Chapter IV: Part ONE: English Verse (1)

I. ACCENT AND TIME

A.--KINDS OF ACCENT

The accents of English syllables as appearing in verse are commonly classified in two ways: according to degree of intensity, and according to cause or significance.

Obviously there can be no fixed limits to the number of degrees of intensity recognized in syllabic accent or stress. It is common to speak of three such degrees: syllables having accent (stressed), syllables having secondary accent, and syllables without accent (unstressed). Schipper makes four groups: Principal Accent (_Hauptaccent_ or _Hochton_), Secondary Accent (_Nebenaccent_ or _Tiefton_), No Accent (_Tonlosigkeit_), and Disappearance of Sound (_Stummheit_). In illustration he gives the word _ponderous_, where the first syllable has the chief accent, the last a secondary accent, the second no accent; while in the verse

"Most ponderous and substantial things"

the second syllable is suppressed or silent.

Mr. A. J. Ellis, in like manner, recognized three principal classes of syllables: those stressed in the first degree, those stressed in the second degree, and those unstressed.[1] In the following lines from _Paradise Lost_ he indicated these three degrees, as he recognized them, by the figures 2, 1, 0, written underneath.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
0 2 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 2

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
0 1 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 2

Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
1 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2

With loss of Eden, till one greater man
0 1 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 2

Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
0 2 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 2

Sing, heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top
2 2 0 2 1 0 0 2 0 1

Of Horeb or of Sinai, didst inspire
0 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2

That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed
1 2 0 0 2 2 0 2 0 2

In the beginning, how the heavens and earth
0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 2

Rose out of chaos.[2]
2 0 0 2 0

It is worthy of note that the secondary accent seems originally to have been a more important factor in English verse than it is commonly considered to be in modern periods. In Anglo-Saxon verse the combination of a primary stress, a secondary stress, and an unstressed syllable, is a recognized type. In modern verse the reader is likely to make an effort to reduce all syllables to the type of either stress or no-stress. In such a verse as the following, however (from Matthew Arnold's _Forsaken Merman_),--

"And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee,"--

we may find such a combination as that just referred to as familiar in Anglo-Saxon rhythm. The syllables "_soul, Merman_" are respectively cases of primary stress, secondary stress, and no-stress. On this matter see further the remark of Luick, cited on p. 156, below.

The element of Pitch is not ordinarily included in the treatment of
versification, as it is not ordinarily recognized as having any
significance peculiar to verse. According to Professor J. W.
Bright, however, there is such a thing as a "pitch-accent" which
plays an important part in verse where the word-accent conflicts
with that of the regular metre. Under certain exigencies, he says,
"_un-governed, pre-cisely, re-markable,_ and _Je-rusalem_ ... are
naturally pronounced with a pitch-accent upon the first syllables,
and with the undisturbed expiratory word-accent upon the second. It
will of course be understood that when the word-accent is defined
as expiratory this term does not exclude the inherent pitch of
English stress. Force, quantity, and pitch are combined in our
word-stress (or word-accent), both primary and secondary; but in
the secondary stress used as ictus there is a noticeable change in
the proportions of these elements, the pitch being relatively
increased. An answer is thus won for the question: How do we
naturally pronounce two stresses in juxtaposition on the same word,
or on adjacent words closely joined grammatically? This is further
illustrated in the specially emphasized words of such expressions
as 'The idea!'" where Professor Bright marks the pitch-accent on
the first syllable of "idea," retaining the stress-accent on the
second syllable. In the line

"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit"

he marks a pitch-accent where the word-stress and metrical stress
are in conflict, that is, on the syllables "dis-" and "and." "The
rhythmic use of 'disobedience,'" he says, "illustrates with its
four syllables (as here used) as many recognizable varieties of
stress. The first syllable has a secondary word-accent, raised to a
pitch-accent for ictus; the second is wholly unaccented; the third
has the chief word-accent, employed as ictus (the accent of the
preceding word, "first," is subordinate to the rhythm); the fourth
has a secondary word-accent which remains unchanged in the thesis."
The conclusion is that "ictus in conflict requires a pitch-accent."
(All these quotations are from an article on 'Proper Names in Old
English Verse,' in the _Publications of the Modern Language
Association_, n.s. vol. vii. No. 3). Professor Bright's theory of
pitch-accent is a part of his general theory of opposition to what
he calls the "sense-doctrine" of the reading of verse,--that is,
the accepted doctrine that the word and sentence accents must
ordinarily take precedence of the metrical accent.

According to cause or significance, accents are commonly classed in three groups: Etymological or Word Accent, Syntactical or Rhetorical Accent, and Metrical Accent. Accents of the first class are due to the original stress of the syllable in English speech; those of the second class are due to the importance of the syllable in the sentence; those of the third class are due to the place of the syllable in the metrical scheme. In the verse

"Mary had a little lamb,"

the first syllable may be said to be stressed primarily for etymological reasons, the seventh primarily for syntactical or rhetorical reasons, and the third (which would not be accented in prose) for metrical reasons.

The general law of English verse is that only those syllables which bear the accent of the first class (that is, which are stressed in common speech), together with monosyllables which on occasion are stressed in common speech, shall be placed so as to receive the metrical stress; and that, if the word-stress and the metrical stress apparently conflict, the metrical stress must yield. Less generally, the rhetorical or syntactical accent in the same way takes precedence of the metrical. In both cases exceptions are of course numerous.

The following are examples of verses showing a conflict between the normal prose-accent and the normal verse-accent, where--as commonly read--the prose- (word-) accent triumphs.

The blessed damozel leaned out
_From the gold bar_ of heaven.

(ROSSETTI: _The Blessed Damozel._)

_Love is_ a smoke _raised with_ the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire _sparkling_ in lover's eyes;
Being vexed, a sea _nourished_ with lover's tears.

(SHAKSPERE: _Romeo and Juliet_, I. i. 196 ff.)

Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
And fear'st to die? _famine_ is in thy cheeks,
_Need and_ oppression starveth in thine eyes.

(SHAKSPERE: _ib._ V. i. 68 ff.)

_Till, at_ his second bidding, Darkness fled,
_Light_ shone, and order from disorder sprung.
_Swift to_ their several quarters hasted then
The cumbrous elements--_Earth_, Flood, _Air_, Fire;
And this ethereal quintessence of Heaven
Flew upward, _spirited_ with various forms,
That rolled orbicular, and turned to stars
_Numberless_, as thou seest, and how they move.

(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, iii. 712 ff.)

_She was_ a gordian shape of dazzling hue,
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;
_Striped like_ a zebra, freckled like a pard,
_Eyed like_ a peacock, and all crimson barred.

(KEATS: _Lamia_, i. 47 ff.)

_"Boys!"_ shriek'd the old king, but vainlier than a hen
_To her_ false daughters in the pool; for none
Regarded; neither seem'd there more to say.
_Back_ rode we to my father's camp, and found
He thrice had sent a herald to the gates.

(TENNYSON: _The Princess_, v. 318 ff.)

Sequestered nest!--this kingdom, limited
Alone by one old _populous green_ wall;
_Tenanted_ by the ever-busy flies,
_Gray crickets and shy lizards and quick spiders_;
Each family of the silver-threaded moss--
Which, look through near, this way, and it appears
A stubble-field _or a cane-brake_, a marsh
Of bulrush whitening _in the_ sun: _laugh now_!

(BROWNING: _Paracelsus_, i. 36 ff.)

On the other hand, we find verses showing a conflict between prose and verse accent, where the verse-accent may be regarded as triumphing wholly or in part. Where this triumph is complete, the accent is said to be _wrenched_; as, for example, in old ballad endings like "north countree."[3] Where there is a compromise effected in reading, the accent is said to be _hovering_; as in one of Shakspere's songs,--

"It was a lover and his lass ...
That o'er the green _corn-field_ did pass."

I sat with Love upon a woodside well,
Leaning across the water, I and he;
Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me,
But touched his lute wherein was _audible_
The certain secret thing he had to tell:
Only our mirrored eyes met _silently_
In the low wave; and that sound came to be
The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell.
And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers;
And with his foot and with his _wing-feathers_
He swept the spring that watered my heart's drouth.
Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair,
And as I stooped, her own lips rising there
Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth.

(ROSSETTI: _Willowwood. House of Life_, Sonnet xlix.)

I wish my grave were growing green,
A winding-sheet drawn ower my een,
And I in Helen's arms _lying,_
On fair Kirconnell lea.

(_Fair Helen_; old ballad.)

For the stars and the winds are unto her
As raiment, as songs of the _harp-player._

(SWINBURNE: Chorus in _Atalanta in Calydon._)

Nothing is better, I well think,
Than love; the hidden _well-water_
Is not so delicate to drink:
This was well seen of me and her.

(SWINBURNE: _The Leper._)

These wrenched accents are characteristic of one phase of the so-called "pre-Raphaelite" poetry of the Victorian period; in part, no doubt, they are due to the influence of the old ballads. My colleague Professor Newcomer has suggested that they are partly due, also, to a dislike for the combative accent which would occur where two heavy syllables came together (accented as commonly) in a compound like "harp-player."

Of special interest are the examples of wrenched and hovering
accent found in the verse of Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of
Surrey,--more especially in Wyatt. These mark the time when the
syllable-counting principle was coming into prominence in English
verse, under the new culture of the days of Henry VIII. The first
conscious followers of this principle seem to have given it such
prominence that a verse seemed good to them if it contained the
requisite number of syllables, whether the accents conformed to any
regular system or not. In the case of Wyatt we can also compare the
original forms of many of his poems, as preserved in manuscript,
with the revised forms as printed in Tottel's Miscellany (1557).
(See Dr. Flügel's transcriptions from the Wyatt Mss., in _Anglia_,
vol. xviii.) The following is the octave of one of the sonnets, as
found in the Ms.:

"Avysing the bright bemes of these fayer Iyes
where he is that myn oft moisteth and wassheth
the werid mynde streght from the hert departeth
for to rest in his woroldly paradise
And fynde the swete bitter under this gyse
what webbes he hath wrought well he parceveth
whereby with himselfe on love he playneth
that spurreth with fyer: and bridillith with Ise."

(_Anglia,_ xviii. 465.)

Compare this with the revised form in Tottel's edition:

"Avisyng the bright beames of those fayre eyes,
Where he abides that mine oft moistes and washeth:
The weried mynd streight from the hart departeth,
To rest within hys worldly Paradise,
And bitter findes the swete, under this gyse.
What webbes there he hath wrought, well he preceaveth
Whereby then with him self on love he playneth,
That spurs wyth fire, and brydleth eke with yse."

