CHAPTER XVII.

METRE.

[WITHIN the narrow limits of the present chapter nothing can be attempted beyond the presentation of a few general principles and a few leading forms. Those persons who wish to pursue the subject further should study: Parsons, English Versification. Boston; Leach, Shewell, and Sanborn. 1891; Corson, A Primer of English Verse. Boston; Ginn. 1892. Mayor's work, entitled Chapters on English Metre. London; Clay. 1886, is too technical for the ordinary reader. Schipper's Englische Metrik, Bonn; Strauss. 1881-1888 (three volumes), is a mine of information, but can be used only by the specialist. Guest's History of English Rhythms, even in the re-issue by Skeat, is worthless, except for its illustrative quotations; the author's metrical theories are untenable.]

1. GENERAL TERMS.

180. The English term Verse means strictly a metrical line. By extension, the term is used to designate a certain kind of line, e. g., "blank verse," "heroic verse," etc.; sometimes, also, to designate the general metrical quality of a certain poet, e. g., Shakespearean verse, Miltonic, etc. Still further, verse is used for poetry in general, as when we say that Milton wrote both prose and verse.*

Not infrequently a section of a hymn is called a verse; e. g., the second verse of the twentieth hymn. This is incorrect; the proper term for a section of a hymn, or of any other poem, is Stanza (see § 185).

181. By Foot we mean the unit of measurement of the length of the line. In English verse the foot usually con

* The use of verse to designate a portion of a chapter of the Bible, or passages in the services of the church, need not be discussed here.

sists of two syllables, one accented (or stressed), the other unaccented. E. g.:

So many worlds, | so much | to do.

TENNYSON: In Memoriam, lxxiii.

The foot of the above is called iambic; the verse, or line, is described as iambic tetrameter.

the foot is called trochaic, and the line is trochaic tetrameter. In the following:

Home they brought her | warrior | dead.

TENNYSON: The Princess, v. (Song at end).

the final unstressed syllable is wanting.

Occasionally in a line made up of dissyllabic feet we get two unaccented syllables in a foot, as in warrior in the above; and in the second foot of the following:

With garrulous ease | and oilly courtesies.

TENNYSON: The Princess, i. 162.

In certain forms of English verse the foot is regularly trisyllabic; e. g. :

All the heart | and the soul | and the senses forever in joy.

BROWNING: Saul (ix.) 80.

The above is called an anapæstic pentameter. The following:

Brightest and best of the | sons of the morning.

HEBER.

is dactylic tetrameter; but the last foot is only dissyllabic, and may be regarded as either a trochee or a spondee.

English poetry does not, in general, favor anapæstic

verse for long poems; Browning's Saul is exceptional. For the dactylic hexameter, see § 195.

Frequently in iambic verse we get a line like the fol

lowing:

Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

This might be scanned:

COLERIDGE: Chamouni Hymn, 85.

Earth, with her thousand voicles, praises God; or,

In the second method of scanning, Earth, with her thouwould be called a choriambus. But usually the best method is to scan:

182. We speak of Feet in English verse, and give to them such names as iambus, trochee, anapæst, dactyl, spondee. These terms are borrowed from the metrical system of Greek and Latin, and retained as a practical convenience. But it is always to be borne in mind that the Greeks and Romans measured their feet by vocalic or syllabic length: an iambus was a foot composed of one short and one long syllable; a trochee, of one long and one short; a spondee, of two long. Whereas in English verse the feet are not measured by vocalic length, but are marked off by that voice-stress which we call accent: an English iambus is a line-section composed of an unaccented and an accented syllable, etc. Since every syllable in English is either accented or unaccented, it is not possible to have a genuine spondee.

The Greeks and Romans, in fact, measured longs and shorts almost as accurately as we measure notes in music.*

* A. J. Ellis, Quantitative Pronunciation of Latin, proposes to develop the feeling for division of time by using a swinging pendulum.

But to us a line is an alternation of accented and unaccented, i. e., loud and not loud, syllables. As long, therefore, as the line has the required number of accented syllables (we might call them beats), our ear is satisfied. We do not care greatly whether there is now and then an unaccented syllable too many or too few, or even whether, as in the so-called choriambus, the order of succession of accented and unaccented syllables is now and then reversed. English verse, then, is elastic; it is the expression of power and freedom. Nevertheless, the English ear is not wholly insensible to quantity. This is evident from the principle of compensation. Thus, when Tennyson sings:

the first foot, To put, has the stress on a vowel evidently short. But in the last foot, the pronoun I, although it has not the metrical stress, is too evidently long and prominent to be slurred over like To, in, the; the voice instinctively lingers upon it. And this compensates for the shortness of put.

The verse of our best poets is full of such compensation. To recognize and give expression to it in reading should be the aim of every student. See § 197.

In verse of popular origin a foot is frequently without its unstressed syllable, the place of which is supplied by a Pause, equivalent to a rest in music. E. g.:

Till said to Tweed:

Though ye rin wi' speed,

And I rin slaw,

Whar ye droon ae man

í droon twa.

To make the underlying metrical scheme plainer, we

might fill in the pauses, spoiling the rugged beauty of the original:

The songs in Shakespeare's plays, being borrowed or imitated from popular poetry, also exhibit frequent pauses. And occasionally we find a pause even in lyric poetry of a more cultivated sort, e. g., in Tennyson's well-known song:

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, | O sea.

Also in blank verse, though more rarely; e. g.:

The indispensable elocutionary pause between the first and second write not only supplies the missing syllable but makes the urgency of the request more dramatic.

2. THE SINGLE LINE.

183. The single line may range in length from one foot to eight. Thus a trochee: