CHAPTER III METRE

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Elements of verse rhythm. The simplest metrical unit is the syllable; the next higher unit is the foot, a group of syllables; the next higher unit the line, a group of feet; then the stanza or strophe.

In some prosodies—as the French and Italian, for example—the standard unit of verse is the syllable. The first essential of a line is that it have a certain number of syllables; the accents or stresses may, theoretically at least, fall anywhere in the line. In English verse also the syllable has sometimes been regarded as the unit, but for the most part only by a few poets and prosodists of the late sixteenth, the seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.

The foot corresponds in English verse to what has been described in Chapter I as the rhythmic unit of all rhythms, namely that which recurs in regular sequence. It comprises, therefore, a point of emphasis and all that occupies the time-distance between that point of emphasis and the following one. In other words, a foot is a section of speech-rhythm containing a stressed element and an unstressed element, usually one or two unaccented syllables. So much is clear and undisputed in theory. But there are few single topics on which writers on English prosody are so much at variance as on the further, more accurate definition of the foot. One of the main sources of difficulty, however, is easily removed. The metrical foot is not a natural division of language, like the word or the phrase, but an arbitrary division, like the bar in music, an abstraction having no existence independent of the larger rhythm of which it is a part. The analogy between the metrical foot and the musical bar is very close: they are both artificial sections of rhythm which either in whole or in part may be grouped into such phrases as the ideas or melodies may require.[23] They may be isolated and treated by themselves only for the purposes of analysis, for they are merely theoretical entities, like the chemical elements. There is no reason, therefore, that the foot should correspond with word divisions, no objection to the falling of different syllables of one word into different feet. Thus in Gray's line

The cur " few tolls " the knell " of part " ing day

both curfew and parting are divided.[24] Further, the division between clauses may fall in the middle of a foot, as in Wordsworth's lines

The world " is too " much with " us; late " and soon
Getting and spending we lay waste our powers.

But another difficulty remains, which is apparent in the second line just quoted from Wordsworth. The general rhythm of the whole sonnet of which these two lines are the beginning is plainly duple rising, or iambic. The first line and the latter part of the second are easily divisible into iambs; but how shall Getting and spend- be divided? Clearly and spend- is an iamb, but Getting is not. Can trochees and iambs occur together in the same line without either obscuring or actually destroying the rhythm? The simpler solution would be to keep the whole line in rising rhythm by regarding -ing and spend- as the second foot and Gett- as the first. (The sign indicates a missing syllable or musical rest. See below, page 63.)

The most common feet are the iamb, the trochee, the anapest, and the dactyl (see above, page 38), to which may be added the spondee. The names are borrowed, not quite felicitously, from classical prosody. Various symbols are in use:

Classical prosody distinguished several other feet, some of which are occasionally mentioned in treatises on English verse: amphibrach _, tribrach , pyrrhic , paeon _, choriamb __.

The objection to the use of these classical terms is not so serious as is frequently supposed. Since Greek and Latin prosody was primarily quantitative, that is, based upon syllabic length, and every long syllable was theoretically equal to two short syllables, an iamb or - had the musical value of , a trochee of , a dactyl of , etc. And since no such definite musical valuation can be given to English feet, a Greek iamb and an English iamb are obviously different. But after all there was inevitably an element of stress in the classical feet, and there is a very positive element of time in the English, so that the difference is not so great, and no confusion need result once the facts are recognized. Another set of terms, however, borrowed from the Greek and Latin is open to more grave objection, for no real equivalence exists between the classical and the modern phenomena. The iambic trimeter in Greek consists of three dipodies or six iambs; as used by English prosodists it consists of three iambs. The Greek trochaic tetrameter, similarly, contains eight trochees, the English 'trochaic tetrameter' but four. The common term iambic pentameter is not so objectionable, but is to be rejected because of its similarity to the others, which are actually confusing.

The next larger metrical unit after the foot is the line or verse. It is distinguished (1) mechanically by the custom of printing, (2) phonetically by the pause usual at the end, and (3) structurally by its use as a unit in forming the stanza. Lines are of one, two, three, or more feet, according to the metrical form used by the poet (see Chapter IV). In rimed verse the end of the line is so emphasized that the line itself stands out as a very perceptible rhythmic unit; in unrimed verse, however, the line is frequently not felt as a unit at all, but is so interwoven with the natural prose rhythm of the words as to be almost indistinguishable to the ear, though of course visible to the eye on the printed page. This fact is easily apparent in reading the second, fifth, and sixth illustrative selections on pages 43, 44.

The stanza or strophe is a combination of two or more lines of the same or varying lengths, according to a regular pattern chosen by the poet. 'Irregular' stanzas sometimes occur, in which the thought rhythm is said to control and determine the stanzaic rhythm; that is, the length of line and position of rimes are regulated by the logical and emotional content of the words. On the various kinds of stanzaic structure, see pages 88 ff., below.

Metrical Patterns. It must be fully understood that these metrical patterns of line and stanza are purely formal. They are the bottles into which the poet pours his liquid meaning, or better, the sketched-in squares over which the painter, copying from an old masterpiece, draws and paints his figures. They have no literal or concrete existence. They are no more the music of verse than

Waltz rhythm

is the music of a waltz. They are absolutely fixed and predetermined (though the poet may invent new patterns if he chooses). But he uses them only as forms on which he arranges his words and phrases. For the rhythm of language is extremely soft and malleable: by skilful handling it can be moulded into an infinite variety of shapes. Perhaps the comparison of a stanza by John Donne with a stanza by W.B. Yeats, both based on the same metrical scheme, will help to make this clear. The formal scheme is

_̷ _̷ _̷ _̷ _̷
Death, be not proud, though some have callÈd thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
John Donne, Death.
When you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.
W. B. Yeats, When You are Old.

Even more striking is the difference of rhythmical effect observable in reading, one after the other, a page of Pope's heroic couplets in the Essay on Man, of Keats's same couplets in Endymion, and Browning's same couplets in My Last Duchess.

While the formal pattern remains fixed and inflexible, over its surface may be embroidered variations of almost illimitable subtlety and change; but always the formal pattern must be visible, audible. The poet's skill lies largely in preserving a balance of the artistic principles of variety in uniformity and uniformity in variety. Once he lets go the design, he loses his metrical rhythm and writes mere prose. Once we cease to hear and feel the faint regular beating of the metronome we fail to get the enjoyment of sound that it is the proper function of metre to give. On the other hand, if the mechanical design stands out too plainly, if the beat of the metronome becomes for an instant more prominent than the music of the words, then also the artistic pleasure is gone, for too much uniformity is as deadly to art as too much variety.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

These verses are regular (as is appropriate for the theme), and vary comparatively little from the formal metrical pattern. The coincidence of prose rhythm and metrical rhythm is almost complete. Yet by means of small subtleties of variation in pause, word order, long and short syllables, Gray always saves the poem from monotony. How far the variations may be carried, how much the ear may be depended upon for rhythmic substitution and syncopation, is determined by many things. Certain lines are unmistakably metrical to all ears and in all positions—such as these verses of Gray's Elegy. Certain lines are generally felt to contain daring variations and yet be successful and effective—such as

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay.
Shelley, Ode to the West Wind.
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn.
Tennyson, Small Sweet Idyl, in The Princess.