(Arber Reprint, p. 40.)

It appears that this revision was the work of the editor, who had a
better sense of true English rhythm than the poet himself. Alscher,
however, in his work on Wyatt, contends that Wyatt doubtless
revised his own verses so as to give them their finished form. (See
_Sir Thomas Wyatt und Seine Stellung_, etc., p. 49.) Other lines in
Wyatt's verse where the number of syllables is counted but where
the accents are faulty, are these:

"The long love that in my thought I harbour."

"And there campeth displaying his banner."

"And there him hideth and not appeareth."

"For good is the life, ending faithfully."

Another large group of hovering accents is that formed by French
words with such terminations as _-our_, _-ance_, _-ace_, _-age_,
_-ant_, _-ess_. In such cases the original tendency of the word was
to accent the final syllable; but the general tendency of English
accents being recessive, the words often passed through a
transitional period when the accent was variable or "hovering." The
first of the four lines just quoted shows us a word of this
character.

For an interesting presentation of certain phases of the laws of
stress in English verse, see Robert Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_
(ed. 1901), Appendix J, "on the Rules of Stress Rhythms."

B.--TIME-INTERVALS

The fundamental principle of the rhythm of English verse (and indeed of any rhythm) is that _the accents appear at regular time-intervals_. In practice there is of course great freedom in departing from this regularity, the equal time-intervals being at times only a standard of rhythm to which the varying successions of accented and unaccented syllables are mentally referred. Where the equal time-intervals are observed with substantial regularity, two sorts of verse are still to be clearly distinguished: that in which not only the intervals of time but the numbers of syllables between the accents are substantially equal and regular, and that in which the number of syllables varies. The latter class is that of the native Germanic metres; the former is that of the Romance metres, and of modern English verse as influenced by them. With the development of regularity in the counting of syllables there has perhaps also taken place a development of regularity in the regular counting of the time-intervals. In other words, the modern English reader, where the number of syllables between accents is variable, makes the time-intervals as nearly equal as possible by lengthening and shortening the syllables in the manner permitted by the freedom of English speech; in early English verse, where the number of syllables between accents varied very greatly, we cannot be sure that the time-intervals were so accurately felt or preserved in recitation.

i. _Verse showing fairly regular intervals between accents_

Avoid extremes; and shun the fault of such
Who still are pleas'd too little or too much.
At every trifle scorn to take offence,
That always shows great pride, or little sense:
Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best,
Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.
Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move;
For fools admire, but men of sense approve:
As things seem large which we through mist descry,
Dulness is ever apt to magnify.

(POPE: _Essay on Criticism_, ll. 384-393.)

Louder, louder chant the lay--
Waken, lords and ladies gay!
Tell them youth and mirth and glee
Run a course as well as we;
Time, stern huntsman! who can baulk,
Staunch as hound and fleet as hawk;
Think of this, and rise with day,
Gentle lords and ladies gay!

(SCOTT: _Hunting Song_.)

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.

(TENNYSON: _Locksley Hall_.)

Wild April, enkindled to laughter and storm by the kiss of
the wildest of winds that blow,
Calls loud on his brother for witness; his hands that were
laden with blossom are sprinkled with snow.

(SWINBURNE: _March_.)

ii. _Verse showing irregular intervals between accents_

Gegr[=e]tte ð[=a] gumena gehwylcne,
hwate helm-berend, hindeman s[=i]ðe,
sw[=æ]se ges[=i]ðas: "Nolde ic sweord beran,
w[=æ]pen t[=o] wyrme, gif ic wiste h[=u]
wið ð[=a]m [=a]gl[=æ]cean elles meahte
gylpe wiðgr[=i]pan, sw[=a] ic g[=i]o wið Grendle dyde;
ac ic ð[=æ]r heaðu-f[=y]res h[=a]tes w[=e]ne,
oreðes ond attres; forðon ic m[=e] on hafu
bord ond byrnan. Nelle ic beorges weard
oferfl[=e]on f[=o]tes trem,
ac unc sceal weorðan æt wealle, sw[=a] unc wyrd get[=e]oð,
Metod manna gehwæs. Ic eom on m[=o]de from,
þæt ic wið þone g[=u]ð-flogan gylp ofersitte.

(_Beowulf_, ll. 2516-2528. ab. 700.)

Ich herde men upo mold make muche mon,
hou he beþ itened of here tilyynge:
gode yeres & corn boþe beþ agon,
ne kepeþ here no sawe ne no song synge.
Nou we mote worche, nis þer non oþer won,
mai ich no lengore lyue wiþ mi lesinge.
Yet þer is a bitterore bit to þe bon,
for euer þe furþe peni mot to þe kynge.[4]

(_The Farmer's Complaint_, ab. 1300; in Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p. 102, and Wright's _Political Songs_, p. 149.)

I will speake out aloude, I care not who heare it:
Sirs, see that my harnesse, my tergat and my shield
Be made as bright now as when I was last in fielde,
As white as I shoulde to warre againe to-morrowe;
For sicke shall I be but I worke some folke sorow.
Therefore see that all shine as bright as Sainct George,
Or as doth a key newly come from the smiths forge.

