Chapter XIV

IAMBIC-ANAPAESTIC AND TROCHAIC-DACTYLIC
METRES

§ =189.= The =iambic-anapaestic rhythm= has been touched on before in connexion with the four-stressed verse (cf. § 72) which was developed from the alliterative long line, and which at the end of the Middle English and in the beginning of the Modern English period, under the growing influence of the even-beat metres, had assumed more or less regular iambic-anapaestic character.

When during the same period a definitive separation of the rising and falling rhythms took place, the even-measured rhythm of this four-stressed modern metre became more conspicuous and was made up frequently, although not always, of a regular series of iambic-anapaestic measures. It was thus differentiated still more distinctly from the uneven-beat Old and Middle English long line, the character of which mainly rested on the four well-marked beats only. It deserves notice further that it was not until the Modern English period that the rest of the iambic-anapaestic and trochaic-dactylic metres (the eight-, seven-, six-, five-, four-, three-, and two-foot verses) were imitated from the then common corresponding iambic rhythms.

In the sixteenth century Puttenham quotes four-foot dactylics, and in his time the dactylic hexameter had already been imitated in English. But most of the other trisyllabic rising and falling metres, except the Septenary, occur first in English poetry at the end of the eighteenth and during the course of the nineteenth century.

It must also be noted that in many cases, especially in the eight-, four-, and two-foot verses of this kind (i.e. in those metres that are connected with the old four-stressed verse), the rising and falling rhythms are not strictly separated, but frequently intermingle and even supplement one another.

I. Iambic-anapaestic Metres.

§ =190. Eight-foot iambic-anapaestic verses= rhyming in long lines are very rare, but appear in the following four-lined stanza of four-foot verses by Burns, _The Chevalier's Lament_ (p. 343):

_The smáll birds rejóice in the gr+ée+n l+ea+ves retúrning,
The múrmuring stréamlet winds cléar thro' the vále;
The háwthorn trees blów in the déws of the mórning,
And wíld scatter'd cówslips bedéck the gr+ee+n d+á+le._

In this metre each of the two periods begins with an iambic measure and then passes into anapaests, the feminine ending of the first (or third) line and the iambic beginning of the second (or fourth) forming together an anapaest.

In a poem by Swinburne (_Poems_, ii. 144) four-foot anapaestic and dactylic lines alternate so as to form anapaestic periods:

_For a dáy and a níght Love sáng to us, pláyed with us,
Fólded us róund from the dárk and the líght_, &c.

For other less correct specimens of such combinations of verse cf. _Metrik_, ii, §225.

§ =191. The seven-foot iambic-anapaestic verse= would seem to be of rare occurrence except in the most recent period; in long lines and masculine rhymes it has been used by Swinburne, as e.g. in _The Death of Richard Wagner_;[173] we quote the middle stanza:

_As a vísion of héaven from the hóllows of ócean, | that nóne
but a gód might sée,
Rose óut of the sílence of thíngs unknówn | of a présence, a
fórm, a míght,
And we héard as a próphet that h+éa+rs G+o+d's méssage | agáinst
him, and máy not flée._

The occurrence of an iambus or a spondee at the end and sometimes in the middle of the verse is remarkable, as well as the arbitrary treatment of the caesura, which does not, as in the iambic Septenary verse, always come after the fourth foot (as in the second line), but sometimes in other places; in the first and third lines, for instance, there is a feminine caesura in the fifth foot.

More often this Septenary metre occurs in short lines (and therefore with fixed masculine caesura). In this form it appears as early as the seventeenth century in a poem by the Earl of Dorset, _To Chloris_:

_Ah! Chlóris, 'tis tíme to disárm your bright éyes,
And lay bý those térrible glánces;
We líve in an áge that's more cívil and wíse,
Than to fóllow the rúles of románces._
Poets, vii. 513.

Another specimen of the same rhythm, very artistically handled (cf. _Metrik_, i, § 226) is Charles Wolfe's well-known poem _The Burial of Sir John Moore_. The same metre also occurs with masculine rhymes.

§ =192.= The =six-foot iambic-anapaestic verse= sometimes occurs in Modern English poets, as Tennyson, _The Grandmother_, _Maud_, &c., Robert Browning, _Abt Vogler_, Mrs. Browning, _Confessions_, Swinburne, _Hymn to Proserpine_, &c.

We quote the following verses from Tennyson's _Maud_ to illustrate this metre, which, however, in consequence of the fluctuating proportion of iambic and anapaestic measures occurring in it is handled very differently by different poets (cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 227):

_Did he flíng himself dówn? who knóws? | for a vást speculátion
had fáil'd,
And éver he mútter'd and mádden'd, | and éver wánn'd with despáir,
And óut he wálk'd when the wínd | like a bróken wórldling wáil'd,
And the flýing góld of the rúin'd wóodlands | dróve thro' the áir._

The caesura is sometimes masculine after the third foot (as in lines 1 and 3), sometimes feminine in the fourth (line 2) or the fifth (line 4); so that its position is quite indeterminate. The rhymes are mostly masculine, but feminine rhymes are also met with, as e.g. in Mrs. Browning's _Confessions_. Swinburne's verses are printed in long lines, it is true, but they are broken into short lines by inserted masculine and feminine rhymes.

§ =193.= The =five-foot iambic-anapaestic verse= likewise does not occur till recent times, and is chiefly used by the poets just mentioned. Rhymed in couplets it occurs in Mrs. Browning's _The Daughters of Pandarus_, Version II (vol. iv, p. 200):

_So the stórms bore the dáughters of Pándarus | óut into thráll--
The góds slew their párents; | the órphans were léft in the háll.
And there cáme, to féed their young líves, Aphrodíte divíne,
With the íncense, the swéet-tasting hóney, the swéet-smelling wíne._

The rhythm is here almost entirely anapaestic; the caesura occurs in the most diverse places and may be either masculine or feminine. The ending of the line is masculine throughout, as well as in Robert Browning's _Saul_ (iii. 146-96), but with many run-on lines.

In Swinburne's _A Word from the Psalmist_ (_A Mids. Holiday_, p. 176) we have another treatment of this metre. As a rule the line begins with an anapaest, and continues in pure iambic rhythm:

_But a lóuder | thán the Chúrch's écho | thúnders
In the éars of mén | who máy not chóose but héar;
And the héart in hím | that héars it léaps and wónders,
With triúmphant hópe | astónished, ór with féar._

In other examples it has an iambic or spondaic rhythm at the beginning and end, with an anapaestic part in the middle, as in _The Seaboard_ (ib., p. 3) by the same poet:

_The séa is at ébb, | and the sóund of her útmost wórd,
Is sóft as the l+éa+st w+a+ve's lápse | in a stíll sm+a+ll r+éa+ch.
From báy into báy, | on quést of a góal deférred,
From héadland éver to héadland | and bréach to bréach,
Where éarth gives éar | to the méssage that áll days préach._

In _A Century of Roundels_, p. 1, &c., Swinburne uses this metre, which also occurs in Tennyson's _Maud_, with feminine and masculine endings alternately.

§ =194.= The =four-foot iambic-anapaestic verse= is essentially identical with the four-stressed verse treated of above (§ 72), except that it has assumed a still more regular, even-beat rhythm in modern times; generally it begins with an iambus and anapaests follow, as in the stanza quoted from Burns (§ 190). Occasionally this metre has an almost entirely anapaestic structure; as e.g. in Moore, _In the Morning of Life_:

_In the mórning of lífe, | when its cáres are unknówn,
And its pléasures in áll | their new lústre begín,
When we líve in a bríght-beaming | wórld of our ówn,
And the líght that surróunds us | is áll from withín._

In other examples the rhythm is chiefly iambic, intermingled with occasional anapaests; as e.g. in Moore's _You Remember Ellen_:

_You remémber Éllen, | our hámlet's príde
How méekly she bléssed | her húmble lót,
When the stránger Wílliam, | had máde her his bríde,
And lóve was the líght | of her lówly cót._

Verses like these, which in their structure recall the earlier four-stressed verses, frequently occur (see §§ 72, 132) mixed with four-foot verses of a somewhat freer build in the narrative poems of Coleridge, Scott, and Byron.

§ =195.= The =three-foot iambic-anapaestic verse= took its origin by analogy to the corresponding four-foot line, or perhaps to the two-foot line derived from it by inserted rhymes; it occurs as early as Tusser, _Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry_ (cf. Guest, ii, p. 251):

_What lóokest thou hérein to háve?
Fíne vérses thy fáncy to pléase?
Of mány my bétters that cráve;
Look nóthing but rúdeness in thése._

We have the same metre (two anapaests following the first iambic measure) in Rowe, Shenstone, Moore, and others, sometimes with alternate masculine and feminine rhymes.