Other lines stretch our metrical sense to the breaking point, and according to individual taste we judge them bold or too bold—such as Tennyson's

Take your own time, Annie, take your own time.
Enoch Arden.

or Milton's

Burnt after them to the bottomless pit.
Paradise Lost, VI, 866.

In all of these examples the metrical pattern is the same: five consecutive iambs. The modifications illustrate plainly the extraordinary flexibility of language.

Time and Stress. Probably the most disputed point in all prosodic theory is the relative importance of time (duration, syllabic length) and stress (accent) in English verse. Some writers have attempted to explain all the phenomena entirely by stress; others entirely by time. Neither side, of course, has been very successful.[25] The difficulty is partly one of theory and partly one of correct analysis of the facts. Thanks, now, to the attention paid in recent decades by the experimental psychologists to rhythm and metre, we are in a position to reach at least approximate clearness on this vexed point. Since the older theorists have mostly started either from the traditional conceptions of classical prosody or from examination of but a part of the phenomena, their work may be left out of account here. Certainly no great blame attaches to them; they are the Bacons and Harveys and Newtons of metrical science. A more nearly correct analysis of the facts is possible now because with the minutely accurate instruments of the scientists to aid us we need no longer trust to the uncertainties of perception and statement of separate individuals. Of course no one today holds the extreme belief that science explains everything; and of course the scientific experiments on the nature and effect of rhythm must have a starting point in the personal equations of those who have submitted themselves to the scientific tests. With all its patience and thoroughness of investigation, experimental psychology is only now establishing itself. But it does offer, on this one mooted point of versification, invaluable help.

The theory presented in the previous pages states that sound rhythm consists of a succession of points of emphasis separated by equal time divisions. This is the ideal rhythm. When subjected to the conditions of metrical language it suffers two alterations. In the first place, our notions of time are extremely untrustworthy. Days vanish in a moment and they drag like years. Very few of us can estimate correctly the passage of five minutes: syllables are uttered in a few hundredths of a second. We are satisfied with the accuracy shown by an orchestra in keeping time; but if we took a metronome to the concert we should find the orchestra very deficient in its sense of time. The fact is that the orchestra knows better than the metronome, that perfectly accurate time intervals become unpleasantly monotonous, that we rebel at 'mechanical' music. Thus the time divisions of pleasurable rhythm are not mathematically equal, nor even necessarily approximately equal, but are such as are felt to be equal. The second alteration of ideal rhythm is that which results from the conformity of fluid language to its metrical mould. This metrical scheme, based theoretically on equal time units marked by equal stresses, becomes a compromise of uneven stresses and apparently equal time divisions.

Almost every line of verse is a proof of this: both the fact and the explanation are clear when approached from the right angle, and may be tested by carefully prepared statistics. In the following examples the figures beneath each syllable give the time of utterance in tenths and one-hundredths of a second; the figures in parentheses represent pauses.[26] The first, from Paradise Lost, II, 604-614, is in blank verse, with five iambic feet to a line; the second, from Shelley's The Cloud, is apparently irregular, but the basis is clearly anapestic. The ideal rhythm or metrical pattern of the first is

_̷ _̷ _̷ _̷ _̷

regularly repeated. The ideal rhythm of the second is

_̷ _̷ _̷ _̷
_̷ _̷ ( _̷)

six times repeated.[27]

They fer-ry o-ver this Le-the-an sound
.29 .36 .15 .24 .13 .26 .23 .23 .23 .62 (.18)

Both to and fro, their sor-row to aug-ment,
.41 .27 .2 .63 (.36).26 .4 .16 .24 .32 .43 (.6)

And wish and strug-gle, as they pass, to reach
.2 .47 .25 .33 .25 (.13) .21 .21 .57 (.4) .24 .35

The tempt-ing stream, with one small drop to lose
.14 .32 .3 .69 (.44) .24 .37 .53 .47 (.09) .21 .47

In sweet for-get-ful-ness all pain and woe,
.2 .37 .19 .28 .17 .25 (.1) .39 .53 .17 .52 (.59)

All in one mo-ment and so near the brink;
.42 .2 .21 .34 .3 (.47) .27 .28 .37 .11 .57 (.49)

But Fate with-stands, and, to op-pose the attempt
.23 .39 .28 .66 (.49).22 .18 .11 .48 .23 .52 (.33)

Me-du-sa with Gor-go-nian ter-ror guards
.15 .33 .15 .21 .3 .3 .23 .28 .21 .51

The ford, and of it-self the wa-ter flies
.14 .6 (.3) .27 .2 .2 .48 .13 .25 .22 .64

All taste of liv-ing wight, as once it fled
.26 .48 .16 .19 .18 .43 (.5) .29 .39 .16 .43

The lip of Tan-ta-lus.
.1 .32 .14 .33 .15 .3
-----------------
I bring fresh showers for the thirst-ing flowers,
.25 .35 .15 .8 (.15) .15 .15 .3 .2 .6 (.2)

From the seas and the streams;
.2 .18 .42 .15 .15 .62 (.75)

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
.2 .35 .3 .5 .18 .18 .34 .4 .45

In their noon-day dreams.
.18 .2 .22 .2 .7 (.6)

From my wings are shak-en the dews that wak-en
.25 .35 .44 .22 .3 .2 .1 .6 .2 .25 .25

The sweet buds ev-ery one,
.1 .35 .53 (.15) .2 .21 .5 (.55)

When rocked to rest on their moth-er's breast,
.18 .47 .2 .4 (.2) .18 .2 .22 .18 .47 (.4)

As she danc-es a-bout the sun.
.2 .2 .45 .2 .1 .25 .2 .5 (.85)

I wield the flail of the lash-ing hail,
.22 .22 .1 .5 .15 .15 .25 .15 .45 (.3)

And whit-en the green plains un-der,
.2 .22 .18 .1 .32 .5 .2 .2 (.5)

And then a-gain I dis-solve in rain,
.22 .38 .1 .55 .15 .2 .7 .15 .55 (.07)

And laugh as I pass in thun-der.
.2 .4 (.2) .15 .18 .39 .18 .22 .25

Two facts emerge from these statistics at once: (1) that in about 90 per cent of the feet the or unstressed element is shorter than the _̷ or stressed element, or, in other words, stress and syllabic length nearly always coincide; and (2) that while there is very great variation in the absolute lengths of short syllables and long syllables, the proportion of average lengths is about 2:4.[28] One need not suppose that the conscious mind always hears or thinks it hears the syllables pronounced with these quantitative proportions. Though we deceive ourselves very readily in the matter of time, it is not true that we have no sense of duration whatever. Quite the contrary. Our cerebral metronome is set when we read verse for about .6 seconds for a foot (.2 seconds for the unstressed element;.4 seconds for the stressed element). If we read faster or more slowly the proportions remain the same. When, however, in Paradise Lost, II, 607,

_̷ _̷
with one small drop
.24 .37 .53 .47

the normal proportions are so patently departed from that the theoretically unstressed syllable small is actually longer than the theoretically stressed syllable drop, and the foot small drop takes 1. second, or 2/5 longer than the average foot beside it (with one, .61 seconds)—when divergences so great as this are both possible and pleasurable, the conclusion should be, not that the ear makes no recognition of the time, but that it is capable, by syncopation and substitution, of adjusting itself to a very great possibility of variation without losing hold of the rhythmic pattern. Looked at from one point of view, the extreme variations would appear to be irregularities and warrant the judgment that no element of duration exists as a principle of English verse; but from the right point of view these variations mean only that the metrical time unit is extraordinarily elastic while still remaining a unit; that the ear is willing and able to pay very high for the variety in uniformity which it requires.