(N. UDALL: _Ralph Roister Doister_, IV. iii. 13-19. 1566.)

To this, this Oake cast him to replie
Well as he couth; but his enemie
Had kindled such coles of displeasure,
That the good man noulde stay his leasure,
But home him hasted with furious heate,
Encreasing his wrath with many a threat:
His harmefull Hatchet he hent in hand,
(Alas! that it so ready should stand!)
And to the field alone he speedeth,
(Aye little helpe to harme there needeth!)
Anger nould let him speake to the tree,
Enaunter his rage mought cooled bee;
But to the roote bent his sturdie stroake,
And made many wounds in the waste Oake.

(SPENSER: _Shepherd's Calendar, February_. 1579.)

Through many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous,
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death--
A universe of death, which God by curse
Created evil, for evil only good;
Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse
Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived.

(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, II. 618 ff. 1667.)

The night is chill; the forest bare;
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady's cheek--
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.

(COLERIDGE: _Christabel_, Part I. 1816.)

In his Preface to this poem Coleridge said: "The metre of the _Christabel_ is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle; namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four. Nevertheless this occasional variation in number of syllables is not introduced wantonly, or for the mere ends of convenience, but in correspondence with some transition, in the nature of the imagery or passion." The verse is accurately described, but it has frequently been pointed out as curious that Coleridge should have spoken of it as "founded on a new principle," when the principle in question was that of native English verse from the earliest times.[5]

For other specimens of verse showing irregularity in the number of syllables between the accents, see Part Two, under Non-syllable-counting Four-stress Verse.

iii. _Silent Time-intervals between Syllables (Pauses)_

(a) Pauses not filling the time of syllables.

Most English verses of more than eight syllables are divided not only into the time-intervals between the accents, but also into two parts (which Schipper calls "rhythmical series") by the _Cesura_. The Cesura is a pause not counted out of the regular time of the rhythm, but corresponding to the pauses between "phrases" in music, and nearly always coinciding with syntactical or rhetorical divisions of the sentence.

The medial cesura is the typical pause of this kind, dividing the verse into two parts of approximately equal length. In much early English verse, and in French verse, this medial cesura is almost universal; in modern English verse (and in that of some early poets, notably Chaucer) there is great freedom in the placing of the cesura, and also in omitting it altogether. The importance of this matter in the history of English decasyllabic verse will appear in Part Two.

In the early Elizabethan period the impression was still general
that there should be a regular medial cesura. Spenser seems to have
been the first to imitate the greater freedom of Chaucer in this
regard. See the Latin dissertation on Spenser's verse of E. Legouis
(_Quomodo E. Spenserus_, etc., Paris, 1896), and the summary of its
results by Mr. J. B. Fletcher in _Modern Language Notes_ for
November, 1898. "Spenser," says Mr. Fletcher, "revived for 'heroic
verse' the neglected variety in unity of his self-acknowledged
master, Chaucer." In Gascoigne's _Notes of Instruction concerning
the making of verse or ryme in English_ (1575), we find: "There are
also certayne pauses or restes in a verse whiche may be called
Ceasures.... In mine opinion in a verse of eight sillables, the
pause will stand best in the middest, in a verse of tenne it will
be placed at the ende of the first foure sillables; in a verse of
twelve, in the midst.... In Rithme royall, it is at the wryters
discretion, and forceth not where the pause be untill the ende of
the line." This greater liberty allowed the rime royal is doubtless
due to the influence of Chaucer on that form. For Gascoigne's
practice in printing his verse with medial cesura, even without
regard to rhetorical divisions, see the specimen given below.

Another interesting Elizabethan account of the cesura is found in
Puttenham's _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589), where the writer
compares the verse-pause to a stop made by a traveler at an inn for
rest and refreshment. (Arber's Reprint, p. 88.)

_Specimen of French alexandrine, showing the regular medial cesura:_

Trois fois cinquante jours le général naufrage
Dégasta l'univers; en fin d'un tel ravage
L'immortel s'émouvant, n'eût pas sonné si tôt
La retraite des eaux que soudain flot sur flot
Elles gaignent au pied; tous les fleuves s'abaissant.
Le mer rentre en prison; les montagnes renaissent.

(DU BARTAS: _La Première Semaine_. 1579.)

See further, on the character of the French alexandrine and its medial cesura, in Part Two, under Six-stress Verse.

_Specimen of early blank verse printed with regular medial cesura:_

O Knights, O Squires, O Gentle blouds yborne,
You were not borne, al onely for your selves:
Your countrie claymes, some part of al your paines.
There should you live, and therein should you toyle,
To hold up right, and banish cruel wrong,
To helpe the pore, to bridle backe the riche,
To punish vice, and vertue to advaunce,
To see God servde, and Belzebub supprest.
You should not trust, lieftenaunts in your rome,
And let them sway, the scepter of your charge,
Whiles you (meane while) know scarcely what is don,
Nor yet can yeld, accompt if you were callde.

(GASCOIGNE: _The Steel Glass_, ll. 439 ff. 1576.)

For specimens of regular medial cesura, and of variable cesura, in modern verse, see under the Decasyllabic Couplet and Blank Verse, in Part Two.

