Chapter 6

SUBTLETIES OF VERSIFICATION

The more one writes the better he becomes acquainted with what might be called "the tricks of the trade." These "tricks," "helps," or "devices" can be explained only in a general way. Most of them each verse maker must learn for himself, but there are some broader strokes which can be more easily traced and pointed out and which are governed by fixed rules.

Perhaps the most noticeable of these is alliteration. By alliteration is meant the succession of two or more words whose initial sounds are identical or very similar.

"The _rich, ripe rose_ as with incense streams"

is a good example.

Through alliteration certain effects are produced which would otherwise be impossible. Instances will occur to every reader. To quote only one example:

"When dandelions fleck the green And robins' songs _throb through_ the trees."

In these two lines by William Allen White, the two "th"s, though out of place in most verse, here express the "throbbing" idea perfectly.

Alliteration at the beginning of accented syllables is very useful in humorous verse, helping along the rhythm and binding the lines together.

The use of onomatopoetic words, words whose sound signifies the sense, is so common that we seldom give it a thought. We have the "splash" of water; the "bang" of a gun; the "crackle" of branches and so on indefinitely. In verse this idea is carried a step farther. Lines are constructed not only with the purpose of conveying a given idea, as in prose, but with the additional end of strengthening this idea and impressing it on the mind of the reader through the choice and arrangement of the words.

"Up a _high hill_ he _heaves_ a _huge_ round stone."

In this the successive "h" sounds suggest the hard breathing and labor of the ascent.

Browning imitates the sound of galloping in the meter of his ride from Ghent to Aix.

"I sprang to the stirrup and Joris and he, I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three."

Tennyson is full of such turns as this:

"Where lay the bones of ancient men, Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang, _Shrill, chill_, with flakes of foam."

The two words certainly give a most wonderful impression of the shriek of the cold sea-wind.

Instances of this sort might be added indefinitely but these are enough to give the general idea. As a rule the best use of any device of this purpose is served when it is not too apparent; when it produces the effect without calling attention to the means.

In a certain sort of languishing verse of the mystical type an effect of quaintness and dreaminess is produced by emphasizing the last syllables of words whose accent by right falls on a previous syllable. This is done by pairing them with pronounced rhymes. For instance, "tears" rhymes with "barriers," "her" with "well-water" and so on. It must be understood that, as an attempt to rhyme, this sort of thing is not to be countenanced, but it is perfectly allowable when it is used to obtain a certain effect.

Take this stanza from Whitman's "Song of the Broad-Axe," one of the few specimens we have of his attempts at rhyme and meter. It is a true barbaric chant whose full-mouthed syllables reproduce in little the blows of the axe.

"Weapon shapely, naked, wan, Head from the mother's bowels drawn, Wooded flesh and metal bone, limb only one and lip only one, Gray blue leaf by red-heat grown, helve produced from a little seed sown, Resting the grass amid and upon, To be leaned and to lean on."

Though our English verse largely disregards the quantity or length of a syllable, in some lines this must be considered as well as accent. A light meter and stanza may very easily be spoiled by the introduction of a too-strong word. For instance, "gnarled," "strength," "thrust," and so on are very much longer than "may," "well," "the," "for," and many other of the one-syllabled words. When a line scans correctly but "somehow sounds wrong," in nine cases out of ten the fault can be traced to a long syllable that should have been short or a short syllable that should have been long.

VI

THE QUATRAIN AND SONNET