic feet are used interchangeably.

When the lamp is shatter'd The light in the dust lies dead-- When the cloud is scatter'd The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remember'd not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot.

(SHELLEY: _The Flight of Love._)

The sea is at ebb, and the sound of her utmost word Is soft at the least wave's lapse in a still small reach. From bay unto bay, on quest of a goal deferred, From headland ever to headland and breach to breach, Where earth gives ear to the message that all days preach.

(SWINBURNE: _The Seaboard._)

England, none that is born thy son, and lives, by grace of thy glory, free, Lives and yearns not at heart and burns with hope to serve as he worships thee; None may sing thee: the sea-bird's wing beats down our songs as it hails the sea.

(SWINBURNE: _The Armada_, vii.)

This life of ours is a wild Æolian harp of many a joyous strain, But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail, as of souls in pain.

(LONGFELLOW: _The Golden Legend_, iv.)

Come away, come away, Death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O prepare it! My part of death, no one so true Did share it.

(SHAKSPERE: _Twelfth Night_, II. iv.)

The characteristic irregularity in this stanza is the variation from trochaic to iambic rhythm. In this case the variations are in part due, no doubt, to the fact that the words were written for music.

Maud with her exquisite face, And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky, And feet like sunny gems on an English green, Maud in the light of her youth and her grace, Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot die, Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean And myself so languid and base.

(TENNYSON: _Maud_, I. v.)

In this specimen the characteristic rhythm of lines 1, 4, and 5 is dactylic, that of the remainder anapestic-iambic.

The trumpet's loud clangor Excites us to arms With shrill notes of anger And mortal alarms. The double double double beat Of the thundering drum Cries, hark! the foes come; Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat. The soft complaining flute In dying notes discovers The woes of helpless lovers, Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute.

(DRYDEN: _Song for St. Cecilia's Day_, 1687.)

In this famous stanza the rhythm changes for obvious purposes of imitative representation.

Children dear, was it yesterday (Call yet once) that she went away? Once she sate with you and me, On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, And the youngest sate on her knee. She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well, When down swung the sound of a far-off bell. She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea; She said, "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray In the little gray church on the shore to-day. 'Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me! And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee." I said, "Go up, dear heart, through the waves; Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!" She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay. Children dear, was it yesterday?

... Down, down, down! Down to the depths of the sea! She sits at her wheel in the humming town, Singing most joyfully. Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy, For the humming street, and the child with its toy! For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; For the wheel where I spun, And the blessed light of the sun!" And so she sings her fill, Singing most joyfully, Till the spindle drops from her hand, And the whizzing wheel stands still. She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, And over the sand at the sea; And her eyes are set in a stare; And anon there breaks a sigh, And anon there drops a tear, From a sorrow-clouded eye, And a heart sorrow-laden, A long, long sigh, For the cold strange eyes of a little mermaiden, And the gleam of her golden hair.

(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _The Forsaken Merman._)

Then the music touch'd the gates and died; Rose again from where it seem'd to fail, Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale; Till thronging in and in, to where they waited, As 'twere a hundred-throated nightingale, The strong tempestuous treble throbbed and palpitated; Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound, Caught the sparkles, and in circles, Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes, Flung the torrent rainbow round: Then they started from their places, Moved with violence, changed in hue, Caught each other with wild grimaces, Half-invisible to the view, Wheeling with precipitate paces To the melody, till they flew, Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces, Twisted hard in fierce embraces, Like to Furies, like to Graces, Dash'd together in blinding dew.

(TENNYSON: _Vision of Sin._)

ii. _Verses in which individual feet are altered from the metrical scheme._

Even in metre exhibiting no marked irregularities, it is of course rather exceptional than otherwise to find all the feet in a verse conforming to the type-foot of the metre. Departures from the typical metre may be conveniently classified in five groups: Deficiency in accent; excess of accent; inversion of accent; light syllable added to dissyllabic foot; light syllable omitted in trisyllabic foot.

Deficiency of accent is the most common of all the variations, if we understand by "accent" such syllabic stress as would be ordinarily appreciable in the reading of the word in question. It would be safe to say that in English five-stress iambic verse, read with only the ordinary etymological and rhetorical accents, twenty-five per cent of the verses lack the full five stresses characteristic of the type. In many cases, too, a foot with deficiency in stress is compensated for by another foot in the same verse showing excess of stress. Feet thus deficient in stress may conveniently be called _pyrrhics_, the pyrrhic being understood as made up of two unstressed syllables. This term has never become fully domesticated in English prosody, and some object to its use on the ground that we have no feet wholly without stress. Its use in the sense just indicated, however, seems to be an unquestionable convenience.

Excess of accent, while less common than deficiency of accent, is even more easily recognizable. The foot containing two stressed syllables, even though one of the stresses may be distinctly stronger than the other, may conveniently be called a _spondee_.

Inversion of accent is exceedingly familiar, especially at the beginning of the verse and after the medial pause. It consists, technically speaking, in the substitution of a trochee for an iambus or an iambus for a trochee (the latter very rarely).

A light syllable inserted in dissyllabic measure is not unusual, though by no means so common as the variations previously enumerated. Such a syllable is frequently spoken of as "hypermetrical"; or, the variation may be considered as the substitution of an anapest for an iambus, in iambic measure, or the substitution of a dactyl for a trochee, in trochaic measure.

The omission of one of the two light syllables from the foot in trisyllabic verse is so common as to make it difficult to find pure anapestic or dactylic verse in English. This fact is due in part to preference for dissyllabic measures, and in part to the usual indifference, in all Germanic verse, to accuracy in the number of light syllables. The variation may frequently be regarded as involving a prolongation of the light syllable of the foot, or a pause equal to the time of the omitted syllable; technically speaking, it consists in the substitution of an iambus for an anapest, or a trochee for a dactyl.

Examples of all these variations may best be found in the specimens of verse included in the preceding pages. A few specimens of detail are added here, for the sake of greater clearness.

_Deficiency in accent (substituted pyrrhic)._

To further this, Achit_ophel_ unites The malcontents of all the Israelites, Whose differing par_ties he_ could wisely join For several ends to serve the same design; The best (_and of_ the princes some were such) Who thought the power of mon_archy_ too much; Mistaken men and patr_iots in_ their hearts, Not wick_ed, but_ seduced by impious arts; By these the springs of prop_erty_ were bent, And wound so high they crack'd the gov_ernment_.

(DRYDEN: _Absalom and Achitophel_, I.)

_Excess of accent (substituted spondee)._

And ten _low words_ oft creep in one _dull line_.

(POPE: _Essay on Criticism._)

_Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens_, and shades of death.

(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, II. 621.)

_See, see_ where Christ's _blood streams_ in the firmament!

(MARLOWE: _Faustus_, sc. xvi.)

O great, _just, good God! Mis_erable me!

(BROWNING: _The Ring and the Book_, VI.)

A tree's _head snaps_--and there, _there, there, there, there_!

(BROWNING: _Caliban upon Setebos._)

_Inversion of accent (substituted trochee)._

Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, _Gorged with_ the dearest morsel of the earth.

(SHAKSPERE: _Romeo and Juliet_, V. iii. 45 f.)

Finds tongues in trees, _books in_ the running brooks, _Sermons_ in stones, and good in every thing.

(_As You Like It_, II. i. 16 f.)

The watery kingdom whose ambitious head _Spits in_ the face of heaven.

(_Merchant of Venice_, II. vii. 44 f.)

Long lines of cliff _breaking_ have left a chasm.

(TENNYSON: _Enoch Arden._)

There whirled her white robe like a blossomed branch _Rapt to_ the horrible fall: a glance I gave, No more; but woman-vested as I was _Plunged; and_ the flood _drew; yet_ I caught her; then _Oaring_ one arm,...

(TENNYSON: _The Princess._)

_Stabbed through_ the heart's affections to the heart! _Seethed like_ a kid in its own mother's milk! _Killed with_ a word worse than a life of blows!

(TENNYSON: _Merlin and Vivien._)

He flowed _Right for_ the polar star, past Orgunje, _Brimming_, and bright, and large; then sands begin,...

(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _Sohrab and Rustum._)

_Hypermetrical syllable (substituted anapest)._

_Let me see, let me see_, is not the leaf turn'd down?

(SHAKSPERE: _Julius Cæsar_, IV. iii. 271.)

Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hug_est that swim_ the ocean stream.

(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, I. 201 f.)

This passage was one of those where Bentley made himself ridiculous in his edition of Milton. "To smooth it" he changed the lines to read--

"Leviathan, whom God the vastest made Of all the kinds that swim the ocean stream,"--

not perceiving, what Cowper pointed out, that Milton had designedly used "the word _hugest_ where it may have the clumsiest effect.... Smoothness was not the thing to be consulted when the Leviathan was in question."

So he with diff_iculty_ and labour hard Moved on, with diff_iculty_ and labour he.

(_ib._ II. 1021 f.)

The sweep Of some precip_itous rivulet to_ the wave.

(TENNYSON: _Enoch Arden._)

The sound of many a heav_ily galloping_ hoof.