The Cesura is called _masculine_ when it follows an accented syllable. (For examples, see previous specimen from Gascoigne.) It is called _feminine_ when it follows an unaccented syllable. Two varieties of the feminine cesura are also distinguished: the Lyric, when the pause occurs inside a foot; _e.g._:

"This wicked traitor, whom I thus accuse;"

the Epic, when the pause occurs after an extra (hypermetrical) light syllable; _e.g._:

"To Canterbury with ful devout corage."

"But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives."

The "epic" cesura is quite as characteristic of dramatic blank verse as of epic.

The pause occurring at the end of a line is equally regular with the medial pause, and corresponds in the same way to a phrase-pause in music. It is an element of the same character, then, as the cesura, though not bearing the same name. It coincides less closely than the cesura with syntactical and rhetorical pauses. When there is no corresponding syntactical or rhetorical pause at the end of the line (in other words, when the metrical pause marking the end of the verse cannot be prominently represented in reading without interfering with the expression of the sense), the line is said to be "run-on." Such an ending is also called _enjambement_. The importance of this distinction between "end-stopped" and "run-on" lines will appear in the notes on the Decasyllabic Couplet and Blank Verse, in Part Two.

(_b_) Pauses filling the time of syllables.

A second class of silent time-intervals, or pauses, is to be distinguished from the cesural pause by the fact that in this case the time of the pause is counted in the metrical scheme. Pauses of this class correspond to rests in music; and as in the case of such rests, their occurrence is exceptional.

Of fustian he wered a gipoun
[^] Al bismotered with his habergeoun.

For him was lever have at his beddes heed
[^] Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed.

(CHAUCER: Prologue to _Canterbury Tales_, 75 f. and 293 f.)

This omission of the first light syllable is characteristic of Chaucer's couplet and of Middle English verse generally. (See Schipper, vol. i. p. 462, and ten Brink's _Chaucer's Sprache und Verskunst_, p. 175.) In modern verse it is not usually permitted.

The time doth pass, [^] yet shall not my love.

(WYATT: _The joy so short, alas!_)

The omitted syllable following the medial pause is closely parallel to that at the beginning of the verse.

Stay! [^] The king hath thrown his warder down.

(_Richard II_, I. iii. 118.)

Kneel thou down, Philip. [^] But rise more great.

(_King John_, I. i. 161.)

In drops of sorrow. [^] Sons, kinsmen, thanes.

(_Macbeth_, I. iv. 35.)

Than the soft myrtle. [^] But man, proud man.

(_Measure for Measure_, II. ii. 117.)

These specimens of pauses in Shakspere's verse indicate the natural varieties of dramatic form. In such cases the pause often occurs between speeches, or where some action is to be understood as filling the time; as in the second instance, where the accolade is given in the middle of the line. (See Abbott's _Shakespearian Grammar_, pp. 413 ff.)

[^] Break, [^] break, [^] break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

(TENNYSON: _Break, Break, Break._)

In Lanier's _Science of English Verse_, p. 101, this stanza is represented in musical notation, with rests, to show that rhythm "may be dependent on silences."

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld [^] lang [^] syne?

(BURNS: _Auld Lang Syne._)

Here the syllables "auld" and "lang" may be regarded as lengthened so as to fill the time of the missing light syllables. So in many cases there is a choice between compensatory lengthening and compensatory pause.

Thus [^] said the Lord [^] in the Vault above the Cherubim,
Calling to the angels and the souls in their degree:
"Lo! Earth has passed away
On the smoke of Judgment Day.
That Our word may be established shall We gather up the sea?"

Loud [^] sang the souls [^] of the jolly, jolly mariners:
"Plague upon the hurricane that made us furl and flee!
But the war is done between us,
In the deep the Lord hath seen us--
Our bones we'll leave the barracout', and God may sink the sea!"

(KIPLING: _The Last Chantey._)

This is an instance of a pause forming a regular part of the verse-rhythm. Thus in the first verse of each stanza the second and sixth syllables are omitted, and the result gives the characteristic effect of the rhythm. In measures where there is regular catalexis (that is, where the last light syllable of the verse is regularly omitted) the phenomenon is really of the same kind.

These, these will give the world another heart,
And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings?----
Listen awhile, ye nations, and be dumb.

(Keats: _Sonnet to Haydon_.)

Call her once before you go,--
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know,--
"Margaret! Margaret!"
Children's voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother's ear;
Children's voices, wild with pain,--
Surely she will come again!
Call her once, and come away;
This way, this way!...

Come, dear children, come away down:
Call no more!
One last look at the white-walled town,
And the little gray church on the windy shore;
Then come down!
She will not come, though you call all day;
Come away, come away!

(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _The Forsaken Merman_.)

In this specimen no attempt has been made to indicate the pauses, as different readers would interpret the verse variously. It will be found that this whole poem is a study in delicate changes and arrangements of time-intervals. The four stresses characteristic of the rhythm can be accounted for in such short lines as the second and tenth, properly read.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Transactions of the Philological Society_, 1875-76.

