Chapter XV

NON-STROPHIC, ANISOMETRICAL COMBINATIONS
OF RHYMED VERSE

§ =206.= Non-strophic anisometrical combinations of rhymed verse consist of lines of different metres, rhyming in pairs, and recurring in a definite order of succession. One of these combinations, known as the =Poulter's Measure= (Alexandrine + Septenary), already occurs in the Middle English Period (cf. § 146) and has remained in use down to the present day. It was at one time extremely popular, and has in the Modern English Period been imitated in other metres.

The most common variety of this metre is that in which the verses have an iambic-anapaestic rhythm; they are usually printed in short lines, as e.g. in a poem by Charles Kingsley:

_When Í was a gréenhorn and yóung,
And wánted to bé and to dó,
I púzzled my bráins about chóosing my líne,
Till I fóund out the wáy that things gó._

Before his time Burns had composed a poem in the same metre, _Here's a Health to them that's awa_ (p. 245); and at the end of the seventeenth century Philips (_Poets_, vi. 560) wrote a _Bacchanalian Song_ in similar verses.

In the same metre are the _Nonsense Rhymes_ by Edward Lear,[178] as well as many other quatrains of a similar kind, the humour of which is often somewhat coarse.

An unusual sub-species of this metre, consisting of trochaic verses, occurs only very rarely in Leigh Hunt, e.g. in _Wealth and Womanhood_ (p. 277):

_Háve you séen an héiress ín her jéwels móunted,
Tíll her wéalth and shé seem'd óne, ánd she míght be cóunted?
Háve you séen a bósom wíth one róse betwíxt it?
And díd you márk the gráteful blúsh, whén the brídegroom fíx'd it?_

§ =207.= Other anisometrical combinations consist of a five-foot line followed by one consisting of four, three, or two feet. This form we find pretty often; Ben Jonson, e.g., uses it (five + four feet) in his translation of Horace, _Odes_ v. 11 (_Poets_, iv. 596):

_Háppy is hé, that fróm all búsiness cléar,
Ás the old ráce of mánkind wére,
Wíth his own óxen tílls his síre's left lánds,
And ís not ín the úsurer's bánds;
Nor sóldier-líke, stárted with róugh alárms,
Nor dréads the séa's enráged hárms_, &c.

He used the reverse order in _Odes_ iv. 1. In Wordsworth's poem _The Gipsies_ (iv. 68) we have the couplets: _a a₅ b b₄ c c₅ d d₄_, &c., but not divided into stanzas.

Five- and three-foot lines _a₅ a₃ b₅ b₃ c₅ c₃ d₅ d₃_, &c., occur in Ben Jonson, _The Forest, XI. Epode_ (_Poets_, vi, pp. 555-6); and with reverse order (_a₃ a₅ b₃ b₅ c₃ c₅_, &c.) in his _Epigrams_ (_Poets_, iv. 546).

The combination of five- and two-foot lines seems to occur in modern poets only; e.g. in W. S. Landor, _Miscellanies_, clxxv (ii. 649):

_Néver may stórm thy péaceful bósom véx,
Thou lóvely Éxe!
O'er whóse pure stréam that músic yésterníght
Pour'd frésh delíght,
And léft a vísion for the éye of Mórn
To láugh to scórn_, &c.

With crossed rhymes (feminine and masculine rhymes, alternately) this combination occurs in Mrs. Browning, _A Drama of Exile_ (i. 12), where the scheme is _a ~₅ b₂ a ~₅ b₂ c ~₅ d₂ c ~₅ d₂_, and in R. Browning, _A Grammarian's Funeral_ (iv. 270), the formula being _a₅ b ~₂ a₅ b ~₂ c₅ d ~₂ c₅ d ~₂_, &c.

§ =208.= Combinations of four- and two-foot lines (masculine and feminine endings) occur in Ben Jonson, _Epigrams_, cxx (_Poets_, iv. 545); iambic and anapaestic verses similarly combined in R. Browning, _Prospice_, vi. 152.

In the same poet we have three- and two-foot iambic-anapaestic lines with the formula _a ~₃ b₂ c ~₃ b₂ d ~₃ e₂ f ~₃ e₂_; in _The Englishman in Italy_ (iv. 186):

_Fortú, Fortú, my belóved one,
Sit hére by my side,
On my knées put up bóth little féet!
I was súre, if I tried_, &c.

In Mrs. Browning we find this metre, which might be taken also as five-foot iambic-anapaestic couplets, broken up by internal rhyme (according to the formula _a ~₃ b₂ a ~₃ b₂ c ~₃ d₂ c ~₃ d₂_, &c.) in _A Drama of Exile_ (i. 3). For other specimens see _Metrik_, ii, §§ 244-8.

A number of other anisometrical combinations of verses will be mentioned in Book II, in the chapter on the non-strophic odes.

NOTES:

[178] _Book of Nonsense_, London, Routledge, 1843.