'Twixt studies and routine paying due court to the Muses,
My solace in solitude, when broken roads barricade me
Mudbound, unvisited for months with my merry children,
Grateful t'ward Providence, and heeding a slander against me
Less than a rheum, think of me to-day, dear Lionel, and take
This letter as some account of Will Stone's versification.
R. BRIDGES, Wintry Delights.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [77] The advanced student should of course read carefully |
| the paper on "Classical Metres in English" by W. J. Stone in |
| Bridges' Milton's Prosody (2d ed.), pp. 113 ff. Mr. Stone |
| regards the hexameters of Clough's Actæon and some specimen |
| verses by Spedding (the biographer of Bacon) as the best he |
| has seen. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
After the hexameter the most frequently imitated metre is the Sapphic
strophe. Swinburne's Sapphics in Poems and Ballads are the best known;
but though they are finely musical they do not pretend to give more than
an echo of the Greek music.
All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,
Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,
Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron
Stood and beheld me.
Then to me so lying awake a vision
Came without sleep over the seas and touched me,
Softly touched mine eyelids and lips; and I too,
Full of the vision,
Saw the white implacable Aphrodite,
Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled
Shine as fire of sunset on western waters;
Saw the reluctant....
Both Tennyson and Swinburne tried the Catullan hendecasyllabics.
Tennyson's Milton, in alcaics, is famous, and has a well-marked Miltonic
sound, but little of the sound of Horace's alcaics. Admirable also are
the elegiac distichs of Watson's Hymn to the Sea--
Man whose deeds, to the doer, come back as thine own exhalations
Into thy bosom return, weepings of mountain and vale;
Man with the cosmic fortunes and starry vicissitudes tangled,
Chained to the wheel of the world, blind with the dust of its
speed,
Even as thou, O giant, whom trailed in the wake of her conquests
Night's sweet despot draws, bound to her ivory car.
Of the French lyrical metres that have been imitated in English, mainly
for lighter themes, the _ballade_ and the _rondeau_ are the most
important. These and the _villanelle_, _triolet_, and _pantoum_ are not,
like imitations of classical forms, semi-learned attempts to do in
English what is foreign to the nature of the language, but games of
skill in phrasing and riming, wholly legitimate once their artificiality
is granted. For the impassioned overflowing of a sincere spirit they are
unfitted, but for grace, point, and delicate charm nothing could be
better devised; and when occasionally they are used for the expression
of genuine feeling, the unexpected union of lightness and seriousness
has a peculiarly poignant effect.
The _ballade_ in its commonest form consists of three 8-line stanzas
riming _ababbcbc_ and a 4-line stanza called 'envoy,' _bcbc_; the last
line of each stanza being repeated as a refrain, and the _a_, _b_, and
_c_ rimes throughout the poem being the same. The lines contain usually
either four or five stresses. The envoy is a sort of dedication,
addressed traditionally to a "Prince." Variations of all kinds occur,
encouraged by the difficulty of satisfying all the demands of the form.
Examples may be found (with an excellent introduction) in Gleeson
White's collection of Ballades and Rondeaus (Canterbury Poets), and
Andrew Lang's Ballades of Blue China.
_Rondeaus_ and _rondels_ (two forms of the same word) are written with
greater freedom of variation. Their organic principle is the use of the
first phrase or first line, twice repeated, as a refrain (R). The
commoner model in English is: _aabba_, _aabR_, _aabbaR_, in which the
first half of the first line constitutes the refrain. Another type rimes
_ABba_, _abAB_, _abbaAB_ (the capital letters indicating the lines
repeated). For examples see the reference above. Austin Dobson, Henley,
and Swinburne have written successfully in this form.
The _triolet_ is a sort of abbreviation of the second variety of
rondeau. Its lines are usually short and rime _ABaAabAB_.
The _villanelle_, in its normal form, consists of five 3-line stanzas
(_aba_) and a concluding 4-line stanza, all with but two rimes, the
first line, moreover, being repeated as the sixth, twelfth, and
eighteenth, the third line as the ninth, fifteenth, and nineteenth.
The _pantoum_ is of Eastern origin, but it came into English through the
French. It is extremely rare. It consists of a series of quatrains
_abab_, with the second and fourth lines of each stanza repeated
chainwise as the first and third of the next stanza. The closing stanza
completes the chain by taking as its second and fourth lines the first
and third of the first stanza.
From Italy have come, besides the _ottava rima_ and the sonnet, two
other metrical forms, the _sestina_ and the _terza rima_. The sestina is
composed of six 6-line stanzas and a final 3-line stanza. Instead of
rimes the end words of the lines of the first stanza are repeated in
this order 1.2.3.4.5.6. -- 6.1.5.2.4.3. -- 3.6.4.1.2.5. -- 5.3.2.6.1.4.
-- 4.5.1.3.6.2. -- 2.4.6.5.3.1. -- and the last stanza 5.3.1. with
2.4.6. in the middle of the lines. Gosse, Swinburne, and Kipling have
written sestinas; Swinburne one with the additional embellishment of
rime.