§ =196.= The =two-foot iambic-anapaestic verse= sprang from the breaking-up of the corresponding four-foot (or four-stressed) line by inserted or leonine rhyme, as we find it even in the Middle English bob-wheel stanzas; in Modern English we have it in Tusser for the first time:

_Ill húsbandry brággeth
To gó with the bést,
Good húsbandry bággeth
Up góld in his chést.
Ill húsbandry lóseth
For lácke of good fénce,
Good húsbandry clóseth
And gaíneth the pénce._

This metre is used by Gay, Goldsmith, Scott, Moore, Longfellow, Robert Browning, and others; it is also found with an anapaest following the first iambic measure, and either with masculine and feminine rhymes alternately, as in the example quoted above, or (as is most usual) with these rhymes in indiscriminate succession.

§ =197.= The =one-foot iambic-anapaestic verse= occasionally occurs in the Middle English bob-wheel stanzas. In Modern English we find it only as an element in anisometrical stanzas, as e.g. in the following half-stanza of Shelley's _Autumn_ (iii. 65):

_The ch+í+ll r+ai+n is fálling, the n+í+pt w+o+rm is cráwling,
The rívers are swelling, the thúnder is knélling
For the yéar;
The blithe swállows are flówn, and the lízards each góne
To his dwélling._

In Shakespeare's _Midsummer Night's Dream_, III. ii. 448-63 (apart from the four-foot trochaic end-lines of the half-stanzas), we also have such verses apparently; the iambic-anapaestic character being clearly shown by a couplet like the following:

_When thou wákest,
Thou tákest._[174]

II. Trochaic-dactylic Metres.

§ =198.= These are much rarer than the iambic-anapaestic metres. Specimens of all of them are quoted, but some are only theoretical examples invented by, and repeated from, English or American metrists.

Theoretically the acatalectic dactylic verse in its rhymed form ought always to have trisyllabic or at least feminine caesura and ending. As a fact, however, these metres have just as frequently or perhaps more frequently masculine caesuras and rhymes.

The =eight-foot trochaic-dactylic verse=, alternating occasionally with iambic-anapaestic lines, occurs in Longfellow's _The Golden Legend_, iv:[175]

Elsie.

_Ónward and ónward the híghway rúns || to the dístant cíty, |
impátiently béaring
Tídings of húman jóy and disáster, || of lóve and of háte, |
of dóing and dáring!_

Prince Henry.

_This lífe of óurs | is a wíld aeólian hárp | of mány a jóyous
stráin,
But únder them áll there rúns | a lóud perpétual wáil, | as of
sóuls in páin._

Elsie.

_Fáith alóne can intérpret lífe, || and the héart that áches and
bléeds with the stígma
Of pain, | alóne bears the likeness of Chríst, || and cán
comprehénd its dárk enígma._

There are, as appears from this specimen, a great many licences in these verses; the caesura, mostly in the fourth foot, is masculine in lines 1, 5, 6, feminine in 2; so that the second half of the line has an iambic-anapaestic rhythm. Besides this most of the lines have secondary caesuras in different places of the verse; iambic-anapaestic verses (like 3, 4, 6) are decidedly in the minority. The rhymes are both feminine and masculine, but there is no regular alternation between them, as might be supposed from the above short specimen.

§ =199.= The form of the =seven-foot trochaic-dactylic verse= may be illustrated by the following theoretical specimen, quoted from _The Grammar of English Grammars_ (p. 880), by Goold Brown:

_Óut of the kíngdom of Chríst shall be gáthered, | by ángels o'er
Sátan victórious,
Áll that offéndeth, that líeth, that fáileth | to hónour his náme
ever glórious._

Verses of this form with masculine endings printed in short lines occur in a song by Burns (p. 217):

_Whére are the jóys I have mét in the mórning, | that dánc'd to the
lárk's early sáng?
Whére is the péace that awáited my wánd'ring | at évening the wíld
woods amáng?_

§ =200.= The =six-foot trochaic-dactylic verse= may be illustrated by a theoretical specimen from Goold Brown (p. 880), which is strictly dactylic, with inserted rhymes:

_Tíme, thou art éver in mótion, | on whéels of the dáys, years
and áges;
Réstless as wáves of the ócean, | when Eúrus or Bóreas ráges._

Generally this metre is combined with iambic-anapaestic verses, as e.g. in Mrs. Browning's _Confessions_ (iii. 60) mentioned above, § 192, which is, for the greatest part, written in this form:

_Fáce to fáce in my chámber, | my sílent chámber, I sáw her:
Gód and shé and I ónly, | there Í sate dówn to dráw her
Sóul through the cléfts of conféssion,-- | spéak, I am hólding
thee fást
As the ángel of résurréction | shall dó it át the lást!_

§ =201.= The =five-foot trochaic-dactylic verse= occurs now and then in Swinburne's _A Century of Roundels_, as e.g. on p. 5:

_Súrely the thóught | in a mán's heart hópes or féars
Nów that forgétfulness | néeds must hére have strícken
Ánguish, | and swéetened the séaled-up spríngs | of téars_, &c.

