i. _Verses in which different sorts of feet are more or less regularly
combined_.
In the morning, O so early, my beloved, my beloved,
All the birds were singing blithely, as if never they would cease:
'Twas a thrush sang in my garden, "Hear the story, hear the story!"
And the lark sang "Give us glory!" and the dove said "Give us peace."
(JEAN INGELOW: _Give us Love and Give us Peace._)
Fair is our lot--O goodly is our heritage!
(Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!)
For the Lord our God Most High
He hath made the deep as dry,
He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the Earth!
(KIPLING: _A Song of the English._)
In both these specimens the full accent regularly recurs in only the
alternate feet. Thus while the first specimen is technically
eight-stress trochaic, there are in the normal reading of it only four
full accents to the line. In other words the first, third, fifth, and
seventh feet are regularly pyrrhics. (See p. 55.) The same thing appears
in the specimen from Kipling: _ye_, _and_, _in_ (in line 2) are accented
only in a distinctly secondary fashion. Some have suggested, for such
rhythms as these, the recognition of a foot made up of one stressed and
three unstressed syllables. Lanier represents such measures (in _The
Science of English Verse_) in four-eight time.
Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go.
(BROWNING: _Prospice._)
Here the tendency is to use iambi and anapests in alternate feet; see
especially lines 2, 3, and 5.
All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist;
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
Enough that He heard it once: we shall hear it by-and-by.
(BROWNING: _Abt Vogler._)
Here we have a hexameter which is neither iambic nor anapestic, but a
combination of the two rhythms. So in the following specimens
dissyllabic and trisyllabic feet are used interchangeably.
When the lamp is shatter'd
The light in the dust lies dead--
When the cloud is scatter'd
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remember'd not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.
(SHELLEY: _The Flight of Love._)
The sea is at ebb, and the sound of her utmost word
Is soft at the least wave's lapse in a still small reach.
From bay unto bay, on quest of a goal deferred,
From headland ever to headland and breach to breach,
Where earth gives ear to the message that all days preach.
(SWINBURNE: _The Seaboard._)
England, none that is born thy son, and lives, by grace of thy
glory, free,
Lives and yearns not at heart and burns with hope to serve as he
worships thee;
None may sing thee: the sea-bird's wing beats down our songs as it
hails the sea.
(SWINBURNE: _The Armada_, vii.)
This life of ours is a wild Æolian harp of many a joyous strain,
But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail, as of souls
in pain.
(LONGFELLOW: _The Golden Legend_, iv.)
Come away, come away, Death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
(SHAKSPERE: _Twelfth Night_, II. iv.)
The characteristic irregularity in this stanza is the variation from
trochaic to iambic rhythm. In this case the variations are in part due,
no doubt, to the fact that the words were written for music.
Maud with her exquisite face,
And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky,
And feet like sunny gems on an English green,
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace,
Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot die,
Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean
And myself so languid and base.
(TENNYSON: _Maud_, I. v.)
In this specimen the characteristic rhythm of lines 1, 4, and 5 is
dactylic, that of the remainder anapestic-iambic.
The trumpet's loud clangor
Excites us to arms
With shrill notes of anger
And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
Of the thundering drum
Cries, hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat.
The soft complaining flute
In dying notes discovers
The woes of helpless lovers,
Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute.
(DRYDEN: _Song for St. Cecilia's Day_, 1687.)
In this famous stanza the rhythm changes for obvious purposes of
imitative representation.
Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me,
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.
She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea;
She said, "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray
In the little gray church on the shore to-day.
'Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee."
I said, "Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!"
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?
... Down, down, down!
Down to the depths of the sea!
She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.
Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,
For the humming street, and the child with its toy!
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;
For the wheel where I spun,
And the blessed light of the sun!"
And so she sings her fill,
Singing most joyfully,
Till the spindle drops from her hand,
And the whizzing wheel stands still.
She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,
And over the sand at the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh,
For the cold strange eyes of a little mermaiden,
And the gleam of her golden hair.
(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _The Forsaken Merman._)
Then the music touch'd the gates and died;
Rose again from where it seem'd to fail,
Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale;
Till thronging in and in, to where they waited,
As 'twere a hundred-throated nightingale,
The strong tempestuous treble throbbed and palpitated;
Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound,
Caught the sparkles, and in circles,
Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes,
Flung the torrent rainbow round:
Then they started from their places,
Moved with violence, changed in hue,
Caught each other with wild grimaces,
Half-invisible to the view,
Wheeling with precipitate paces
To the melody, till they flew,
Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces,
Twisted hard in fierce embraces,
Like to Furies, like to Graces,
Dash'd together in blinding dew.