The _terza rima_ is the metre of Dante's Divine Comedy. The rimes are
_aba_, _bcb_, _cdc_, etc.... _yzy_, _zz_. It has not been very
successfully used in English, except in the stanzaic arrangement of
Shelley's Ode to the West Wind,--_aba_, _bcb_, _cdc_, _ded_, _ee_. Other
examples besides translations of Dante are short poems by Wyatt and
Sidney, Browning's The Statue and the Bust, and Shelley's unfinished The
Triumph of Life.
CHAPTER V
MELODY, HARMONY, AND MODULATION
The terms melody, harmony, and modulation, being borrowed from music,
are not to be applied too literally to the art of versification. They
represent metaphorically, however, certain important qualities of verse
which, with the exception of rime, cannot from their very impalpability
be formally explained, but can only be suggested and partially
described. They are not the determining and fundamental characteristics
of verse--those have already been discussed--but rather its sources of
incremental beauty, of richness and, subtle power. To draw an
illustration from another art, they add light and shadow, fullness,
roundness, depth of perspective, vividness, to what would else be simple
line-drawing.
The language of ordinary prose has its own melody and harmony, its own
sonorous rhythms, and its own delicate adjustments between sound and
meaning. All these natural beauties verse inherits from prose and then
adds the further beauties that result from the union of prose rhythms
and the formal patterns of verse. Some of these qualities which are the
peculiar enhancements of verse will now be examined.
* * * * *
The simplest and most tangible of these is rime in its various forms.
Rime is, in its most general signification, the repetition, usually at
regulated intervals, of identical or closely similar sounds. According
to the circumstances of the identical or similar sounds, four varieties
are distinguishable: (1) _alliteration_, or initial rime, when the
sounds at the beginning of accented syllables agree, as _t_ale,
a_tt_une; (2) _consonance_, when the vowel sounds differ and the final
consonantal sounds agree, as ta_l_e, pu_ll_; (3) _assonance_, when the
vowel sounds agree and the consonants differ, as t_a_le, p_ai_n; and (4)
_rime proper_, when both the vowels and the final consonants agree, as
t_ale_, p_ale_.
Alliteration is a natural and obvious method of emphasis in English--and
often difficult to avoid rather than to obtain. Popular sayings--wind
and weather, time and tide, kith and kin, ever and aye, to have and to
hold--are fond of it for its own sake. The early English, German, and
Scandinavian prosodies made it a determining principle; and in the north
of England it survived well into the fifteenth century; but since then
it has been considered a too 'easy' kind of metrical ornament, one to be
used sparingly and only for very special effects. "Apt alliteration's
artful aid" is very well when it is apt and artful; but when some poets
in their simplicity have gone so far as to "hunt the letter to the
death," one cannot but condemn it, in John Burroughs' ironic phrase, as
a "leprosy of alliteration." Most of the poets, however, have made
skilful use of it, notably Tennyson and Swinburne, though the latter
frequently overdid it, as in--
... rusted sheaves
Rain-rotten in rank lands.
A Ballad of Death.
Very remarkable is the combination of rime and frequent alliteration in
Browning's Abt Vogler.
Analogous to alliteration and perhaps to be classed as a by-form of it
is the subtle use of the same sound in unstressed parts of neighboring
words, as in--
Over the dark abyss, whose boi_l_ing gu_l_f
Tame_l_y endured a bridge of wondrous _l_ength.
Paradise Lost, II, 1027-28.
Consonance is very similar to this latter form of alliteration. Its use
is irregular and usually hidden. Note the alliteration and consonance in
Milton's line, both the _s_'s and the _n_'s--
Through the soft silence of the list'ning night.
Assonance, like alliteration and consonance, occurs in modern verse
sporadically, almost accidentally, but with great frequency in all
languages. As a regular principle of verse (in place of rime) it is
characteristic of Spanish and of Old French; in English its deliberate
use is very rare--the best example is perhaps the song "Bright, O bright
Fedalma" in George Eliot's The Spanish Gypsy.
Minute analysis is tedious and unsatisfactory, often indeed misleading,
but a single example will perhaps suggest some of the ways in which
alliteration, consonance, and assonance are interwoven for harmonic
effects that, not being altogether obvious, are felt rather than
directly perceived. Similar experiments may be made by the reader with
other passages. The opening stanza of Gray's Elegy, quoted on page 55,
above, is remarkable for its smooth and quiet flow, symbolic of the
atmosphere described by the words. How is this 'atmosphere' produced? or
rather, what is there that produces in us this sense of appropriate
atmosphere? In the first place, the lines are 5-stress and have the
"long iambic roll," and the rimes are simple _abab_. Furthermore, the
coincidence of prose and verse rhythms is noticeable; there are only
three variations: _wind_ in the second line, which is too important to
occupy the metrically unstressed position, and _o'er_ in the second line
and the second _and_ in the fourth, which are not quite strong enough to
stand in the stressed position. By a sort of substitution or 'occult
balance' the weakness of _o'er_ is compensated by the slight overweight
of _wind_. And the weakness of _and_ is strengthened by the rhetorical
pause after _darkness_. A rough approximation in semi-musical notation
would give for the second line
◡ -- ◡ -- -- -- ◡ ◡ ◡ --
There is a syncopation by which -- -- and ◡◡ combine (the natural syllabic
length of _o'er_ helping considerably) without destroying the
fundamental rhythm. In the fourth line, instead of
◡ -- ◡ -- ◡ --
we have
◡ -- ◡ ‸ ◡ ◡ --
... to dark-ness and to me,--
the pause being supported by the meaning as well as by the structure of
the verse. Alliteration is appropriately inconspicuous; it is limited to
_pl_owman ... _pl_ods and the conventional _w_eary _w_ay. The consonance
is significant. The most frequently repeated consonantal sounds are:
_l_ 10, _d_ 9, _r_[78] 8, _th_ 6, _n_ 6, and _w_ 5; that is, of the
seventy consonantal sounds (counting _th_ as one, _p_ and _l_ as two
sounds) in the stanza, thirty-five, or one-half, are the comparatively
soft sounds _l_, _r_, _th_, _n_, _w_. From the point of view of the
line, a tabulation shows two or more occurrences in each line of--
1 -- TH R T L
2 -- TH R L D
3 -- R L D P M W H
4 -- R T L D N
That is, there is a kind of RTLD motif throughout the stanza. The
assonance is even more striking. The stressed vowel sounds (which are of
course the most important[79]) line by line are as follows:[80]
ŭ^R ō ĕ ā ē
ō ŭ^R ō ō ī
au ō ŏ ī ē
ī ŭ^R ā ī
Here the five ō-sounds and four ī-sounds and three ŭ^R-sounds are
noticeable.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [78] According to the commonest American pronunciation. |
| |
| [79] The unaccented vowel sounds show the usual predominance |
| of the obscure vowel e, with three occurrences of ĭ and ī. |
| |
| [80] Reference to the text will identify the symbols. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
Now while no one would dream of saying that such a mechanical
examination unlocks the mystery of this quatrain's music, it cannot be
denied that the predominance of some sounds (especially those that are
peculiarly suggestive) over others is significant. And certainly such a
tabulation reveals _parts_ of the mystery which are not plain even to
the trained eye and ear.
The origin of rime is much disputed, but it occurs, at least
sporadically, in the poetry of nearly all peoples, and is likely to have
been a spontaneous growth arising from a natural human pleasure in
similar sounds. "It lies deep in our human nature and satisfies an
universal need." It is an established phenomenon in Sanskrit and Persian
prosody, in Arabic, in Chinese, in Celtic, in Icelandic. Greek prosody,
and Latin, which was based upon Greek, rejected it, partly perhaps
because it was too simple an ornament for the highly cultivated Greek
taste, especially on account of the great frequency of similar
inflectional endings, and perhaps because it was not entirely consistent
with the quantitative principle.[81] In the _popular_ Latin verse,
however, which was accentual, rime is found; and when, before the fall
of the later Empire, quantity was gradually abandoned, rime returned as
a regular feature of Latin verse. From thence it passed into the Romance
languages--Provençal, Italian, French--where it was for a time rivalled
by assonance; and finally, under French influence after the Conquest, it
made its way into England. But it had not been unknown in earliest
English verse, though it occurred only here and there, as in Greek and
Latin.[82] And from the fact that rimes appear with greater frequency in
the later than in the earlier Anglo-Saxon verse, as the native poets
became more familiar with the rimed Latin hymns, one may feel sure that
it would have developed into a staple of English verse independently of
French influence. From the twelfth century until the introduction of
blank verse by the Elizabethans, practically all English verse, except
that which belongs to the Alliterative Revival (mainly in the north of
England) of the second half of the fourteenth century, was rimed.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [81] Rime occurs, however, here and there in Greek and Latin |
| poetry, and is more frequent than perhaps we commonly |
| suppose. |
| |
| [82] In the 3182 lines of Beowulf, for example, there are |
| sixteen exact rimes and many more approximate rimes. There |
| is also in Anglo-Saxon the so-called Riming Poem, of |
| uncertain date, composed probably under Scandinavian |
| influence. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
From the æsthetic point of view rime has been severely attacked and
faithfully defended. A lively controversy was waged at the end of the
sixteenth century between the Renaissance classicists, who of course
condemned it, and the native rimers, but was brought to a peaceful
conclusion by Samuel Daniels' A Defence of Rhyme in 1603. In a prefatory
note to the second edition of Paradise Lost, Milton delivered an
arrogant but ineffectual counterblast. Rime, he said, was "no necessary
adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works
especially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched
matter and lame metre; graced indeed since by the use of some famous
modern poets, carried away by custom, but much to their own vexation,
hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the
most part worse, than else they would have expressed them."