(TENNYSON: _Geraint and Enid._)

I wish that somewhere in the ruin'd folds,... Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her _The Abominable_, that uninvited came.

(TENNYSON: _[OE]none._)

_Do you see_ this square old yellow book I toss _I' the air_, and catch again, and twirl about _By the crumpl_ed vellum covers; pure crude fact--

(BROWNING: _The Ring and the Book_, I.)

That plant Shall never wave its tangles light_ly and soft_ly As a queen's languid and imperial arm.

(BROWNING: _Paracelsus_, I.)

A distinction should be made between these hypermetrical syllables which change the character of the foot from dissyllabic to trisyllabic, and syllables (in a sense hypermetrical) which are slurred or elided in the reading. The word _radiance_, for example, is regarded as trisyllabic in prose, but in the verse--

"Girt with omnipotence, with radiance crowned,"

it is made dissyllabic by instinctive compression, and in no proper sense makes an anapest of the fifth foot. Of the same character are the numerous cases where a vowel is elided before another vowel--especially the vowel of the article _the_.[7] On the elisions of Milton's verse, see Mr. Robert Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_; on those of Shakspere's verse, see Abbott's _Shakespearian Grammar_. In modern verse the use of elision and slurring is ordinarily that found in common speech.

_Omitted syllable (substituted iambus)._

As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean, that none but a god _might see_, _Rose out_ of the silence _of things unknown_ of a presence, a form, _a might_, And we heard as a prophet that hears _God's mes_sage against him, and may _not flee_.

(SWINBURNE: _Death of Richard Wagner._)

See also specimens on pp. 42, 43, 48, above.

Mr. Mayor considers the question as to how far substitution of other than the typical foot may be carried in a verse, without destroying the genuineness of the fundamental rhythm. His conclusions are these:

(1) The limit of trochaic substitution is three feet out of five, with the final foot iambic; or two out of five, if the fifth foot is inverted.

(2) A spondee is allowable in any position; the limit is four out of five, with either the fourth or fifth foot remaining iambic.

(3) A pyrrhic may occur in any position; the limit is three out of five, with the other feet preferably spondees.

(4) The limit for trisyllabic substitution is three out of five.

(_Chapters on English Metre_, chap. V.)

Professor Corson discusses the æsthetic effect of these changes from the typical metre: "The true metrical artist ... never indulges in variety for variety's sake.... All metrical effects are to a great extent _relative_--and relativity of effect depends, of course, upon having a standard in the mind or feelings.... Now the more closely the poet adheres to his standard--to the even tenor (modulus) of his verse--so long as there is no logical nor æsthetic motive for departing from it, the more effective do his departures become when they are sufficiently motived. All non-significant departures weaken the significant ones.... The normal tenor of the verse is presumed to represent the normal tenor of the feeling which produces it. And departures from that normal tenor represent, or should represent, variations in the normal tenor of the feeling. Outside of the general law ... of the slurring or suppression of extra light syllables, which do not go for anything in the expression, an exceptional foot must result in emphasis, whether intended or not, either logical or emotional.... A great poet is presumed to have metrical skill; and where ripples occur in the stream of his verse, they will generally be found to justify themselves as organic; _i.e._ they are a part of the expression."

(_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 48-50.)

On the æsthetic symbolism of various metrical movements, see G. L. Raymond's _Poetry as a Representative Art_, pp. 113 ff.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] The names of the several kinds of feet are of course borrowed from classical prosody, where they are used to mark feet made up not of accented and unaccented, but of long and short syllables. The different significance of the terms as applied to the verse of different languages has given rise to some confusion, and it is proposed by some to abandon the classical terms; their use, however, seems to be too well established in English to permit of change. Some would even abandon the attempt to measure English verse by feet, contending that its rhythm is too free to admit of any such measuring process; thus, see Mr. J. M. Robertson, in the Appendix to _New Essays toward a Critical Method_, and Mr. J. A. Symonds in his _Blank Verse_. See also in Mr. Robert Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_, Appendix G "On the Use of Greek Terminology in English Prosody." (1901 ed. p. 77.)

[7] On the historical problem of the distinction between elided and genuinely hypermetrical syllables in the French and English decasyllabic verse, see Motheré: _Les théories du vers héroique anglais et ses relations avec la versification française_ (Havre, 1886).