Pause. The time element of English verse is affected also by different kinds of pauses. Three kinds may be distinguished, two of which belong properly to prose rhythm as well. (1) The logical pause is that cessation of sound which separates the logical components of speech. It helps hold together the members of a unit and separates the units from each other, and never occurs unless a break in the meaning is possible. It is usually indicated in printed language by punctuation. (2) The rhythmical pause separates the breath groups of a sentence and therefore concerns language chiefly as a series of sounds independent for the most part of logical content or symbolism. Though its origin is primarily physiological, it soon induces a psychological state and results in an overuse or overdevelopment of the cerebral metronome. Both readers and writers get into a certain 'swing' which turns to monotony and sing-song in reading and to excessive uniformity of sentence length and structure in writing—what is called a jog-trot style. This pause as it affects the reading of verse is only slightly dependent upon the logical content of words, for it takes its pace, especially in rimed verse, from the normal line length, and tends to make every line sound like every other, regardless of the meaning. (3) Metrical pause is primarily independent of the other two, but most frequently falls in with them. It belongs to the formal metrical pattern, and serves usually to mark off the line units. There is thus theoretically a pause at the end of every line, and a greater pause at the end of every stanza. When verses are 'run on,' i. e., when there is no logical pause at the end, many readers omit the metrical pause or reduce it to a minimum. Others, whose rhythmic sense is very keen, preserve it, making it very slight but still perceptible. The metrical pause is greatly emphasized by rime.

There are two other time elements in English verse, related in different ways to each of these three pauses, one which is nearly equivalent to the musical rest; the other which is nearly equivalent to the musical hold. The latter is common to both verse and prose, and is emotional or elocutionary in origin; "If....," "Well——?" "'These roses?' she drawled." In verse it often coincides with and supports a metrical pause, especially on rime words. Many readers in fact combine the hold and the metrical pause or use them interchangeably. The former, the rest, is a pause used to take the place of an unstressed element. As such, however, it does not altogether compensate the break in the normal time-space, but fills in the omission sufficiently to preserve the rhythm of the verse.

These various pauses are all well illustrated in Tennyson's lyric, Break, Break, Break.

Break, break, break,
.5 (.6) .5 (.28) .6 (.3)

On thy cold grey stones, O sea!
.35 .3 .6 .5 .7 (.15) .3 .55 (.65)

And I would that my tongue could ut-ter
.2 .2 .4 .2 .25 .4 .18 .18 .3 (.35)

The thoughts that a-rise in me.
2. .5 .3 .2 .4 .3 .5 (.8)

O, well for the fish-er-man's boy
.6 .6 .2 .2 .22 .15 .45 .6 (.55)

That he shouts with his sis-ter at play!
.2 .18 .55 .25 .2 .35 .18 .2 .6 (.9)

O, well for the sail-or lad
.5 (.3) .61 .25 .3 .55 .2 .5 (.45)

That he sings in his boat on the bay.
.18 .18 .55 .25 .2 .45 .15 .15 .6

Logical pauses occur at the end of ll. 2, 4, 6, 8; and probably after stones in l. 2. After stones there would be also a rhythmic pause, but it is reinforced and practically replaced by the logical pause. Another rhythmic pause might occur after tongue in l. 3, but it is absorbed partly by the length of tongue and partly by the necessity of preserving the line rhythm through utter. It will be felt, however, if the lines are read thus:

And I would that my tongue
Could utter the thoughts
That arise
In me.

The metrical pause appears clearly after utter in l. 3. The pauses after boy (l. 5) and lad (l. 7) are both metrical and logical. The hold is illustrated by O in l. 5 and l. 7. [29] The rest appears distinctly in l. 1. From reading the whole poem we know that the movement is anapestic. The pattern rhythm for the first line would be

_̷ _̷ _̷
Break break break

The number of syllables is three, whereas the other lines have from seven to nine syllables each. That is, before each break two light syllables, or their time equivalent, are lacking, their place being supplied by the rest-pause (which is also logical and emotional).[30]

The reader may analyze the comparative lengths of foot, line, pause, and rest in the following record:[31]

Kent-ish Sir Bing stood for the king,
.4 .32 .46 .8 (.2) .5 .18 .16 .8 (.6)

Bid-ding the crop-head-ed par-lia-ment swing;
.26 .2 .12 .45 .3 .2 .4 .1 .35 .72 (.6)

And, press-ing a troop un-ab-le to stoop,
.2 .38 .12 .1 .55 (.2) .18 .26 .12 .2 .58 (.5)

And see the rogues flour-ish and hon-est folk droop;
.22 .35 .15 .5 .6 .2 (.2) .26 .45 .18 .35 .48 (.75)

Marched then a-long fif-ty-score strong
.52 .22 .12 .8 (.14) .35 .25 .5 .7 (.7)

Great-heart-ed gent-le-men, sing-ing this song.
.35 .3 .2 .3 .12 .3 (.45) .44 .25 .28 .68 (.9)

God for King Charles! Pym and such carles
.6 .46 .5 .8 (.5) .38 .26 .3 .85 (.42)

To the Dev-il that prompts them their treas-on-ous parles!
.18 .18 .35 .25 .42 .5 .38 .2 .38 .1 .32 .75 (.55)

Cav-a-liers, up! Lips from the cup.
.35 .15 .5 (.4) .5 (.4) .6 .3 .12 .4

Pitch. Pitch appears to be sometimes a determining element in rhythm, as has been shown above; but since its chief function in verse is that of supporting the recognized determinants and adding grace-notes to the music, it is omitted here and discussed in Chapter V, below.

Balance of Forces. It is not to be inferred from the foregoing sections that the basis of English metre is time. For the basis of English metre is dual: time and stress are inextricable. Beneath all metrical language runs the invisible current of time, but the surface is marked by stress. The warp of the metrical fabric is time; stress is the woof. And from the surface, of course, only the woof is visible. Moreover, the poet's point of view in composing and generally the reader's point of view in reading has always been that of the 'stresser.' No poet ever wrote to a metronome accompaniment; extremely few readers are fully conscious—few can be, from the nature of our human sense of time—of the temporal rhythm that underlies verse. Thus it has come about, historically, that modern English verse is written and regarded as a matter of stress only, because to the superficial view stress is predominant.[32] Probably the truth is that most poets compose verse with the ideal metrical scheme definitely in mind and trust (as they well may) to their rhythmical instinct for the rest. Whatever device they employ for keeping the pattern always before them, they do keep it distinctly before them—except perhaps in the simpler measures which run easily in the ear—and build from it as from a scaffolding. They may not know and may not need to know that this metrical scheme does itself involve equal time units as well as equal stresses. They vary and modulate both time and stress according to the thought and feeling the words are asked to express. And though it is a point on which no one can have a dogmatic opinion, one inclines to the belief that usually the finest adaptations of ideas and words to metre are spontaneous and intuitive. Skill is the result of habit and training, and metrical skill like any other; but there is also the faculty divine. One is suspicious of the

Laborious Orient ivory sphere in sphere;

for when we can see how the trick is done we lose the true thrill.

It would be absurd to imagine a prosody which was independent of its own materials. It would be absurd therefore not to find in all language the elements out of which verse is made. Indeed, M. Jourdain, having recovered from his first shock on learning that he had actually been talking prose, must prepare for a second: that he has actually been talking potential verse. The three acoustic properties of speech—duration, intensity, pitch—modified by the logical and emotional content of which the sounds are symbolic, combine to produce an incredibly subtle and elastic medium which the poet moulds to his metrical form. In this process of moulding and adjustment, each element, under the poet's deft handling, yields somewhat to the other, the natural rhythm of language and the formal rhythm of metre; and the result is a delicate, exquisite compromise. When we attempt to analyze it, its finer secrets defy us, but the chief fundamental principles we can discover, and their more significant manifestations we can isolate and learn to know. In all the arts there is a point at which technique merges with idea and conceals the heart of its mystery. The greatest poetry is not always clearly dependent upon metrical power, but it is rarely divorced from it. No one would venture to say how much the metre has to do with the beauty of the

magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

unaccented syllables are rimed with accented syllables, as burning: sing.

Imperfect rimes of all sorts are used for various reasons. Compared with some languages, English is not very rich in rime words; and for many words which poets are prone to use, such as love, God, heaven, etc., few available rimes exist. When good rimes are few, older pronunciations are often resorted to, as the familiar love: move, blood: stood, north: forth. In reading the older poets we find many rimes which are now imperfect but were once entirely correct, as the eighteenth century fault: thought, join: shine, tea: way. On the other hand, the poet's carelessness or indifference is sometimes to blame for approximate rimes, as Gray's beech: stretch in the Elegy, and his relies: requires, Blake's lamb: name and tomb: come, Coleridge's forced: burst, Whittier's notorious pen: been, etc. But to dogmatize on a point like this is obviously very dangerous. Certain poets, especially among the moderns, may be said to choose imperfect rimes deliberately, both as a fresh means of securing variety and avoiding the monotony of hackneyed rimes, and also as a means of subtly suggesting the imperfection and futility of life. A few famous examples, defensible and indefensible, are: Wordsworth's robin: sobbing, sullen: pulling; Tennyson's with her: together, valleys: lilies; Keats's youths: soothe, pulse: culls; Swinburne's lose him: bosom: blossom. Keats and Rossetti are noted for their free use of approximate rimes. The humorous rimes of Byron and Browning, among others, are of course in a different category.

Feminine rimes have been frequently rejected as undignified. They are, said Coleridge, "a lower species of wit"; and he instanced, not very justly, the couplet of Smart:

Tell me, thou son of great Cadwallader!
Hast sent the hare? or hast thou swallowed her?[85]

But again the right justification is successful use, and no one will deny that Swinburne's double and triple rimes have greatly enriched his verse and revealed to others unused possibilities of metre. Such rimes as grey leaf: bay-leaf were practically a new thing in 1865.[86]

Too evasive for explanatory analysis, almost too delicate and impalpable even for descriptive comment, are many of the best musical effects of fine poetry. The poet's ear and his sixth prosodic sense enable him to make his verse a perfect vehicle of his meaning and emotion. He chooses an appropriate stanza for his poem, discovers an unguessed power in some common measure, makes the words hurry or deliberately holds them back, varying the tempo with the spirit of the words, gives the pattern an unusual twist when the idea is unusual, startles or soothes by the sound as well as by the intellectual content of his lines—and accomplishes all these metrical nuances, not with the whip-snapping of the ring-master, but with the consummate art that conceals art. When his prosodic effects are obvious they lose their power; we can see how the trick is done and we do not marvel. But when we feel vaguely the haunting quality of a melodious line or the perfect metrical rightness of a phrase without knowing why the melody haunts us or the phrase just fits, then we both marvel and applaud; then the poet's gift, his divine authorization, is patent, and we recognize his superiority with awe.

Some of these effects have already been mentioned in the preceding paragraphs; but besides the 'tone-color' of assonance and consonance and rime proper there are also effects of pitch and of tempo and of repetition, and imitative effects, more or less concrete and explainable. It is true that many trained readers find subtleties of sound and suggestiveness where others find none, and also that many find rich beauties that the poet himself was not aware of and did not intend. This latter case may be accounted for in two ways: sometimes a reader is supersubtle and imagines embellishments that do not exist; and sometimes the poet builds better than he knows. His intuition, or inspiration, or whatever one chooses to call it, endows him with powers of whose complete functioning he is not at the time conscious. As readers must steer carefully between these two dangers, so also the poet has to avoid on the one hand repelling us by the appearance of a metrical device and on the other losing an effect which he intends but which may be too delicate to be seen or felt. No one probably ever missed the simple melody of Poe's

The viol, the violet, and the vine;

or the imitative effectiveness of Swinburne's

With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;

and though these beauties are obvious they are for most tastes not too obtrusive. But Tennyson's

Low on the sand and loud on the stone

is not so obvious, and there is danger of its escaping notice. One hears the line with increased pleasure after the imitation of sound is pointed out; but only the trained ear catches it at first.

This correspondence of sound and sense is called onomatopoeia. It may appear in a single word, as buzz, whack, crackle, roar, etc.; or a combination of imitative words, as Tennyson's

The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees;

or a suggestive echo rather than direct imitation, as Shelley's

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wingÈd thieves;

or a suggestion of motion rather than of sound, as Milton's sea-fish

huge of bulk,
Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait,

and the

Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean stream;

or an attempt to imitate the motion described, as Tennyson's picture of Excalibur when Sir Bedivere hurls it into the lake—

The great brand
Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,
And flashing round and round, whirled in an arch,
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn;

and Swinburne's more simple

As a lamp
Burns and bends all its blowing flame one way;

or even the correspondence of a harsh line and a harsh thought, as Browning's famous

Irks care the crop-full bird, frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?[87]

Sometimes there is obtained an effect of altered tempo; of which the best illustration, though hackneyed, is still Pope's clever couplets in the Essay on Criticism—

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow:
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.[88]

Examples of similar metrical skill may be found everywhere, especially among the more conscious literary artists, such as Shelley, Tennyson, Rossetti, Swinburne, and Browning, too. A few worth study follow:

To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.
Shakespeare, Macbeth, V, v.
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.
Milton, Paradise Lost, I, 177.
—— Mixt
Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight.
Ibid., II, 913 f.