The chief arguments against rime are those mentioned by Milton, its
tendency to conceal "wretched matter and lame metre," and the necessity
it often forces upon poets of either twisting unpleasantly what they
have to say or of adding irrelevant matter. Besides these there is also
what Cowper called "clock-work tintinnabulum"--mere empty jingle. But
all the arguments are double-edged. For although many inferior poets
have imposed for a while on readers and critics by the superficial
melody of rime alone, "wretched matter and lame metre" were never long
successfully concealed by it. And although, as Hobbes wrote, rime
"forces a man sometimes for the stopping of a chink to say something he
did never think," it is a fact nevertheless that the second thought,
induced by rime-necessity, "the rack of truest wits,"[83] is sometimes
if not better than the first, at least a worthy and handsome brother to
it. Whether rime be a hindrance, vexation, and constraint to the poet
depends almost wholly on his mastery of the technique of verse. It is
not always easier to write in unrimed measures, for, as Milton proudly
implied, good blank verse is the most difficult of all metres. And
although the jingle of like sounds may become tedious and mechanical if
unskilfully handled--"to all judicious ears trivial and of no true
musical delight," says Milton again--it has also proved a source of
richness and beauty of sound; and it should never be forgotten that in
the true æsthetic judgment of poetry sound plays a very important
part.[84]
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [83] See the whole of Ben Jonson's Fit of Rhyme against |
| Rhyme. |
| |
| [84] Compare Flaubert's extreme statement: "that a beautiful |
| verse without meaning is superior to one that has meaning |
| but is less beautiful." |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
The satisfaction which the ear receives from rime at the end of a verse
has been aptly compared to the pleasure we feel when a long arch of
melody returns to the dominant and then the tonic. More elaborate is
Oscar Wilde's praise of rime--"that exquisite echo which in the music's
hollow hill creates and answers its own voice; rhyme, which in the hands
of a real artist becomes not merely a material element of metrical
beauty, but a spiritual element of thought and passion also, waking a
new mood, it may be, or stirring a fresh train of ideas, or opening by
mere sweetness and suggestion of sound some golden door at which the
Imagination itself had knocked in vain; rhyme, which can turn man's
utterance into the speech of the gods; rhyme, the one chord we have
added to the Greek lyre."
The real problem in the arguments on rime is its fitness or unfitness in
particular kinds of poetry. No rules or laws can be formulated; men have
judged differently at different times; but it has been generally felt
that shorter poems, inasmuch as they are in a way the concentrated
essence of poetry, and must make their full impression almost
instantaneously, require all the advantages of the poetic art.
Tennyson's unrimed lyrics and Collins' Ode to Evening are unusual,
though successful, experiments. For long poems, however, there is not
this necessity of immediate effect. Here rime is sometimes a vexation,
sometimes not. Justification lies in special circumstances. The
classical French drama found it indispensable; English poetic drama gave
it a trial in the seventeenth century and rejected it. Narrative poems
which contain a large lyrical element, like the Faerie Queene and the
Eve of St. Agnes, are, all agree, enhanced by the rime. But no one would
now wish to have Paradise Lost in rimed verse, though it is clear from
the publisher's note in 1668 that many readers at the time were
'stumbled' because it was not. On the other hand, we feel that Chapman's
and Pope's Homer and Dryden's Virgil might have been better without
rimes. Once more, it lies with the poet--and with the poem--to justify
his use of rime or his refusal of it; if he is a good poet and his
judgment is not warped by local or temporary conditions there will
rarely be any doubt.
Rimes are called _masculine_ when they consist of one syllable, as
_cries: arise;_ _feminine_ when they consist of two or more syllables,
as _heedless: needless_, _beautiful: dutiful_. When both vowel and
following consonant agree the rime is called _perfect_, as _might:
right_, _solemn: column_. When the preceding consonant as well as the
vowel and following consonant agree the rime is called _identical_ or
_echo_ rime, as _reed: read_, _perfection: infection_, _ours: hours_.
When there is a difference either in the vowel sound or in the following
consonantal sound, that is, when assonance or consonance is substituted
for rime, the rime is usually said to be approximate or imperfect, as
_worth: forth_, _was: pass_, _gusht: dust_ (Coleridge). When the rime
words look alike but are pronounced differently, they are called _eye
rimes_, as _war: car_, _brow: glow_. Sometimes false rimes occur which
have no similarity of sound or appearance, but are more or less
sanctioned by earlier pronunciation or by custom, as _high: humanity_.