III. THE STANZA

The stanza, or strophe, is the largest unit of verse-measure ordinarily recognized. It is based not so much on rhythmical divisions as on periods either rhetorical or melodic; that is, a short stanza will roughly correspond to the period of a sentence, and a long one to that of a paragraph, while in lyrical verse the original idea was to conform the stanza to the melody for which it was written. Thus Schipper observes: "The word strophe properly signifies a _turning_, and originally indicated the return of the song, as sung, to the melody with which it began." Schipper defines a stanza as a group of verses of a certain number, so combined that all the stanzas of the same poem will be identical in the number, the length, and the metre of the corresponding verses; in rimed verse, also, the arrangement of the rimes will be identical. (See _Grundriss_, p. 268.)

The form of a stanza, then, is determined and described (the fundamental metre being assumed) by the number of verses, the length of verses, and the arrangement of rimes. The usual and convenient method of indicating these conditions is to represent all the verses that rime together by the same letter, while the number of feet in the verse is written like an algebraic exponent. Thus a quatrain in "common metre" (four-stress and three-stress lines), riming alternately, is represented by the formula _a^{4}b^{3}a^{4}b^{3}_.

* * * * *

The appearance of the stanza in English verse is always the sign of foreign influence. The West Germanic verse, as far back as we have specimens of it, is uniformly _stichic_ (that is, marked by no periods save those of the individual verse), not _stanzaic_.[8] On the other hand, we find the stanza in the Old Norse verse. Sievers's view is that originally the two sorts of verse existed side by side, the stanzaic being preferred for chorus delivery, the stichic for individual recitation; one form at length crowding out the other.

The great organizer of the stanza is, of course, the element of rime. While unrimed stanzas are familiar in classical verse, the two innovations, rime and stanza, were introduced together into English verse, under both Latin and French influences, and have almost invariably been associated. For notes on the history of the beginnings of stanza-forms in English, see therefore under Rime, in the following section.

TERCETS

Truth may seem, but cannot be; Beauty brag, but 'tis not she; Truth and beauty buried be.

(SHAKSPERE: _The Ph[oe]nix and the Turtle._ 1601.)

O praise the Lord, his wonders tell, Whose mercy shines in Israel, At length redeem'd from sin and hell.

(GEORGE SANDYS: _Paraphrase upon Luke i._ ab. 1630.)

Love, making all things else his foes, Like a fierce torrent overflows Whatever doth his course oppose.

(SIR JNO. DENHAM: _Against Love._ ab. 1640.)

Children, keep up that harmless play: Your kindred angels plainly say By God's authority ye may.

(LANDOR: _Children Playing in a Churchyard._ 1858.)

Whoe'er she be, That not impossible She That shall command my heart and me;

Where'er she lie, Lock'd up from mortal eye In shady leaves of destiny:...

--Meet you her, my Wishes, Bespeak her to my blisses, And be ye call'd, my absent kisses.

(CRASHAW: _Wishes for the Supposed Mistress._ 1646.)

I said, "I toil beneath the curse, But, knowing not the universe, I fear to slide from bad to worse.

"And that, in seeking to undo One riddle, and to find the true, I knit a hundred others new."

(TENNYSON: _The Two Voices._ 1833.)

Like the swell of some sweet tune, Morning rises into noon, May glides onward into June.

(LONGFELLOW: _Maidenhood._ 1842.)

Whenas in silks my Julia goes, Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows That liquefaction of her clothes.

(HERRICK: _To Julia._ 1648)

The fear was on the cattle, for the gale was on the sea, An' the pens broke up on the lower deck an' let the creatures free-- An' the lights went out on the lower deck, an' no one down but me.

(KIPLING: _Mulholland's Contract._)

_Terza rima_ (_aba_, _bcb_, etc.).

A spending hand that alway poureth out Had need to have a bringer in as fast; And on the stone that still doth turn about

There groweth no moss. These proverbs yet do last: Reason hath set them in so sure a place, That length of years their force can never waste.

When I remember this, and eke the case Wherein thou stand'st, I thought forthwith to write, Bryan, to thee. Who knows how great a grace,...

(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _How to use the court and himself therein, written to Sir Francis Bryan._ ab. 1542.)

The _terza rima_ is, strictly speaking, a scheme of continuous verse rather than a stanza, each tercet being united by the rime-scheme to the preceding. Its use in English has always been slight, and always due to conscious imitation of the Italian. No successful attempt has been made to use it for a long poem, as Dante did in the _Divina Commedia_. Wyatt's specimen is the earliest in English; he chose the form for his three satires imitating those of Alamanni.

Once, O sweet once, I saw with dread oppressed Her whom I dread; so that with prostrate lying Her length the earth Love's chiefe clothing dressed. I saw that riches fall, and fell a crying:-- Let not dead earth enjoy so deare a cover, But decke therewith my soule for your sake dying; Lay all your feare upon your fearfull lover: Shine, eyes, on me, that both our lives be guarded: So I your sight, you shall your selves recover.

(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Thyrsis and Dorus_, in the _Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia_. ab. 1580.)

Why do the Gentiles tumult, and the nations Muse a vain thing, the kings of earth upstand With power, and princes in their congregations

Lay deep their plots together through each land Against the Lord and his Messiah dear? "Let us break off," say they, "by strength of hand

Their bonds, and cast from us, no more to wear, Their twisted cords." He who in Heaven doth dwell Shall laugh.

(MILTON: _Psalm II._ 1653.)

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odors plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and Preserver; hear, oh hear!

(SHELLEY: _Ode to the West Wind._ 1819.)

In this case the tercets are united in groups of three to form a strophe of fourteen lines together with a final couplet riming with the middle line of the preceding tercet.

The true has no value beyond the sham: As well the counter as coin, I submit, When your table's a hat, and your prize a dram.

Stake your counter as boldly every whit, Venture as warily, use the same skill, Do your best, whether winning or losing it,

If you choose to play!--is my principle. Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will!

(BROWNING: _The Statue and the Bust._ 1855.)

The effort to translate Dante in the original metre is especially interesting, and marked by great difficulties; to furnish the necessary rimes, without introducing expletive words that mar the simplicity of the original, being a serious problem. The following are interesting specimens of translations where this problem is grappled with; the first is a well-known fragment, the second a portion of a still unpublished translation of the _Inferno_, reproduced here by the courtesy of the author.

Then she to me: "The greatest of all woes Is to remind us of our happy days In misery, and that thy teacher knows. But if to learn our passion's first root preys Upon thy spirit with such sympathy, I will do even as he who weeps and says. We read one day for pastime, seated nigh, Of Lancelot, how love enchained him too. We were alone, quite unsuspiciously. But oft our eyes met, and our cheeks in hue All o'er discolored by that reading were; But one point only wholly us o'erthrew; When we read the long-sighed-for smile of her, To be thus kissed by such devoted lover, He who from me can be divided ne'er Kissed my mouth, trembling in the act all over. Accursed was the book and he who wrote! That day no further leaf did we uncover."

(BYRON: _Francesca of Rimini_, from Dante's _Inferno_, Canto V. 1820.)

"Wherefore for thee I think and deem it well Thou follow me, and I will bring about Thy passage thither where the eternal dwell. There shalt thou hearken the despairing shout, Shalt see the ancient spirits with woe opprest, Who craving for the second death cry out. Then shalt thou those behold who are at rest Amid the flame, because their hopes aspire To come, when it may be, among the blest. If to ascend to these be thy desire, Thereto shall be a soul of worthier strain; Thee shall I leave with her when I retire: Because the Emperor who there doth reign, For I rebellious was to his decree, Wills that his city none by me attain. In all parts ruleth, and there reigneth he,-- There is his city and his lofty throne: O happy they who thereto chosen be!"

(MELVILLE B. ANDERSON: _Dante's Inferno_, Canto i. ll. 112-129.)

QUATRAINS

_aaaa_

Suete iesu, king of blysse, Myn huerte love, min huerte lisse, Þou art suete myd ywisse, Wo is him þat þe shal misse!

(Song from Harleian Ms. 2253--12th century, Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p. 191.)

_aabb_

O Lord, that rul'st our mortal line, How through the world Thy name doth shine; Thou hast of Thy unmatched glory Upon the heavens engrav'd Thy story.

(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Psalm viii._ ab. 1580.)

A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew, And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light, And closed them beneath the kisses of night.

(SHELLEY: _The Sensitive Plant._ 1820.)

_abcb_

In somer, when the shawes be sheyne, And leves be large and long, Hit is full mery in feyre foreste To here the foulys song.

(Ballad of _Robin Hood and the Monk_. In Gummere's _English Ballads_, p. 77.)

This is the familiar stanza of the early ballads. The omission of rime in the third line signalizes the fact that the stanza could be (and was) regarded indifferently as made up either of two long lines or four short ones. Thus the famous Chevy Chase ballad is found (Ashmole Ms., of about 1560) written in long lines:

"The yngglyshe men hade ther bowys ybent yer hartes wer good ynoughe The first off arros that the shote off seven skore spear-men the sloughe."

(See in Flügel's _Neuenglisches Lesebuch_, vol. i. p. 199.)

The same thing occurs also where there are two rimes to the stanza. Originally, the extra internal rime was no doubt the cause of the breaking up of the long couplet into two short lines. (See examples in