(TENNYSON: _Vision of Sin._)
ii. _Verses in which individual feet are altered from the metrical
scheme._
Even in metre exhibiting no marked irregularities, it is of course
rather exceptional than otherwise to find all the feet in a verse
conforming to the type-foot of the metre. Departures from the typical
metre may be conveniently classified in five groups: Deficiency in
accent; excess of accent; inversion of accent; light syllable added to
dissyllabic foot; light syllable omitted in trisyllabic foot.
Deficiency of accent is the most common of all the variations, if we
understand by "accent" such syllabic stress as would be ordinarily
appreciable in the reading of the word in question. It would be safe to
say that in English five-stress iambic verse, read with only the
ordinary etymological and rhetorical accents, twenty-five per cent of
the verses lack the full five stresses characteristic of the type. In
many cases, too, a foot with deficiency in stress is compensated for by
another foot in the same verse showing excess of stress. Feet thus
deficient in stress may conveniently be called _pyrrhics_, the pyrrhic
being understood as made up of two unstressed syllables. This term has
never become fully domesticated in English prosody, and some object to
its use on the ground that we have no feet wholly without stress. Its
use in the sense just indicated, however, seems to be an unquestionable
convenience.
Excess of accent, while less common than deficiency of accent, is even
more easily recognizable. The foot containing two stressed syllables,
even though one of the stresses may be distinctly stronger than the
other, may conveniently be called a _spondee_.
Inversion of accent is exceedingly familiar, especially at the beginning
of the verse and after the medial pause. It consists, technically
speaking, in the substitution of a trochee for an iambus or an iambus
for a trochee (the latter very rarely).
A light syllable inserted in dissyllabic measure is not unusual, though
by no means so common as the variations previously enumerated. Such a
syllable is frequently spoken of as "hypermetrical"; or, the variation
may be considered as the substitution of an anapest for an iambus, in
iambic measure, or the substitution of a dactyl for a trochee, in
trochaic measure.
The omission of one of the two light syllables from the foot in
trisyllabic verse is so common as to make it difficult to find pure
anapestic or dactylic verse in English. This fact is due in part to
preference for dissyllabic measures, and in part to the usual
indifference, in all Germanic verse, to accuracy in the number of light
syllables. The variation may frequently be regarded as involving a
prolongation of the light syllable of the foot, or a pause equal to the
time of the omitted syllable; technically speaking, it consists in the
substitution of an iambus for an anapest, or a trochee for a dactyl.
Examples of all these variations may best be found in the specimens of
verse included in the preceding pages. A few specimens of detail are
added here, for the sake of greater clearness.
_Deficiency in accent (substituted pyrrhic)._
To further this, Achit_ophel_ unites
The malcontents of all the Israelites,
Whose differing par_ties he_ could wisely join
For several ends to serve the same design;
The best (_and of_ the princes some were such)
Who thought the power of mon_archy_ too much;
Mistaken men and patr_iots in_ their hearts,
Not wick_ed, but_ seduced by impious arts;
By these the springs of prop_erty_ were bent,
And wound so high they crack'd the gov_ernment_.
(DRYDEN: _Absalom and Achitophel_, I.)
_Excess of accent (substituted spondee)._
And ten _low words_ oft creep in one _dull line_.
(POPE: _Essay on Criticism._)
_Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens_, and shades of death.
(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, II. 621.)
_See, see_ where Christ's _blood streams_ in the firmament!
(MARLOWE: _Faustus_, sc. xvi.)
O great, _just, good God! Mis_erable me!
(BROWNING: _The Ring and the Book_, VI.)
A tree's _head snaps_--and there, _there, there, there, there_!
(BROWNING: _Caliban upon Setebos._)
_Inversion of accent (substituted trochee)._
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
_Gorged with_ the dearest morsel of the earth.
(SHAKSPERE: _Romeo and Juliet_, V. iii. 45 f.)
Finds tongues in trees, _books in_ the running brooks,
_Sermons_ in stones, and good in every thing.
(_As You Like It_, II. i. 16 f.)
The watery kingdom whose ambitious head
_Spits in_ the face of heaven.
(_Merchant of Venice_, II. vii. 44 f.)
Long lines of cliff _breaking_ have left a chasm.
(TENNYSON: _Enoch Arden._)
There whirled her white robe like a blossomed branch
_Rapt to_ the horrible fall: a glance I gave,
No more; but woman-vested as I was
_Plunged; and_ the flood _drew; yet_ I caught her; then
_Oaring_ one arm,...
(TENNYSON: _The Princess._)
_Stabbed through_ the heart's affections to the heart!
_Seethed like_ a kid in its own mother's milk!
_Killed with_ a word worse than a life of blows!
(TENNYSON: _Merlin and Vivien._)
He flowed
_Right for_ the polar star, past Orgunje,
_Brimming_, and bright, and large; then sands begin,...
(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _Sohrab and Rustum._)
_Hypermetrical syllable (substituted anapest)._
_Let me see, let me see_, is not the leaf turn'd down?
(SHAKSPERE: _Julius Cæsar_, IV. iii. 271.)
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hug_est that swim_ the ocean stream.
(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, I. 201 f.)
This passage was one of those where Bentley made himself ridiculous in
his edition of Milton. "To smooth it" he changed the lines to read--
"Leviathan, whom God the vastest made
Of all the kinds that swim the ocean stream,"--
not perceiving, what Cowper pointed out, that Milton had designedly used
"the word _hugest_ where it may have the clumsiest effect....
Smoothness was not the thing to be consulted when the Leviathan was in
question."
So he with diff_iculty_ and labour hard
Moved on, with diff_iculty_ and labour he.
(_ib._ II. 1021 f.)
The sweep
Of some precip_itous rivulet to_ the wave.
(TENNYSON: _Enoch Arden._)
The sound of many a heav_ily galloping_ hoof.
(TENNYSON: _Geraint and Enid._)
I wish that somewhere in the ruin'd folds,...
Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her
_The Abominable_, that uninvited came.
(TENNYSON: _[OE]none._)
_Do you see_ this square old yellow book I toss
_I' the air_, and catch again, and twirl about
_By the crumpl_ed vellum covers; pure crude fact--
(BROWNING: _The Ring and the Book_, I.)
That plant
Shall never wave its tangles light_ly and soft_ly
As a queen's languid and imperial arm.
(BROWNING: _Paracelsus_, I.)
A distinction should be made between these hypermetrical syllables which
change the character of the foot from dissyllabic to trisyllabic, and
syllables (in a sense hypermetrical) which are slurred or elided in the
reading. The word _radiance_, for example, is regarded as trisyllabic in
prose, but in the verse--
"Girt with omnipotence, with radiance crowned,"
it is made dissyllabic by instinctive compression, and in no proper
sense makes an anapest of the fifth foot. Of the same character are the
numerous cases where a vowel is elided before another vowel--especially
the vowel of the article _the_.[7] On the elisions of Milton's verse,
see Mr. Robert Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_; on those of Shakspere's
verse, see Abbott's _Shakespearian Grammar_. In modern verse the use of
elision and slurring is ordinarily that found in common speech.
_Omitted syllable (substituted iambus)._
As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean,
that none but a god _might see_,
_Rose out_ of the silence _of things unknown_
of a presence, a form, _a might_,
And we heard as a prophet that hears _God's mes_sage
against him, and may _not flee_.
(SWINBURNE: _Death of Richard Wagner._)
See also specimens on pp. 42, 43, 48, above.
Mr. Mayor considers the question as to how far substitution of other
than the typical foot may be carried in a verse, without destroying the
genuineness of the fundamental rhythm. His conclusions are these:
(1) The limit of trochaic substitution is three feet out of five, with
the final foot iambic; or two out of five, if the fifth foot is
inverted.
(2) A spondee is allowable in any position; the limit is four out of
five, with either the fourth or fifth foot remaining iambic.
(3) A pyrrhic may occur in any position; the limit is three out of five,
with the other feet preferably spondees.
(4) The limit for trisyllabic substitution is three out of five.
(_Chapters on English Metre_, chap. V.)
Professor Corson discusses the æsthetic effect of these changes from the
typical metre: "The true metrical artist ... never indulges in variety
for variety's sake.... All metrical effects are to a great extent
_relative_--and relativity of effect depends, of course, upon having a
standard in the mind or feelings.... Now the more closely the poet
adheres to his standard--to the even tenor (modulus) of his verse--so
long as there is no logical nor æsthetic motive for departing from it,
the more effective do his departures become when they are sufficiently
motived. All non-significant departures weaken the significant ones....
The normal tenor of the verse is presumed to represent the normal tenor
of the feeling which produces it. And departures from that normal tenor
represent, or should represent, variations in the normal tenor of the
feeling. Outside of the general law ... of the slurring or suppression
of extra light syllables, which do not go for anything in the
expression, an exceptional foot must result in emphasis, whether
intended or not, either logical or emotional.... A great poet is
presumed to have metrical skill; and where ripples occur in the stream
of his verse, they will generally be found to justify themselves as
organic; _i.e._ they are a part of the expression."
(_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 48-50.)
On the æsthetic symbolism of various metrical movements, see G. L.
Raymond's _Poetry as a Representative Art_, pp. 113 ff.