The verses are trochaic with two dactyls at the beginning. The caesura is variable; masculine in line 1; trisyllabic after the second arsis in line 2; a double caesura occurs in line 3, viz. a feminine one in the first foot, a masculine one in the fourth. The rhymes are both masculine and feminine.

§ =202.= The =four-foot trochaic-dactylic verse= is mentioned first by Puttenham (p. 140), and occurs pretty often; seldom unrhymed as in Southey, _The Soldier's Wife_;[176] mostly rhymed, as e.g. in Thackeray, _The Willow Tree_ (p. 261):

_Lóng by the wíllow-trees | váinly they sóught her,
Wíld rang the móther's screams | ó'er the grey wáter:
Whére is my lóvely one? | whére is my dáughter?_

For other specimens with occasional masculine rhymes see _Metrik_, ii, § 238; amongst them is one from Swinburne's _A Century of Roundels_, of principally trochaic rhythm.

§ =203.= The =three-foot trochaic-dactylic verse= with feminine rhymes occurs in R. Browning, _The Glove_ (iv. 171):

_Héigho, yawned óne day King Fráncis,
Dístance all válue enhánces!
Whén a man's búsy, why, léisure
Stríkes him as wónderful pléasure._

Masculine rhymes occur in a song by Moore:

_Whére shall we búry our Sháme?
Whére, in what désolate pláce,
Híde the last wréck of a náme,
Bróken and stáin'd by disgráce?_

We have a strict dactylic rhythm, extending to the end of the line, in a short poem, _To the Katydid_, quoted by Goold Brown.[177]

§ =204. Two-foot dactylic= or =trochaic-dactylic verses= (derived from the corresponding four-foot verses by means of inserted or leonine rhyme) are fairly common; generally, it is true, they have intermittent rhyme (_a b c b_), so that they are in reality four-foot rhyming couplets, merely printed in a two-foot arrangement, as in Tennyson, _The Charge of the Light Brigade_ (p. 260). There are, however, also some poems consisting of real short lines of this metre, i.e. of two-foot lines with alternately tumbling and feminine or tumbling and masculine rhymes; as, e.g., in Burns's _Jamie, come try me_ (p. 258), and in Hood, _The Bridge of Sighs_ (p. 1):

Burns. Hood.

_If thou should ásk my love, _Óne more unfórtunate,
Cóuld I dený thee? Wéary of bréath,
Íf thou would wín my love, Rashly impórtunate,
Jámie, come trý me._ Góne to her déath!_

Masculine rhymes throughout occur in Thackeray, _The Mahogany Tree_ (p. 51), and in an imitation of the old four-stressed alliterative long line in Longfellow, _The Saga of King Olaf I_ (p. 546):

Thackeray. Longfellow.

_Chrístmas is hére: _Í am the Gód Thor,
Wínds whistle shríll, Í am the Wár God,
Ícy and chíll, Í am the Thúnderer!
Líttle care wé: Hére in my Nórthland,
Líttle we féar My fástness and fórtress,
Wéather withóut, Réign I for éver!
Shéltered abóut Hére amid ícebergs
The Mahógany Trée._ Rúle I the nátions._

§ =205. One-foot dactylic verses= are not likely to occur except in anisometrical stanzas. We are unable to quote any proper example of them, but the following two four-lined half-stanzas from Scott's _Pibroch of Donald Dhu_ (p. 488), in which some of the two-foot lines admit of being resolved into verses of one foot, may serve to illustrate this metre:

_Cóme away, _Fáster come,
Cóme away, Fáster come,
Hárk to the summons! Fáster and fáster,
Cóme in your Chíef, vassal,
Wár-array, Páge and groom,
Géntles and cómmons._ Ténant and Máster._

NOTES:

[173] _A Century of Roundels_, p. 30.

[174] Cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 232.

[175] _Prince Henry and Elsie_, pp. 249-51.

[176] Cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 238.

[177] Cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 239.