So he with difficulty and labour hard
Mov'd on, with difficulty and labour he.
Paradise Lost, II, 1021 f.
Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet reluctant amorous delay.
Ibid., IV, 310 f.
See how he lies at random, carelessly diffused,
With languished head unpropt,
As one past hope, abandoned,
And by himself given over.
Milton, Samson Agonistes, 118 ff.
With doubtful feet and wavering resolution.
Ibid., 732
Some rousing motions in me, which dispose
To something extraordinary my thoughts.
Ibid., 1382 f.
And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.
Pope, Essay on Criticism, 347.
The broad and burning moon lingeringly arose.
Shelley, The Sunset.
Rugged and dark, winding among the springs.
Shelley, Alastor, 88.
Here, where precipitate Spring, with one light bound.
Landor, Fiesolan Idyl.
Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names.
Tennyson, The Princess, III, 361.
Myriads of rivulets, hurrying through the lawn.
Ibid., VII, 205.
The league-long roller thundering on the reef.
Tennyson, Enoch Arden, 580.
Then Philip standing up said falteringly.
Ibid., 283.
A long street climbs to one tall-tower'd hill.
Ibid., 5.
Clang battle-axe and clash brand.
Tennyson, The Coming of Arthur, 492.

The blind wave feeling round his long sea-hall
In silence.
Tennyson, Merlin and Vivien, 230 f.
Immingled with heaven's azure waveringly.
Tennyson, Gareth, 914.
The hoof of his horse slipt in the stream, the stream ...
Ibid., 1020.
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring.
Tennyson, Milton.
And in the throbbing engine room
Leap the long rods of polished steel.
Oscar Wilde, La Mer.

Something has already been said above on the nature and effects of pitch in spoken rhythm (pages 35 ff.). It is a constant factor of language, but its usual function is special emphasis or intensification. By itself it rarely dominates or determines the rhythm. And since the regular determinants of spoken rhythm are time and stress, it follows of course that pitch serves usually to reinforce these determinants.[89] But not always; for not only does pitch sometimes clash with rhythmic stress, but also it is sometimes a substitute for it. All three of these functions—strengthening, opposing, and replacing stress—are operative in verse.

In Shelley's line

Laugh with an inextinguishable laughter,

a great deal of the effect is due to the combination of word accent and emphatic pitch in the syllable-ting-, so that not merely the one word but the one syllable dominates the whole verse. In such frequent conflicts of stress as "on the blue surface," where the prose rhythm is ̷ ̷ while the verse pattern has _̷_̷, the so-called hovering accent (as it is usually described, with the theory that somehow the normal quantity of stress is divided between the and blue) is properly a circumflex accent, which in other words means pitch. Similarly in "If I were a dead leaf," the peculiar rhythm is to be explained as a balance of pitch against stress. And in that metrically notorious line of Tennyson's—

Take your own time, Annie, take your own time.
Tennyson, Enoch Arden, 463.

the chief irregularity or dissonance is the clash of pitch against stress in "own time." If the line read—

So you're on time, Annie, so you're on time,

there would be an unusual arrangement of stresses and unstressed syllables, a peculiar syncopation, but no great difficulty.[90] Much simpler and clearer is the conflict of stress and pitch in such passages as

Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies,
Let them live upon their praises.
Wordsworth, To the Small Celandine.[91]

I only stirred in this black spot;
I only lived—I only drew
The accursÈd breath of dungeon-dew.
Byron, Prisoner of Chillon.[92]

and Keats's

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard.

and Marvel's

Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.`

The most interesting, and the rarest, effect of pitch in verse is its use as a substitute for stress. In the much-discussed first line of Paradise Lost—

Of man's first disobedience and the fruit,

there is a metrical stress on dis-of "disobedience." This is not so much, however, an intensification of an already existent secondary accent, as in, for example, Shelley's

The eager hours and unreluctant years.
Ode to Liberty, xi.

as the substitution of pitch for stress.[93] The adaptability of language to metre appears very clearly in such a line as Paradise Lost, III, 130—

Self-tempted, self-deprav'd: Man falls deceiv'd,

in which the first compound shows a conflict of pitch and stress ('self' having a pitch-accent, but occurring in an unstressed part of the line), while the second shows pitch taking the place of stress. The whole line, and indeed the whole passage, though not of high poetic value, is an admirable illustration of the Miltonic freedom of substitution and syncopation—pitch playing a very important rÔle. One should read the lines first as prose, with full emphasis on the expressive contrasts; then merely as verse, beating out the metre regardless of the meaning; finally, with mutual sacrifice and compromise between the two readings, producing that exquisite adjustment which is the characteristic of good verse. There is a similar example of pitch and stress in the familiar

What recks it them? what need they? They are sped.

Repetition is a rhetorical not a metrical device, though it is employed with great effectiveness in verse as well as in prose:

For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas ...
The leaves they were crispÈd and sere—
The leaves they were withering and sere.

But a frequent kind of repetition which is truly a prosodic phenomenon and which, though primarily an element of stanzaic form, has often an effect analogous to those just described, is the refrain. This may vary from the simple "My Mary" of Cowper's poem (see page 103, above) to the elaboration of such a stanza as Rossetti's Sister Helen:

"Why did you melt your waxen man,
Sister Helen?
To-day is the third since you began."
"The time was long, yet the time ran,
Little brother."
(O Mother, Mary Mother,
Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven!)

in which the second, fifth, and sixth lines remain the same throughout the forty-two stanzas, and the second half of the last line as well.

Besides the prosodic variations and subtleties so far discussed, there are a great many peculiar rhythms, that is, unusual but harmonious changes from the set metrical pattern, modulations, adjustments and combinations of different melodies, which enormously en-rich the verse of a poem. As in music the ear at length tires of the familiar harmonies too often repeated, so the precise regularity of the metrical pattern too closely followed becomes tedious and almost demands variety. To be sure, a certain amount of variety results of necessity from the continual adaptation of ordinary language to the requirements of verse; but many of the examples of early heroic couplets and early blank verse are enough to show that this natural variety is too slight to satisfy the ear. The poet must exert a perpetual vigilance to prevent monotony. But on the other hand, only the highly cultivated ear appreciates the very unusual subtleties of rhythm, and the poet must therefore, unless he is willing to deprive himself of ordinary human comprehension and write esoterically for the "fit audience though few" (in Milton's proud phrase), limit himself to reasonably intelligible modulations. "It is very easy to see," says Mr. Robert Bridges, "how the far-sought effects of the greatest master in any art may lie beyond the general taste. In rhythm this is specially the case; while almost everybody has a natural liking for the common fundamental rhythms, it is only after long familiarity with them that the ear grows dissatisfied, and wishes them to be broken; and there are very few persons indeed who take such a natural delight in rhythm for its own sake that they can follow with pleasure a learned rhythm which is very rich in variety, and the beauty of which is its perpetual freedom to obey the sense and diction."[94] Some examples of these finer rhythms, in addition to the particular forms already given—rhythms not altogether 'learned,' but occasionally far-sought and peculiarly delicate—may be profitably examined. One should keep the metrical pattern constantly in mind as a test or touchstone of the variations. To classify or arrange these illustrations in special groups is difficult because so often the same line exemplifies more than one sort of variation, but the following more or less vague classes of modulation (substitution and syncopation) may be differentiated, and other peculiarities mentioned in passing.

