VERSIFICATION
=94.= Poetry is the most beautiful and attractive form of writing,
and in the highest sense is by far the most difficult, since it
is not only complicated in form, but is highly emotional and
stirs deeply the feelings of the reader. To write real poetry is,
therefore, out of the reach of most of us, but to write verse is
not so difficult as it is usually thought, and it is an excellent
exercise in learning control of words. Verse making gives skill in
manipulating language and, because of the need for ingenuity and
flexibility in sentence construction and for variety in the choice
of words, it helps in writing prose. More than this, you will find
that some practice in managing verse-forms yourself will enable you
to understand and admire more intelligently the poetry you read.
I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills;
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
What is the difference between the sentences in this extract and
ordinary prose sentences? If you read them over aloud, you will see
that they are constructed on a definite plan. You notice that,
as in pronouncing aloud every word of more than one syllable, you
accent one of them more than the others (_páragraph, assúming_),
just so you accent some syllables in each line of the verse. Your
voice naturally falls four times, thus, "I _wán_der'd _lóne_ly _ás_
a _cloúd_" and in every line it falls the same number of times.
The fact that there is a fixed and regular number of accents in
each line makes it verse and not prose, and to write correct verse
you must keep to a regular recurrence of accents in your lines.
A line to which you naturally give three accents is said to have
three _feet_; four accents, four _feet_, etc. A foot or pattern
of syllables which is repeated to make up the line consists of an
accented syllable and one or more unaccented ones. The foot is named
according to the arrangement of syllables in it, but it is not
necessary for you now to know the names, which come from the Greek
and are hard to remember. Four of the best-known feet are mentioned
here, with examples. The accented syllable is marked ´ and the
unaccented [)].
[)I] wánde[)r']d lónel[)y] ás [)a] cloúd. _Iambic_ [)´].
Téll m[)e] nót [)in] moúrnf[)u]l númb[)e]rs. _Trochaic_ [´)].
B[)u]t [)we] steádf[)as]tl[)y] gázed [)o]n t[)h]e fáce th[)a]t
w[)a]s déad. _Anapestic_ [) ) ´].
Bírd [)o]f t[)h]e wíld[)er]n[)e]ss, blíthes[)o]me a[)n]d
cúmb[)e]rl[)e]ss. _Dactylic_ [´ ) )].
These names refer to the arrangement of syllables in the foot.
There are other names that refer to the number of times the foot is
repeated in the line. These also come from the Greek and are long
and difficult, but are no more necessary for you to learn now than
the names of feet. If you can pick out the arrangement of syllables
which make up a foot, and the number of feet in a line, you can make
a pattern for yourself out of any piece of poetry. The names and
examples of the most common meters are here given for reference,
however.
1. Three feet to the line, three-accent line or trimeter.
H[)i]s voíce [)no] móre [)is] heárd.
2. Four feet to the line, four-accent line or tetrameter.
Buíld [)me] straíght, [)O] wórth[)y] Mást[)er].
3. Five feet to the line, five-accent line or pentameter.
[)At] lást, w[)i]th héad [)e]rect, th[)u]s críed [)a]loúd.
4. Six feet to the line, six-accent line or hexameter.
T[)h]e Ny['m]phs [)in] tángl[)e]d shádes of t['w]ilig[)ht]
thíck[)et]s mou['r]n.
Turn to any collection of poetry, and see how many of the feet
and meters you can recognize. You will find, although the accent
gradually recurs after a regular number of syllables, that it does
not invariably do so; but you will also notice that this does not
affect the accenting of the line. For instance, you give three
accents to the line, "And I would that my tongue could utter,"
where there are ten syllables, but you also give three to the line,
"Break, break, break." You must learn, therefore, to distinguish
one variety of meter from another by the number of times your voice
naturally makes an accent in reading it aloud; but for your own
verse making it is a simpler and better rule to arrange your line so
that there is the same number of syllables between each accent. You
will find this a very general rule in all poetry, and it is a good
guide for beginners.
You can take, then, any piece of poetry which you admire and make
from it a pattern for yourself. Suppose you wish to write a verse
describing a rainy day. You turn to Whittier's _Snow-Bound_ as a
suitable model:--
The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Reading the lines aloud, you see that they have four accents or
feet, and each foot has two syllables, the second of which is
regularly accented. Marking the accented and unaccented syllables
as shown above, and then taking away the words, you have left a
pattern by which you can test your own lines, namely u -- u -- u --
u --. Now, if you wish to write in metrical or verse form the
statement that the rain resounding on the roof sounded as though a
great many little drums were being beaten, you might write,--
The rain drummed loud as though the elves
Were playing soldier.
Your idea is now completely stated, and if you were writing prose
you could stop there; but on consulting your pattern you see that
you need one accented syllable to finish the last foot you have
written, and one more foot to finish your last line. In your effort
to add these three syllables, arranged in words which will complete
the picture your lines suggest, you will readily hit upon some such
phrase as _overhead_, _on the roof_, _in a crowd_, or _noisily_.
You will then have written two lines of correct verse; but in
comparing them with the first two lines of _Snow-Bound_, your model,
you will notice one difference. Of the last words in each pair of
lines from _Snow-Bound_ all but the first consonants are the same
and have the same sound. These are called rhyming words. Nearly all
verse rhymes. Words are considered to rhyme when they have the same
accented vowel sound, different consonants preceding the accented
vowel sound, and the same sounds following the accented vowel sound.
One stumbling-block in the way of beginners in verse making is the
fact that English words are spelled so differently from the way
they are pronounced. Do not be misled by this. Remember that it is
the accented vowel sound that must be the same in both words, and
test your rhymes by saying them aloud. Thus _vessel_ and _wrestle_,
_despair_ and _bare_, _gaze_ and _bays_, _bird_ and _heard_, rhyme
perfectly, although they look so very different, but _door_ and
_boor_ are not good rhymes, although they look just alike, nor are
_trough_ and _bough___, and _through_ and _plough_. Rhymes usually
occur at the end of lines, but not always, as in _Snow-Bound_, at
the end of each pair of lines.
Just as syllables are arranged in feet and feet are arranged in
lines, so lines are arranged in stanzas. The shortest stanza is two
lines rhymed. This is called a couplet.
Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung,
Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.
Somewhat more rarely, there are stanzas of three lines, called
triplets, with all the lines rhyming.
Dark, deep, and cold the current flows
Unto the sea where no wind blows,
Seeking the land which no one knows.
The most common form of English verse is written in stanzas of four
lines each. The rhymes may be arranged in all the combinations
possible. The first and third and the second and fourth may rhyme,
as in ballads:--
O Brignal banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green;
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer queen.
Or the first and fourth lines and the second and third may rhyme:--
Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue;
And drowned in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless sound.
Or the second and fourth lines may be the only ones to rhyme:--
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small,
For the dear God who loveth us
He made and loveth all.
In longer stanzas the rhymes may be arranged in almost any way,
provided that they follow some regular plan. Notice, for instance,
the arrangement of rhymes in Browning's well-known song:--
The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in his heaven--
All's right with the world.
A convenient way of indicating briefly how the rhymes in a stanza
are arranged is by the use of the letters of the alphabet: thus, a
couplet would be said to have its rhymes arranged _a a_; a quatrain
like the _Brignal banks_, _a b a b_; the stanza _Now rings_, _a b b
a_.
There are, of course, many other combinations of syllables in feet,
of feet in lines, and of lines in stanzas than have been given here,
but these are the most common forms and those that you will be most
likely to see in your reading and to use in your verse making.
=Exercise 142.=--I. Arrange the following in stanza form,
letting yourself be guided by the recurrence of a regular number
of feet in each line and by the rhyme.
1. Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forests of the night,
what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
2. The ship was cheer'd, the harbor clear'd, merrily did we drop
below the kirk, below the hill, below the light-house top. The
sun came up upon the left, out of the sea came he, and he shone
bright and on the right went down into the sea.
3. We watched her breathing through the night, her breathing
soft and low, as in her breast the wave of life kept heaving to
and fro. Our very hopes belied our fears, our fears our hopes
belied--we thought her dying when she slept and sleeping when
she died.
4. Where the bee sucks, there suck I; in a cowslip's bell I lie;
there I crouch when owls do cry. On the bat's wing I do fly
after summer merrily. Merrily, merrily, shall I live now under
the blossom that hangs on the bough.
5. I loved the brimming wave that swam through quiet meadows
round the mill, the sleeping pool above the dam, the pools
beneath it never still, the meal sacks on the whiten'd floor,
the dark round of the dripping wheel, the very air around the
door made misty with the floating meal.
II. Complete the rhymes in the following:--
When I was sick and lay a-bed
I had two pillows at my ----
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the ----
How do you like to go up in a swing
Up in the air so blue!
Oh, I do think it's the pleasantest ----
Ever a child can ----
Through all the pleasant meadow-side
The grass grew shoulder high
Till the shining scythes went far and ----
And cut it down to ----.
The fight did last from break of day
Till setting of the ----
For when they rang the evening bell
The battle was scarce ----
In summer time in Breton
The bells they sound so clear.
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and ----
A happy noise to ----
An excellent exercise for training your ear is to have some one read
verse aloud to you, leaving you to complete the rhymed lines.
You have now learned a few simple rules about the construction of
two or three of the most common forms of verse, and you may ask
yourself what use you can make of them.
One way in which you can employ verse is in writing a short story or
incident. The simplest anecdote is often so set off by telling it in
verse that its interest is doubled; and you will find this sort of
familiar, conversational verse unexpectedly easy to write. One very
good variety of story to tell in verse is the fable:--
Miss Grasshopper having sung
All through summer,
Found herself in sorry plight
When the wind began to bite;
Not a bit of grub or fly
Met the little wanton's eye;
So she wept for hunger sore
At the Ant, her neighbor's door,
Begging her just once to bend,
And a little grain to lend
Till warm weather came again.
"I will pay you," cried she, then,
"Ere next harvest, on my soul,
Interest and principal."
Now the Ant is not a lender.
From that charge who needs defend her?
"Tell me what you did last summer?"
Said she to the beggar maid.
"Day and night to every comer
I was singing, I'm afraid."
"Sing! Do tell! How entrancing!
Well then, vagrant, off! be dancing!"
=Exercise 143.=--See if you can complete _The Hare and the
Tortoise_ from the beginning and the skeleton given below.
How everybody laughed to hear
The hare had planned a race
Against the tortoise, patient, dull,
And very slow of ----.
The hare assured them one and all,
"It's but that I may show
That I can sleep till near the dusk
And beat the -- u --
-- u -- ran like the wind
And almost reached the goal,
u -- u -- amid the hay
And slept, the lazy ----!
u -- u -- the hare still slept
u -- u passed him by,
u -- u -- u -- again
It was too late to try
To reach the goal, or win u --
The tortoise by my troth
u -- u -- u steadiness
u -- u -- u sloth.
=Exercise 144.=--Try to put into verse, on this model, The Fox
and the Grapes, The City Mouse and the Country Mouse, The Wolf
and the Lamb, The Frog and the Stork, The Woodchopper and Death,
The Goose that laid the Golden Eggs,--or any other fable you
have known in prose.
Sometimes it may be interesting to you to try to write a letter or
to send an invitation in verse. Some of the greatest writers have
amused themselves by making such playful use of verse in letters.
Here is part of a letter written from India by Bishop Phillips
Brooks to his little niece.
Little Mistress Josephine,
Tell me, have you ever seen
Children half as queer as these
Babies from across the seas?
See their funny little fists,
See the rings upon their wrists.
One has very little clothes,
One has jewels in her nose;
And they all have silver bangles
On their little heathen ankles.
In their ears are curious things,
Round their necks are beads and strings,
And they jingle as they walk,
And they talk outlandish talk:
Do you want to know their names?
One is called Jee Fingee Hames;
One Buddhanda Arrich Bas,
One Teehundee Hanki Sas.
Aren't you glad then, little Queen,
That your name is Josephine?
That you live in Springfield, or
Not at least in old Jeypore?
That your Christian parents are
John and Hattie, Pa and Ma?
That you've an entire nose
And no rings upon your toes?
In a word, that Hat and you
Do not have to be Hindu?
=Exercise 145.=--1. Try writing a rhymed letter, describing an
expedition in which you have taken part,--a railway journey,
a picnic, a ride. Or write an invitation, from your class to
the class below, to a spelling match, or entertainment you are
giving.
2. Read _The One-Hoss Shay_, _John Gilpin's Ride_, _Lochinvar_,
_The Legend of Bishop Hatto_, _The Falcon_--or any poem you know
which tells a story, and try your own hand at turning into verse
one of the stories you wrote in your study of narration.
The uses of verse which have been pointed out as possible to you
are not out of the question for any one who can write at all. This
is verse making and not poetry. But there may be times when you
find that you can say what you mean better in a few words of verse
than in many of ordinary prose, that you can express some aspect of
out of doors, or some sensation, more vividly in verse than in any
other way. You will notice that words seem often to have a greater
force and life in poetry than in prose, and if you make use of this
quality, you will be writing real poetry.
For instance, one day a third-grade class was asked to write a
description of the conditions that morning in the woods near the
school. It had rained and snowed the night before and everything
was coated in ice. The wind was high and, shaking the branches
violently, sent down a continuous shower of tiny pieces of ice,
glistening in the sun and tinkling on the ice-covered snow. Many
long compositions were written in the attempt to describe the effect
such a day made on the observer; every one agreed that a little boy,
eight years old, who wrote the following lines, had best expressed
the singular spirit of the morning:--
The trees are all so silvery
And the fairies dance around;
They make a pretty tinkle
As they step upon the ground.
They dance upon the tree tops
And dance upon the ground.
Of course, that is not perfect verse, but it has a quality of real
poetry in it.
You cannot expect great results from your verse making, but you will
certainly profit by some practice in managing meters. You will have
a greater interest in the construction of the poetry you read, you
will have greater ease in writing prose, and you may perhaps succeed
in expressing some feeling of your own in a simple stanza which will
be worth writing for its own sake.