Sometimes also 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]
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [85] Triple rimes are naturally excellent for joco-serious |
| purposes, like the celebrated _intellectual: henpecked you |
| all_, _Timbuctoo: hymn book too_, _thin sand doubts: ins and |
| outs_. |
| |
| [86] Swinburne, Dedication, 1865. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
* * * * *
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]
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [87] For an extreme example of mimicry, see Southey's |
| Lodore. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
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]
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [88] Lines 370 ff. Dr. Johnson's comment on this last line is|
| curious: "The swiftness of Camilla is rather contrasted than |
| exemplified. Why the verse should be lengthened to express |
| speed, will not easily be discovered. In the dactyls, used |
| for that purpose by the ancients, two short syllables were |
| pronounced with such rapidity, as to be equal only to one |
| long; they, therefore, naturally exhibit the act of passing |
| through a long space in a short time. But the alexandrine, |
| by its pause in the midst, is a tardy and stately measure; |
| and the word 'unbending,' one of the most sluggish and slow |
| which our language affords, cannot much accelerate its |
| motion." |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
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.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [89] It is not to be understood, however, that the higher |
| the pitch the greater the emphasis; for the contrary is |
| often the case. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
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.`
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [90] It is perhaps useless to debate about this line. |
| Whether one divides thus: |
| |
| _̷ ◡ | ◡ _̷ | _̷ ◡ | _̷ ◡ | ◡ _̷ |
| |
| and says there is an 'inversion' in the first, third, and |
| fourth feet, or preferably thus: |
| |
| ‸ _̷ | ◡[`] _̷ | ^ _̷ | ◡ _̷ | ◡[`] _̷ |
| |
| the rhythm is extraordinary; and the added complexity of |
| 'own' puts it entirely _hors concours_. Compare with it, |
| however, Milton's |
| |
| Which but th' Omnipotent none could have foil'd. |
| Paradise Lost, I, 273. |
| |
| Not merely titular, since by degree. |
| Ibid., V, 774. |
| |
| [91] The italics are not Wordsworth's. |
| |
| [92] Here the italics are the poet's. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
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 _un_reluctant 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.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [93] Some readers take the line thus: |
| |
| ◡ _̷ _̷ ◡ ◡ _̷ ◡[`] ◡ ◡ _ |
| |
| with emphasis or pitch-accent on 'first'; in which case the |
| above explanation does not hold. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
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.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [94] Milton's Prosody, p. 30 (ed. 1901). |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
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:
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [95] The pronounced syncopations of ragtime partially |
| illustrate this. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
‸ 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 _ná_ture, or na_túre_. 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.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [96] In the specific cases mentioned below, this phenomenon |
| is historically known as "recession of accent"; and it |
| sometimes occurs in non-metrical contexts. It is also very |
| similar to one of the aspects of pitch; see pages 181 f., |
| above. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
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--
The enchantment that afterwards befell.
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.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [97] Note also the spondaic effect in the second line, the |
| rime in the third, and the imitative movement in the fourth. |
| |
| [98] Here, dividing the lines into parts measured by the |
| number of syllables, the series is: 6+4, 6+4,--, 2+4+4, 6+4, |
| 8+2, 6+4, 6+4, 6+4, 8+2, 8+2, etc. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
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]
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [99] Verrier, vol. i, p. 134. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
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]
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| [100] Mark H. Liddell, An Introduction to the Scientific |
| Study of English Poetry, New York, 1901, pp. 291 f. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
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.
GLOSSARIAL INDEX
A few terms not mentioned in the text are included here for the
sake of completeness.
ACCENT, the greater emphasis placed, in normal speech, on one syllable
of a work as compared with the other syllables, 6, 34 f., 37 f. _See
also_ STRESS; it is convenient to distinguish the two terms, but they
are sometimes used interchangeably.
ACEPHALOUS, headless; used to describe a line which lacks the unstressed
element of the first foot. _See_ TRUNCATION.
ALEXANDRINE, a 6-stress iambic line, 85 ff. 88.
ALLITERATION, repetition of the same or closely similar sounds at the
beginning of neighboring words or accented syllables (occasionally also
unaccented syllables); sometimes called _Initial Rime_, 166.
AMPHIBRACH, a classical foot, ◡--◡, 51.
ANACRUSIS, one or more extra syllables at the beginning of a line, 71.
ANAPEST, a foot consisting of two unstresses and a stress, ◡◡_̷, 38, 51,
70, 80 ff.
ANTISTROPHE, the counter-turn, or stanza answering to the first, of a
Pindaric Ode, 131.
ARSIS, a confusing term sometimes borrowed from classical prosody for
the stressed element of a foot; the unstressed element is called
_Thesis_.
ASSONANCE, the repetition, in final syllables, of the same vowel sound
followed by a different consonantal sound, 166 f. _See_ RIME.
BALLAD METRE (Common Measure, C. M. of the Hymnals), the stanza
_a^{4}b^{3}a^{4}b^{3}_, but admitting certain variations, 87, 103.
BALLADE, a formal metrical scheme of three stanzas riming _ababbcbC_
with an Envoi _bcbC_, keeping the same rimes throughout, and the last
line of each stanza (_C_) being the same. The lines are usually
5-stress, 163.
BLANK VERSE, unrimed 5-stress lines used continuously, 94, 133 ff., ch.
V passim; the 'single-moulded' line, 135 f.; Marlow's, 137 f.;
Shakespeare's, 138 ff., later dramatic, 140 f.; Milton's, 142 ff.;
conversational, 147 ff.
CAESURA, the classical term for a pause, usually grammatical and
extra-metrical (i. e. not reckoned in the time scheme). When it follows
an accented syllable it is called _masculine_; when it follows an
unaccented syllable it is _feminine_; when it occurs within a line it is
called _medial_; when it occurs after an 'extra' unstressed syllable it
is called _epic_ (though as frequent in drama as in epic), as--
And earth's base built on stubble. | But come, let's on.