The normal blank verse line calls for five stressed syllables and five unstressed syllables; but when two light syllables are naturally and easily uttered in the time of one, trisyllabic feet occur, sometimes with and sometimes without special effect—

And pointed out those arduous paths they trod.
Pope, Essay on Criticism, I, 95.
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep.
Wordsworth, Immortality Ode.
Departed from thee; and thou resembl'st now.
Milton, Paradise Lost, IV, 839.
To quench the drouth of Phebus; which as they taste.
Milton, Comus, 66.

When this extra syllable comes at the end of the line it is more noticeable; for if it is a weak syllable, it tends to give the line a falling rhythm, and if it is a heavy syllable, it distinctly lengthens the line, with a semi-alexandrine effect—

Of rebel angels, by whose aid aspiring.
Milton, Paradise Lost, I, 38.
Remember who dies with thee, and despise death.
Fletcher, Valentinian, V, i.

Sometimes there are two consecutive lines having such hypermetrical syllables—

Extolling patience as the truest fortitude;
And to the bearing well of all calamities.
Milton, Samson Agonistes, 654 f.

Much more frequent, however, is the trisyllabic effect in which the number of syllables of a line remains constant, that is, in the heroic or 5-stress line does not exceed ten—

Infinite wrath and infinite despair.
Milton, Paradise Lost, IV, 74.
Suddenly flashed on her a wild desire.
Tennyson, Lancelot and Elaine, 355.

And the following line (Comus, 8) contains an extra syllable at the end, one in the middle, and also a trisyllabic effect at the beginning—

Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being.

This last phenomenon, the trisyllabic (or dactylic, or anapestic) effect, is commonly described as an inversion—the 'rule' being given that in certain parts of the line the iamb is inverted and becomes a trochee. This explanation is convenient, but it is open to the objection of inaccuracy. It almost stands to reason that when a rising rhythm is established the sudden reversal of it would produce a harsh discordant effect, would practically destroy the rhythmic movement for the time being. So it is in music, at any rate,[95] whereas it is not so with these 'inverted feet' of verse. Therefore it seems more reasonable to scan such a line as that of Tennyson thus:

Sud " denly flashed " on her " a wild " desire,

and the substitution is simply that of a triple rising (anapestic) for a duple rising (iambic) rhythm in the same time. Sud-is a monosyllabic foot, and the preceding rest is easily accounted for by the pause at the end of the previous line. In fact, this phenomenon is nearly always in immediate proximity to a pause either at the beginning of a line or in the middle. Very common is the movement—

Flashing thick flames, wheel within wheel withdrawn.
Milton, Paradise Lost, VI, 751.
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion.
Shelley, Ode to the West Wind.
Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the Winter's near.
Shakespeare, Sonnet 97.

Less simple are the following lines from Samson Agonistes—

The mystery of God, given me under pledge.378.
With goodness principl'd not to reject.760.
The jealousy of love, powerful of sway.791.
To satisfy thy lust: love seeks to have love.837.

Still more unusual are—

Yet fell: remember and fear to transgress.
Paradise Lost, VI, 912.
Of thrones and mighty seraphim prostrate.
Ibid., VI, 841.

But in the last example Milton's pronunciation would give the second syllable of 'prostrate' a weak accent to support the metrical stress. That he was willing to take the extreme risk, however, and actually invert the rhythm of the last foot, appears from unequivocal instances in Paradise Lost:

Which of us who beholds the bright surface.VI, 472.
Beyond all past example and future.X, 840.

In a short poem such lines as these last would presumably be unthinkable; probably Milton counted on the length of Paradise Lost to fix the rhythm so securely in the reader's ear that even this bold departure from the normal would seem a welcome relief. But it is both notable and certain that in a lyric measure the very same inversion does not seem unpleasantly dissonant—

I'm sittin' on the stile, Mary,
Where we sat side by side
On a bright May mornin' long ago,
When first you were my bride.
The corn was springin' fresh and green,
And the lark sang loud and high,
And the red was on your lip, Mary,
And the love-light in your eye.
Lady Dufferin, Lament of the Irish Emigrant.

Allied to this practice of inversion, or apparent inversion, are two other phenomena: the deliberate violation of normal word-accent to fit the metrical stress,[96] and an analogous violation of phrasal stress. The former is not such an entirely arbitrary procedure as it might at first seem; for at one period in the history of the language the accent of many words (especially those of French origin) was uncertain. Chaucer could say, without forcing, either ture, or natÚre. The revival of English poetry in the sixteenth century owed a great deal to Chaucerian example, and thus a tradition of variable accent was accepted and became practically a convention, not limited to those words in which it had originally occurred. Parallels to Milton's "but extreme shift" (Comus, 273) are very frequent in Spenser and Shakespeare: the rhythm is not _̷ _̷ nor _̷ _̷ but a sort of compromise between the two. So in Shelley's To a Skylark—

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art,

and in verse of all kinds.

The wrenching of accent for metrical purposes, moreover, is not confined to the dissyllabic words which show the simple recession of accent. Some poets, especially the moderns (among others, Rossetti and Swinburne) have deliberately forced the word accent to conform to the metrical pattern in a way that can scarcely be called adaptation or adjustment; that is to say, the irregularities cannot successfully be 'organized' by syncopation and substitution so as to produce a true rhythmic movement. For example—

But coloured leaves of latter rose-blossom,
Stems of soft grass, some withered red and some
Fair and fresh-blooded, and spoil splendider
Of marigold and great spent sunflower.
Swinburne, The Two Dreams.

So Keats has—

Those whose taste sanctions such outrÉ effects probably find pleasure in the strangeness and daring of the rhythm.

An analogous case to this distributed stress but with monosyllables instead of polysyllabic words is the familiar line in Lycidas—

The hungry sheep look up and are not fed.

One does not read: "but are not fed" nor "but are not fed" but rather something midway between. This variation, common with all poets, was a special favorite of Shelley's—

To deck with their bright hues his withered hair.
... His eyes beheld
Their own wan light through the reflected lines
Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth
Of that still fountain....
Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river.
Alastor.

The monosyllabic foot in which the unstressed element is missing offers no difficulty. The familiar example of

Break, break, break,

has been discussed above (pages 63 f.). Compare also Tennyson's Sweet and Low; Fletcher's song—

Lay a garland on my hearse
Of the dismal yew;
Maidens, willow branches bear;
Say, I died true;

and Yeats's—

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die.
Adam's Curse.

Shelley has—

And wild roses and ivy serpentine.
The Question.

and Swinburne—

Fragrance of pine-leaves and odorous breath.
Song for the Centenary of Walter Savage Landor.

(where it would be absurd to make two syllables of "pine"), and a debated but perfectly intelligible hexameter—

Full-sailed, wide-winged, poised softly forever asway.

where the whole music of the line depends upon giving due time-emphasis to "poised." There is one odd case, not to be made too much of because one cannot be entirely sure of the text, in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, II, ii, of the omission of the stressed element of a foot—

Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man.

The versification of the whole play, however, is peculiar, and this metrical anomaly may have been deliberate.

The older writers on versification, leaning heavily on the traditional prosody of Greek and Latin, made much of the cÆsura or pause, especially in blank verse. As has already been frequently suggested, the varied placing of the pause is one of the commonest means of avoiding monotony and giving freedom and fluency to the verse, but it is often also a means of fitting the verse to the meaning. Since the pause comes most frequently near the middle of the line, when it occurs within the first or the last foot there is some special emphasis intended, as in Milton's—

Before him, such as in their souls infix'd
Plagues.
Paradise Lost, VI, 837 f.
Last
Rose as in dance the stately trees, and spread.
Ibid., VII, 323 f.

For Milton these were rather bold and unusual. Later poets have made them familiar, but no less effective. Note Swinburne's repeated use in Atalanta in Calydon—

His helmet as a windy and withering moon
Seen through blown cloud and plume-like drift, when ships
Drive, and men strive with all the sea, and oars
Break, and the beaks dip under, drinking death.[97]

Except in these two places, however, there is seldom a very particular effect sought. That there can be even a good deal of regularity without stiffness or monotony is plain from a passage like Paradise Lost, II, 344 ff.[98] The presence of several pauses in a line produces a broken, halting, retarded effect, as—

Through wood, through waste, o'er hill, o'er dale, his roam.
Paradise Lost, IV, 538.

and is admirably used by Milton in describing Satan's arduous flight through Chaos—

O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.
Paradise Lost, II, 948 ff.

Theoretically each rhythmic stress is of equal force or strength, but in verse there is the greatest variety, some stresses being so strong as to dominate a whole line, others so light as hardly to be felt. Thus it happens sometimes that in a 5-stress line there are actually only four or three stresses: the rhythmic result being a syncopation of four or three against five. Sometimes the word which contains the weak stress receives unusual emphasis, as—

Which if not victory is yet revenge.
Paradise Lost, II, 105.
Fall'n cherub, to be weak is miserable.
Ibid., I, 157.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly.
Ibid., IV, 73.
Low-seated she leans forward massively.
Thomson, City of Dreadful Night.
Like earth's own voice lifted unconquerable.
Shelley, Revolt of Islam, IX, 3.

Sometimes the emphasis seems distributed, as—

As he our darkness, cannot we his light.
Paradise Lost, II, 269.
Passion and apathy and glory and shame.
Ibid, II, 567.

Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves.
Samson Agonistes, 41.
Envy and calumny and hate and pain.
Shelley, Adonais, xl.

And sometimes no special emphasis is apparent, as—

Servile to all the skyey influences.
Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, III, i.
Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed.
Milton, Comus, 189.
Gorgons and hydras and chimÆras dire.
Paradise Lost, II, 628.
But fooled by hope, men favor the deceit.
Dryden.
The friar hooded and the monarch crowned.
By strangers honour'd and by strangers mourn'd.
Pope.
With forest branches and the trodden weed.
Keats.

The rhythm of the last four examples is very common in all English verse. Occasionally the metre becomes almost ambiguous—according to its metrical context the line may be either 4-stress or 5-stress, as—

To the garden of bliss, thy seat prepar'd.
Paradise Lost, VIII, 299.
By the waters of life, where'er they sat.
Ibid., IX, 79.
In the visions of God. It was a hill.
Ibid., XI, 377.

Three-stress lines in blank verse are less frequent, but the more striking when they do occur. There is Shakespeare's famous—

To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow.

Milton's

Omnipotent,
Immutable, immortal, infinite,
Eternal King.
Paradise Lost, III, 372 ff.

(where the heaping up of the polysyllabic epithets adds greatly to the effect); and

Of difficulty or danger could deter.
Paradise Lost, II, 499.
Of happiness and final misery.
Ibid., II, 563.
Abominable, inutterable, and worse.
Ibid., II, 626.
His ministers of vengeance and pursuit.
Ibid., I, 170.

and Meredith's

The army of unalterable law.
Lucifer in Starlight.

and such lines as—

Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved.
Paradise Lost, II, 185.

for which parallels may be found in several other poets before and after Milton.

There is no reason why a metrically 5-stress line should not contain only two prose stresses, but examples are of course rare. Such an unusual rhythm would be seldom demanded. The phrase "acidulation of perversity" might do, for it is easily modulated to the metrical form. Occasionally, as in the last line of Christina Rossetti's sonnet quoted on pages 120 f., a series of monosyllables with almost level inflection will reduce the prose emphasis of a line and force attention on the important words—

Than that you should remember and be sad.

A better example is Shelley's

A sepulchre for its eternity.
Epipsychidion, 173.

In direct contrast to these lines whose effectiveness springs from a lack of the normal quantity of stress are those which are metrically overweighted. A single stressed monosyllable, supported or unsupported by a pause, may occupy the place of a whole rhythmic beat, or it may be compressed to the value of a theoretically unstressed element. Thus Milton's well-known line—

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death.
Paradise Lost, II, 621.

might if it stood by itself equally well be taken as an 8-stress or as a 5-stress line; and obviously in a blank verse context it produces a very marked retardation of the tempo. No one would dream of reading it in the same space of time as the rapid line which just precedes it and to which it stands in such striking contrast—

O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp.

Similar are—

Light-armed, or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift or slow.
Paradise Lost, II, 902.
Stains the dead, blank, cold air with a warm shade.
Shelley, Epipsychidion, 92.
Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we
Read in their smiles, and call reality.
Ibid., 511 f.
We have lov'd, prais'd, pitied, crown'd, and done thee wrong.
Swinburne, On the Cliffs.

For extreme examples of the accelerandos and ritenutos which our metrical ear seems willing to accept easily, one might compare two 4-stress lines by contemporary poets—

In the mystery of life.
Robert Bridges.
On the highest peak of the tired gray world.
Sara Teasdale.

or Swinburne's—

The four boards of the coffin lid
Heard all the dead man did....
The dead man asked of them:
"Is the green land stained brown with flame?"
After Death.

These few general classifications by no means exhaust the possibilities of metrical variations and adjustments. In a real sense, every line is rhythmically different from every other line; but many of these differences are subjective, that is, they are determined by the individual training, tastes, habits, of each reader, his familiarity with few or many poets, the physical constitution of his organs of hearing, even the temporary mood in which he reads. The actual, objective peculiarities of a line are always significant, if the poet is a true master, but such is the variableness of experience and of life itself that unless we possess the poet's understanding and his sensitiveness—or can cultivate them—we lose a certain part of the significance. For one person, therefore, to dogmatize is both impertinent and misleading: the following specimens of peculiar rhythm are accordingly left without special comment. Some of them have long been bones of contention among prosodists; some of them are almost self-explanatory, others are subtle and difficult (and must be felt rather than explained), others have perhaps only their unusualness to recommend them to one's attention. In every case, however, they should be studied both in their metrical context and by themselves. They should be approached not only as technical problems in the accommodation of natural speech emphasis to the formal patterns of verse, but also—and this is the more important point of view—as adjustments in the second degree, adjustments of the prose-and-verse harmonies to the fullest expressiveness of which language is capable. It is a common observation that emotional language tends of itself to become rhythmical; the emotional and highly wrought language of poetry requires the restraint of verse as a standard by which its rhythms may be more powerfully realized and its significant deviations therefrom measured. And it is almost a constant 'law' that the more acute or profound the emotion, the more complex is the rhythm which gives it fit and adequate expression in words. 'Complex' does not necessarily mean arcane or supersubtle or recherchÉ. On the contrary, simplification (though not simplicity) is one of the characteristics of the best and greatest art. But to simplify beyond a certain point the various entangled implications of a poignant emotion is merely to rob it of some of its fundamental qualities. Nor is it childish to reason that a peculiar or extraordinary idea is most naturally expressed by a peculiar or extraordinary rhythm. Argument aside, it is an observable and verifiable fact.

That we may so suffice his vengeful ire.
Milton, Paradise Lost, I, 148.
A mind not to be changed by time or place.
Ibid., I, 253.
Behold me then, me for him, life for life.
Ibid., III, 236.
Both God and Man, Son both of God and Man.
Ibid., III, 316.
As from blest voices, uttering joy, Heav'n rung.
Ibid., III, 347.
Infinite wrath and infinite despair.
Ibid., IV, 74.
Raphael, the sociable spirit, that deign'd.
Ibid., V, 221.
Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms.
Ibid., VI, 32.
Before thy fellows, ambitious to win.
Ibid., VI, 160.
On me already lost, me than thyself
More miserable. Both have sinned; but thou
Against God only; I against God and thee.
Ibid., N, 929 ff.
O miserable mankind, to what fall.
Ibid., XI, 500.
And made him bow to the gods of his wives.
Paradise Regained, II, 171.
Hail, Son of the Most High, heir of both worlds.
Ibid., IV, 633.
Wilt thou then serve the Philistines with that gift?
Samson Agonistes, 576.
Thea! Thea! Thea! where is Saturn?
Keats, Hyperion, I, 134.
When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness.
Shelley, Alastor, 30

Yielding one only response, at each pause.
Shelley, Alastor, 564.
Touch, mingle, are transfigured; ever still
Burning, yet ever inconsumable.
Shelley, Epipsychidion, 578 f.
Lies to God, lies to man, every way lies.
Browning, The Ring and the Book, IV, 216.
'Do I live, am I dead?' Peace, peace seems all.
Browning, The Bishop Orders his Tomb.
Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke.
Ibid.
I cry 'Life!' 'Death,' he groans, 'our better life!'
Browning, Aristophanes' Apology, 1953.
Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos.
Browning, Caliban upon Setebos.
Even to the last dip of the vanishing sail.
Tennyson, Enoch Arden, 244.
Saying gently, Annie, when I spoke to you.
Ibid., 445.
Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard.
Tennyson, The Princess, IV, 389.
Bearing all down, in thy precipitancy.
Tennyson, Gareth, 8.
First as in fear, step after step, she stole
Down the long tower stairs, hesitating.
Tennyson, Lancelot and Elaine, 342 f.

This from Surrey's Æneid, because of its early date:

He with his hands strave to unloose the knots.

These two from Elizabethan drama—hundreds of interesting lines may be culled from this source, but the field is to be trodden with caution because of the uncertainties of the texts; though we quote 'Hamlet' we cannot be sure we are quoting Shakespeare, and in such a matter as this certainty is indispensable—

Do more than this in sport.—Father, father.
King Lear, II, i.
Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young.
Webster, Duchess of Malfi, IV, ii.

And finally, three examples from Samson Agonistes of interwoven tunes, a sort of counterpoint of two melodies sounding simultaneously—

My griefs not only pain me
As a lingering disease,
But, finding no redress, ferment and rage.617 ff.

To boast
Again in safety what thou would'st have done
To Samson, but shalt never see Gath more.1127 ff.

Force with force
Is well ejected when the conqueror can.1206 f.

He all their ammunition
And feats of war defeats,
With plain heroic magnitude of mind.1277 ff.

Stevenson compared the writer of verse with a juggler who cleverly keeps several balls in the air at one time. The comparison is suggestive, but is true only so far as it indicates the difficulty of the operation for those who are not jugglers. The juggler does not devote conscious attention to each individual ball. He has learned to keep them all moving at once, and when he starts them they go of their own accord. Now and then, by conscious effort, he shoots one higher than the others—but there is no need to labor the illustration. The technique of versification is a mechanical thing to be learned like any mechanical thing. The poet learns it—in sundry different ways, to be sure—and when he has mastered it he is no more conscious of its complex details while he is composing than the pianist is conscious of his ten fingers while he is interpreting a Chopin concerto. There is a feeling, an idea, a poetic conception, which demands expression in words. The compound of direct intellectual activity and of automatic responses from a reservoir of intuitions long since filled by practice and experience no poet has ever been able to analyze—much less a psychologist who is not a poet. Often the best ideas, the best phrases, the perfect harmony of thought and expression emerge spontaneously; sometimes they have to be sought, diligently and laboriously sought.

"When one studies a prosody or a metrical form," says M. Verrier, "one may well ask if these alliterations, these assonances, these consonances, these rimes, these rhythmic movements, these metres, which one coldly describes in technical terms—if they actually produce the designated effects and especially if the poet 'thought of all that.' So it is when an amateur opens a scientific treatise on music and learns by what series of chords one modulates from one key to another, or even how the chord of the dominant seventh is resolved to the tonic in its fundamental form.... That the poet has not 'thought of all that' is evident, but not in the ordinary sense. When the illiterate countryman makes use of the subjunctive, he is not aware that a subjunctive exists, still less that one uses it for historical and logical and also perhaps for emotional reasons. But the subjunctive exists nevertheless, and the reasons too."[99]

The analogy is helpful, though not altogether persuasive. There is the familiar story of Browning's reply to the puzzled admirer: "Madam, I have no idea what I meant when I wrote those lines." So much for warning to the oversedulous. But if I honestly find and feel a marvelous rhythmic effect where Robert Browning did not plan one, then such effect certainly exists—for me, at least, and for all whom I can persuade of its presence. On the other hand, there is a potent warning in the following exuberance:

But the thought of the king and his villainies stings him into rage again, and the rhythm slowly rises on three secondary stresses—

or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal.

The last phrase twists and writhes through a series of secondary stresses with an intensity of hatred and bitterness that takes shape in a following series of peculiar falling rhythm waves, each one of which has a foam-covered crest 'white as the bitten lip of hate.' This rhythm, curling, hissing, tense, topful of venom, Alecto's serpents coiling and twisting through it, makes one of the most awful passages in all English poetry—

Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

and culminates in Hamlet's cry

O vengeance!

which, with its peculiar sustained falling close, vibrates through the rest of the verse.[100]

Professional prosodists doubt and dispute one another with the zeal and confidence of metaphysicians and editors of classical texts. They are all blind guides—perhaps even the present one!—if followed slavishly. There is only one means (a threefold unity) to the right understanding of the metrical element in poetry: a knowledge of the simple facts of metrical form, a careful scrutiny of the existent phenomena of ordinary language rhythms, and a study of the ways in which the best poets have fitted the one to the other with the most satisfying and most moving results.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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