MILTON, Comus, l. 509
CATALEXIS; _see_ TRUNCATION.
CHORIAMB, a classical foot, --◡◡--, 51.
COMMON MEASURE (C. M.), the regular _Ballad Metre_, 103 f.
CONSONANCE, specifically, in metrics, a form of incomplete rime in which
the consonantal sounds agree but the vowel sounds differ, 166 f. _See_
RIME.
COÖRDINATION, the agreement or coincidence of the natural prose rhythm
with the metrical (rhythmical) pattern; the process of making them
agree, 17 f.
COUPLET, a group of two lines riming _aa_, 88; _closed_ couplet, one
which contains an independent clause or sentence and does not run on
into the next of the series, 91 f.; _heroic_ couplet, one of 5-stress
lines, usually iambic (called also _pentameter_ couplet), 89, 93 ff.;
_short_ couplet, one of 4-stress iambic or trochaic lines (also called
_octosyllabic_ couplet), 89 ff.
DACTYL, a foot consisting of a stress followed by two unstresses, _̷◡◡,
38, 51, 70, 84.
DECASYLLABLE, a 5-stress (pentameter) line; a term used properly only of
syllable-counting metres such as the French.
DISTICH, couplet; usually in classical prosody the elegiac couplet of a
hexameter and a pentameter, 162.
DOGGEREL, any rough irregular metre.
DUPLE RHYTHM, a rhythm of two beats (though corresponding generally to ¾
time in music), one stress and one unstress, _̷◡ or ◡_̷.
DURATION, the length of time occupied by the enunciation of
speech-sounds, and therefore an element in all language rhythm, 5. _See
also_ TIME.
ELEGIAC STANZA, the quatrain _abab^{5}_, 103, 107 f.
ELISION, the omission or crowding out of unstressed words or unaccented
syllables to make the metre smoother; a term belonging to classical
prosody and inappropriate in English prosody except where
syllable-counting verse is concerned. Various forms of Elision are
called Syncope, Synizesis, and Synalœpha.
END-STOPPED LINE, one with a full or strong grammatical pause at the
end.
ENJAMBEMENT, a French term ('long stride') for the continuation of the
sense from one line (or couplet) to the next without a grammatical
pause, 62, 92; opposite of End-stopping. _See_ OVERFLOW; RUN-ON LINE.
EPODE, the third (sixth, ninth) stanza of a Pindaric ode, 131.
FEMININE ENDING, an extra unstressed syllable at the end of an iambic or
anapestic line, 71.
FOOT, the smallest metrical unit of rhythm, composed of a stressed
element and one or more unstressed elements (or a pause), 49 ff.
FREE-VERSE, irregular rhythms, not conforming to a fixed metrical
pattern, 150 ff.
HEADLESS LINE, acephalous; and _see_ TRUNCATION.
HENDECASYLLABLE, a 5-stress line with feminine ending, thus making
ordinarily eleven syllables; usually referring to a special metre used
by Catullus and others (as in Tennyson's imitation, 'O you chorus of
indolent reviewers'), 162.
HEROIC LINE, a 5-stress iambic line.
HEXAMETER, _classical_ or _dactylic_, the standard line of Greek and
Latin poetry, composed of six feet, the fifth of which is nearly always
a dactyl, the sixth a spondee or trochee, the rest either dactyls or
spondees; imitated in English with more or less success by substituting
stress for quantity, 159 ff.
HIATUS, unexpected absence of elision.
HOLD, pause on a word or syllable, 62 f.
HOVERING ACCENT, a term sometimes used for the coordination of the
metrical rhythm ◡_̷◡_̷ with the prose rhythm ◡◡_̷_̷ as in "and serene
air" (Comus, l. 4); the accent is thought of as 'hovering' over the
first syllable of _serene_, 182.
HYPERMETRIC, used of a syllable which is not reckoned or expected in the
regular metrical pattern.
IAMB, _Iambus_, a foot consisting of an unstress and a stress, ◡_̷, 38,
51, 69, 84 ff.
IN MEMORIAM STANZA, a quatrain riming _abba^{4}_, 103, 105 ff.
INVERSION, the substitution of a trochee for an iamb or of a dactyl for
an anapest (or vice versa), 51, 187 ff.; a misleading term; see
SUBSTITUTION.
LENGTH, the comparative duration of the enunciation of syllables, 33 f.
In classical prosody syllables were regarded by convention as either
'long' or 'short' (a 'long' being theoretically equal to two 'shorts'),
and this usage has been sometimes (not successfully, and yet not
entirely without reason) super-imposed upon English verse.
LINE, a metrical division composed of one or more feet and either used
continuously or combined in stanzas, 52 f., 69 ff. _See_ VERSE (1).
LOUDNESS, the comparative strength or volume of a sound, 6.
LONG MEASURE (L. M. of the Hymnals) the quatrain riming _abab^{4}_ or
_abcb^{4}_, 103.
METRE, a regular, artificial, rhythmic pattern, the formal basis of
versification.
OCTOSYLLABLE, an 8-syllable or 4-stress line. _See_ DECASYLLABLE.
OCTAVE, a stanza of eight lines; especially the two quatrains of an
Italian sonnet, 120.
ODE, a kind of exalted lyric poem, not strictly a metrical term but
often used as such to describe the simple stanzaic structure of the
'Horatian' ode or the complex system of strophe, antistrophe and epode
of the 'Pindaric' ode, 131 ff.
ONOMATOPOEIA, primarily a rhetorical figure but of much wider
application, covering all cases from single words to phrases and lines
of verse in which there is agreement, by echo or suggestions, between
the sound of the words and their meaning; as a metrical term, the
agreement of the verse rhythm with the idea expressed, 177 ff.
OTTAVA RIMA, the stanza (of Italian origin) riming _abababcc^{5}_, 111
f.
OVERFLOW, the running over of the parts of a sentence from one line to
the next without a pause at the end of the line, 62. _See_ ENJAMBEMENT,
RUN-ON.
PAEON, a classical foot, --◡◡◡, 51, 76 ff.
PAUSE, (1) _logical_ or _grammatical_, that which separates the formal
parts of a sentence, 61, 63; (2) _rhythmical_, that which separates the
breath-groups of spoken sentences, 61 ff.; (3) _metrical_, (_a_) that
which separates the parts of a metrical pattern, as at the end of a
line, 62, and also (_b_) that which takes the place of an unstressed
element of a foot, being equivalent to the rest in music (indicated by
the sign ‸), 62 ff.
PENTAMETER, a 5-stress line, 52. (This term is well established, but
open to objection.)
PHRASE, a group of words held together either by their meaning (or
content) or by their sound, 32 f; 37 ff.
PINDARIC, _see_ ODE.
PITCH, the characteristic of a sound dependent upon its number of
vibrations per second; (usually indicated by its place in the musical
scale; high or 'acute,' low or 'grave'); 5 f., 35 ff.; sometimes
functions in verse for emphasis or for stress, 8, 35 ff., 181 ff.
POULTER'S MEASURE, an old-fashioned couplet, composed of an alexandrine
and a septenary, _a^{6}a^{7}_, 88 f.
PROSE, _Characteristic_, prose with natural and varied rhythms, 23 ff.;
_Cadenced_, prose with carefully sought rhythmic movements, 27 ff.;
_Metrical_, a hybrid of prose and verse, 29 ff.
PYRRHIC, a classical foot, ◡◡, 51.
QUANTITY, the length of a syllable; established by convention in
classical prosody; in English prosody very uncertain but always present.
_See_ Length.
QUATRAIN, a stanza of four lines, 103 ff.
REFRAIN, a line or part of a line repeated according to the metrical
pattern, 184 f.; the term _repetend_ is occasionally used.
REST, _see_ PAUSE (3, _b_).
RHYTHM, regular arrangement or repetition of varied parts, _see_ ch. I,
ch. II, and passim; _objective_, having external concrete existence, 3
ff.; _subjective_, felt by the individual, 3, 12 ff.; _spatial_, in
which the units are spaces, 4; _temporal_, in which the units are
periods of time, 4 ff.; _rising_, beginning with the stressed element,
38; _falling_, beginning with the unstressed element, 38; _duple_,
having a stress and one unstressed element (syllable), 38; _triple_,
having a stress and two unstressed elements (syllables), 38.
RIME, repetition of the same sound (or sounds) usually at the end of the
line, 165 ff.; _Masculine_, when the repeated sound consists of one
stressed syllable; _Feminine_, when a stressed + one or more unstressed
syllables; _Triple_, when a stressed + two unstressed syllables; _Echo_
or _Identical_, when the preceding consonantal sound also agrees;
_Eye-rime_, when the words agree in spelling but not in pronunciation,
174. As distinct from end-rime, there is _Internal_ or _Leonine_ rime,
which occurs within the line (sometimes merely a matter of printing).
_See also_ ASSONANCE, CONSONANCE.
RIME COUÉE, _see_ TAIL-RIME STANZA.
RIME-ROYAL, a stanza borrowed by Chaucer from the French, _ababbcc^{5}_;
also called _Troilus stanza_, _Chaucer stanza_, 109 f.
RONDEAU, RONDEL, French metrical forms characterized by the repetition
of the first phrase or lines twice as a refrain, e. g. _aabba aabR
aabbaR_ (R being the first phrase of the first line), or _ABba abAB
abbaAB_ (the capitals indicating the whole lines repeated), 163.
RUN-ON LINE, one in which the sense runs over into the following line
without a grammatical pause, 62, 92. _See_ ENJAMBEMENT; OVERFLOW.
SAPPHIC, a 4-line stanza used by Sappho (and Catullus and Horace) and
often imitated in English; the pattern is --◡ | --◡ | --◡◡ | --◡ | --◡
thrice repeated, then --◡◡ | --◡, 161 f.
SEPTENARY, SEPTENARIUS (fourteener), the old 14-syllable or 7-stress
iambic line, later split up into the Ballad metre, 87; and used also
with the alexandrine in the Poulter's Measure.
SESTET, a group of six lines, especially the last six of an Italian
sonnet, 120.
SESTINA, an elaborate metrical form consisting of six 6-line stanzas and
a 3-line stanza with repetition of the same end-words in different order
instead of rime, 164.
SHORT MEASURE (S. M. of the Hymnals), the Poulter's Measure broken into
a quatrain: _ab^{3}a^{4}b^{3}, ab^{3}c^{4}b^{3}_, 89.
SONNET, 118 ff., (1) _Italian_, a 14-line stanza composed of two
quatrains riming _abba_ and two tercets riming _cde cde_ (_cde dee_,
etc.), 120 ff.; (2) _English_, 14-line stanza of three quatrains riming
_abab cdcd efef_, and a closing couplet _gg_, 127 ff. There are also
mixed forms and many variations.
SPENSERIAN STANZA, a 9-line stanza riming _ababbcbc^{5}c^{6}_; the final
alexandrine is the characteristic feature, 85 f., 112 ff. Several
variations were used in the seventeenth century consisting of shorter
lines with a closing alexandrine, 117.
SPONDEE, a classical prosody a foot of two long syllables; in English
prosody a foot of two 'long' or accented or stressed words or syllables,
51.
STANZA, a group of lines arranged according to a special pattern,
usually marked by rimes, 53, 88 ff.; _see also_ Verse (3).
STRESS, the comparative emphasis which distinguishes a sound from others
not so strongly or plainly emphasized, 34 f., 37 f., 56 f., 65 f. Then
by UNSTRESS or no stress is meant absence or comparative weakness of
emphasis. _Stress_ is used in this book for rhythmic and metrical
emphasis; _see_ ACCENT.
STROPHE, same as Stanza, 53; in the Pindaric ode, the first (fourth,
etc.) stanza, 131.
SUBSTITUTION (1) replacing one rhythmic unit by its temporal equivalent,
as an iamb by an anapest or by a trochee, etc., 20; called also
_Inversion_ (_q.v._) of the foot; (2) the use of pitch or duration
(pause) for a stress or unstress, 20, 181 ff.
SYLLABLE, the smallest and simplest unit of speech-sound, 32 f.;
sometimes used as a metrical unit, 49.
SYNCOPATION, the union, or perception of the union, of two or more
rhythmic patterns, 18 ff.
TAIL-RIME STANZA, one usually of six lines riming
_aa^{4}b^{3}cc^{4}b^{3}_, but with many variations (e. g. the Burns
stanza, _aaa^{4}b^{2}a^{4}b^{2})_, the general type being a combination
of long lines in groups with single short lines, 109.
TAILED SONNET, a sonnet with a tail (coda), or addition. About the only
one in English is Milton's On the New Forcers of Conscience: the rimes
are _abba abba cde dec^{5} c^{3}ff^{5}f^{3}gg^{5}_.
TERCET, a group of three lines, especially in the sestet of the Italian
sonnet, 102, 120.
TERZA RIMA, an Italian rime scheme _aba bcb cdc_ ... _yzy zz_; rarely
used in English, but triumphantly (in stanzas) in Shelley's Ode to the
West Wind, 164.
TETRAMETER, a classical term (four 'measures' or eight feet) incorrectly
used for the English 4-stress line, 52.
THESIS, _see_ ARSIS.
TIME, an inevitable element in English verse (as well as prose), but not
the sole basis, 56 ff.
TONE-COLOR, TONE QUALITY, 'timbre,' the characteristic of a sound
determined by the number of partial tones (overtones), as richness,
sweetness, thinness, stridency; hence sometimes applied to the musical
quality of a verse or phrase, 6 and note, 177.
TRIBRACH, a classical foot, ◡◡◡, 51.
TRIMETER, a classical term (three 'measures' or six feet) incorrectly
used for the English 3-stress line, 52.
TRIOLET, a French metrical form, mainly for light themes, riming
_ABaAabAB_(the capitals indicating repeated lines) and usually with
short lines, 163.
TRIPLET, _a_ group of three lines, especially when rimed _aaa_, 101 f.
_See also_ TERCET.
TROCHEE, a foot consisting of a stress and an unstress, _̷◡, 38, 51, 70,
82 ff.
TRUNCATION, omission of the final unstressed element of a line, usually
in the trochaic metres, 76; also called _Catalexis_ (the opposite of
which, the non-omission of this element, is _Acatalexis_). _Initial
Truncation_ is the omission of the first unstressed element of a line,
usually in the iambic metres, thus making a _Headless_ verse.
UNSTRESS, the element of a rhythmic unit which is without emphasis or
has a relatively weak emphasis.
VERSE, (1) a metrical line, 52; (2) collectively, for metre, metrical
form; (3) commonly in England, and in America in the churches, used for
Stanza.
VILLANELLE, a French verse form of nineteen lines on three rimes,
certain lines being repeated at fixed intervals, 163 f.