[2] According to a more elaborate system Mr. Ellis recognized nine varieties of force or stress, which he named in order as follows: subweak, weak, superweak, submean, mean, supermean, substrong, strong, superstrong. In like manner he named nine degrees each of length, pitch, weight, and silence. Length and Silence are both terms of duration of time. The meaning of Weight has not been generally understood, nor is the term ordinarily recognized. Mr. Ellis described it as "due to expression and mental conceptions of importance, resulting partly from expression in delivery, produced by quality of tone and gliding pitch, and partly from the mental effect of the constructional predominance of conceptions." On this whole scheme of Mr. Ellis's, Mr. Mayor remarks interestingly: "Whilst I admire, I with difficulty repress a shudder at the elaborate apparatus he has provided for registering the minutest variations of metrical stress. Not only does he distinguish nine different degrees of force, but there are the same number of degrees of length, pitch, silence, and weight, making altogether forty-five varieties of stress at the disposal of the metrist ... If the analysis of rhythm is so terribly complicated, let us rush into the arms of the intuitivists and trust to our ears only, for life is not long enough to admit of characterizing lines when there are forty-five expressions for each syllable to be considered." (_Chapters on English Metre_, p. 69.)

[3] The term "wrenched" was used originally, it would seem, as one of reprobation. Thus Puttenham, in his _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589), said; "There can not be in a maker a fowler fault, than to falsifie his accent to serve his cadence, or by untrue orthographie to wrench his words to helpe his rime." (Arber ed., p. 94.)

[4] It is interesting to compare with these irregular lines another stanza of similar form, of about the same date, from an Elegy on Edward I., in Böddeker's Collection, p. 140, and Wright's _Political Songs_, p. 246.

Alle þat beoþ of huerte trewe, a stounde herkneþ to my song of duel, þat deþ haþ diht vs newe (þat makeþ me syke ant sorewe among!) of a knyht, þat wes so strong, of wham god haþ don ys wille; me þuncheþ þat deþ haþ don vs wrong, þat he so sone shal ligge stille.

The comparatively great regularity of the measures in this second stanza is due to the fact that it was under the syllable-counting influence of the French, being in fact a translation of a French original.

[5] Leigh Hunt said that "Coleridge saw the mistake which had been made with regard to this measure, and restored it to the beautiful freedom of which it was capable, by calling to mind the liberties allowed its old musical professors the minstrels, and dividing it by _time_ instead of _syllables_." (See the entire passage on _Christabel_, in the Introduction, on "What is Poetry?", to _Imagination and Fancy_. For a criticism of the metrical structure of _Christabel_, see Robert Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_ (ed. 1901, pp. 73-75).)

II. THE FOOT AND THE VERSE

English verse is commonly measured by feet, a determinate number of which go to form a verse or line. The foot is determined by the distance from one accented syllable to another in the regular scheme of the metre. The usual metrical feet are either dissyllabic or trisyllabic. The dissyllabic foot is commonly called an _iambus_ (or _iamb_) if the unaccented syllable precedes the accented, and a _trochee_ if the accented precedes the unaccented. The trisyllabic foot is commonly called an _anapest_ if the two unaccented syllables precede the accented syllable, and a _dactyl_ if they follow the accented syllable.[6] It will be observed that the fundamental rhythm of both iambic and trochaic verse is the same, as is also that of both anapestic and dactylic verse; the distinction belonging only to the metre as measured into regular lines. Iambic and anapestic verse (in which the light syllables commonly open the verse) are sometimes called "ascending rhythm"; trochaic and dactylic verse (in which the accented syllables commonly open the verse) "descending rhythm." Ascending rhythm is very greatly in predominance in English poetry.

The normal verse of any poem is therefore described by indicating the name of the foot and the number of feet in the verse. The number of feet is always indicated by the number of stresses or principal accents in the normal verse. As the light or unaccented syllables may vary from the typical number, it may also be necessary to indicate that the line is longer than its name would imply, by reason of Feminine Ending (a light syllable added at the end) or Anacrusis (a light syllable prefixed); or that it is shorter than its name would indicate by reason of Catalexis or Truncation (the light syllable at the end--or less frequently at the beginning--being omitted).

In like manner, any particular verse or line is fully described by indicating: (1) the typical foot; (2) the number of feet; (3) the place of the cesura; (4) the presence or absence of a final pause ("end-stopped" or "run-on"); (5) the presence of such irregularities as

(_a_) Anacrusis or feminine ending,
(_b_) Catalexis (or truncation),
(_c_) Substitution of exceptional feet for the typical foot,
(_d_) Pauses other than the cesural.

_One-stress iambic_.

Thus I
Pass by
And die
As one
Unknown
And gone.

(HERRICK: _Upon his Departure Hence_. 1648.)

(In combination with two-stress and three-stress:)

No more I'll vaunt,
For now I see
Thou only hast the power
To find
And bind
A heart that's free,
And slave it in an hour.

(HERRICK: _His Recantation._ 1648.)

_Two-stress iambic_.

Most good, most fair,
Or things as rare
To call you 's lost;
For all the cost
Words can bestow
So poorly show,...

(DRAYTON: _Amouret Anacreontic._ ab. 1600.)

Because I do
Begin to woo,
Sweet singing Lark,
Be thou the clerk,
And know thy when
To say Amen.

(HERRICK: _To the Lark._ 1648.)

The raging rocks,
And shivering shocks,
Shall break the locks
Of prison-gates;
And Phibbus' car
Shall shine from far,
And make and mar
The foolish Fates.

(SHAKSPERE: Bottom's song in _Midsummer Night's Dream_, I. ii. ab. 1595.)

(In combination with three-stress:)

Only a little more
I have to write;
Then I'll give o'er,
And bid the world good-night.

'Tis but a flying minute
That I must stay,
Or linger in it;
And then I must away.

(HERRICK: _His Poetry his Pillar._ 1648.)

In the second stanza we have the same measure with feminine ending.

(In combination with four-stress:)

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

(POPE: _Ode on Solitude._ ab. 1700.)

_Two-stress trochaic_.

Could I catch that
Nimble traitor,
Scornful Laura,
Swift-foot Laura,
Soon then would I
Seek avengement.

(CAMPION: Anacreontics, in _Observations in the Art of English Poesie_. 1602.)

(In combination with four-stress:)

Dust that covers
Long dead lovers
Song blows off with breath that brightens;
At its flashes
Their white ashes
Burst in bloom that lives and lightens.

(SWINBURNE: _Song in Season._)

(Catalectic, and in combination with three-stress:)

Summer's crest
Red-gold tressed,
Corn-flowers peeping under;--
Idle noons,
Lingering moons,
Sudden cloud,
Lightning's shroud,
Sudden rain,
Quick again
Smiles where late was thunder.

(GEORGE ELIOT: Song from _The Spanish Gypsy_, Bk. i. 1868.)

The trochaic measures in _The Spanish Gypsy_ are in imitation of the similar forms in Spanish poetry. See p. 114, below.

_Two-stress anapestic._

(In combination with three-stress:)

Like a gloomy stain
On the emerald main
Alpheus rushed behind,--
As an eagle pursuing
A dove to its ruin
Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

(SHELLEY: _Arethusa._ 1820.)

(With feminine ending:)

He is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain,
When our need was the sorest.
The font, reappearing,
From the raindrops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering,
To Duncan no morrow!

(SCOTT: Coronach, from _The Lady of the Lake_, Canto 3. 1810.)

(In combination with four-stress:)

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._ 1864.)

These specimens, as is usual in anapestic verse, show considerable freedom in the treatment of the part of the foot containing the light syllables, substituted iambi being very common. Note the iambi in the Shelley stanza, line 1, second foot, and line 5, first foot. In the latter case, however, the first light syllable of line 5 is really supplied by the syllable added to make the feminine ending of line 4. In like manner, in the Scott stanza, the first syllable of line 8 is really supplied by the _-ing_ of line 7; and where we have both feminine ending (in line 1) and a full anapest following, the effect is that of a hypermetrical syllable which must be hurried over in the reading. In the specimen from Browning we find an iambus in the opening foot in lines 2 and 6 (also, of course, in lines 1 and 5).

_Two-stress dactylic._

One more Unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!

(THOMAS HOOD: _The Bridge of Sighs._ ab. 1830.)

Here the alternate lines are catalectic, both light syllables being wanting.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

(TENNYSON: _Charge of the Light Brigade._ 1854.)

Here the fourth and ninth lines are catalectic.

Loudly the sailors cheered
Svend of the Forked Beard,
As with his fleet he steered
Southward to Vendland;
Where with their courses hauled
All were together called,
Under the Isle of Svald
Near to the mainland.

(LONGFELLOW: _Saga of King Olaf_, xvii. 1863.)

In the reading of these stanzas from Tennyson and Longfellow there is so marked a stress on the final syllable as to make the second dactyl (except in the opening lines of the Tennyson stanza) more like a Cretic (in the classical terminology); _i.e._ a foot made up of two heavy syllables with a light syllable between them. But no such foot is generally recognized in English verse.

_Two-stress irregular._

On the ground
Sleep sound:
I'll apply
To your eye,
Gentle lover, remedy.
When thou wak'st,
Thou tak'st
True delight
In the sight
Of thy former lady's eye.

(SHAKSPERE: Puck's Song in _Midsummer Night's Dream_, III. ii. ab. 1595.)

What I hate,
Be consecrate
To celebrate
Thee and Thy state,
No mate
For Thee;
What see
For envy
In poor me?

(BROWNING: Song in _Caliban upon Setebos_. 1864.)

In the usual printing of _Caliban upon Setebos_ this song is brought into the form of the five-accent lines. It is evidently intended, however, to be read in two-accent groups. Professor Moulton has remarked interestingly that Browning gives the unique figure of Caliban not only a grammar but a prosody of his own.

Though my rime be ragged,
Tattered and jagged,
Rudely raine-beaten,
Rusty and moth-eaten;
If ye take wel therewith,
It hath in it some pith.

(JOHN SKELTON: _Colyn Cloute_. ab. 1510.)

This is a specimen of what Mr. Churton Collins calls "that headlong voluble breathless doggrel which, rattling and clashing on through quick-recurring rhymes, ... has taken from the name of its author the title of Skeltonical verse." (Ward's _English Poets_, vol. i. p. 185.) The number of accents, as well as the number of syllables, is irregular, being quite as often (perhaps more often) three as two.

_Three-stress iambic._

O let the solid ground
Not fail beneath my feet
Before my life has found
What some have found so sweet;
Then let come what come may,
What matter if I go mad,
I shall have had my day.

(TENNYSON: Song in _Maud_, xi. 1855.)

(In combination with verse of four, five, and six stresses:)

The Oracles are dumb;
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving:
No nightly trance or breathed spell
Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

(MILTON: _Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity_. 1629.)

Here, in line 5, we have an instance of a verse truncated at the beginning,--rare in modern English poetry.

(With feminine ending:)

The mountain sheep are sweeter,
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met an host and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it.

(THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK: War Song of Dinas Vawr, from _The Misfortunes of Elphin_. 1829.)

In line 2 is an instance of anacrusis.

_Three-stress trochaic._

(In combination with iambic:)

Go where glory waits thee,
But, while fame elates thee,
Oh! still remember me.
When the praise thou meetest
To thine ear is sweetest,
Oh! then remember me.

(THOMAS MOORE: _Go Where Glory Waits Thee_. ab. 1820.)

(In combination with six-stress verses:)

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

(SHELLEY: _To a Skylark_. 1820.)

Here lines 2 and 4 are catalectic.

_Three-stress anapestic._

I am monarch of all I survey;
My right there is none to dispute;
From the centre all round to the sea
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

(COWPER: _Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk._ 1782.)

In this specimen lines 2, 5, 6, and 8 show initial truncation, the first light syllable being missing.

(With two-stress verse:)

His desire is a dureless content,
And a trustless joy;
He is won with a world of despair
And is lost with a toy....

But true love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning,
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.

(SIR WALTER RALEIGH (?): _Pilgrim to Pilgrim_. In MS. Rawl. 85; in Schelling's _Elizabethan Lyrics_, p. 3.)

"The metres of the earlier years of Elizabeth's reign are so
overwhelmingly iambic," Professor Schelling observes, "that this
perfectly metrical, if somewhat irregular, anapæstic movement comes
like a surprise. Professor Gummere, of Haverford College, calls my
attention to three epigrams--printed among the poems of Raleigh,
ed. Hannah, p. 55--all of them in more or less limping anapæsts,
but not of this measure. It is quite possible that the time to
which these verses were sung may have affected the measure." (Notes
to _Elizabethan Lyrics_, pp. 211, 212.)

(With initial truncation:)

She gazed, as I slowly withdrew,
My path I could hardly discern;
So sweetly she bade me adieu,
I thought that she bade me return.

(SHENSTONE: _Pastoral Ballad._ 1743.)

Mr. Saintsbury praises highly the anapests of Shenstone (Ward's _English Poets_, vol. iii. p. 272), saying that he "taught the metre to a greater poet than himself, Cowper, and these two between them have written almost everything that is worth reading in it, if we put avowed parody and burlesque out of the question." But this is probably to be regarded as overstating the case.

(With feminine ending:)

If you go over desert and mountain,
Far into the country of sorrow,
To-day and to-night and to-morrow,
And maybe for months and for years;
You shall come, with a heart that is bursting
For trouble and toiling and thirsting,
You shall certainly come to the fountain
At length,--to the Fountain of Tears.

(ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY: _The Fountain of Tears._ 1870.)

Here the extra light syllable at the end of the line is really the initial light syllable of the following line, as in the specimen on p. 29, above.

So this is a psalm of the waters,--
The wavering, wandering waters:
With languages learned in the forest,
With secrets of earth's lonely caverns,
The mystical waters go by me
On errands of love and of beauty,
On embassies friendly and gentle,
With shimmer of brown and of silver.

(S. WEIR MITCHELL: _A Psalm of the Waters._ 1890.)

Here, also, the final light syllable might be said to take the place of the missing initial syllable; but the structure of the verse, with the fact that the initial anapest is always truncated and that the final syllable is never accented, indicates that the verse as it stands is the norm of the poem--three-stress anapestic, with initial truncation and feminine ending.

_Three-stress dactylic._

(Catalectic:)

This is a spray the Bird clung to,
Making it blossom with pleasure,
Ere the high tree-top she sprung to,
Fit for her nest and her treasure.

(BROWNING: _Misconceptions_. 1855.)

_Four-stress iambic._

(For specimens, see Part Two.)

_Four-stress trochaic._

Maiden, crowned with glossy blackness,
Lithe as panther forest-roaming,
Long-armed naiad, when she dances,
On a stream of ether floating.

(GEORGE ELIOT: Song from _The Spanish Gypsy_, Book i. 1868.)

Westward, westward Hiawatha
Sailed into the fiery sunset,
Sailed into the purple vapors,
Sailed into the dusk of evening.

(LONGFELLOW: _Hiawatha_. 1855.)

Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
Long continuance, and increasing,
Hourly joys be still upon you!
Juno sings her blessings on you.

(SHAKSPERE: Juno's Song in _The Tempest_, IV. i. ab. 1610.)

(Catalectic:)

On a day, alack the day!
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish himself the heaven's breath.

(SHAKSPERE: _Love's Labor's Lost_, IV. 3. ab. 1590.)

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful jollity,
Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek.

(MILTON: _L'Allegro_. 1634.)

Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine?
Or are fruits of Paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest as though bold Robin Hood
Would, with his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can.

(KEATS: _Lines on the Mermaid Tavern_. 1820.)

_Four-stress anapestic._

What I speak, my fair Chloe, and what I write, shows
The difference there is betwixt nature and art:
I court others in verse; but I love thee in prose:
And they have my whimsies; but thou hast my heart.

(PRIOR: _A Better Answer_. ab. 1710.)

Prior's anapests well illustrate the appropriateness of the measure for light tripping effects, such as are sought _vers de société_. See also the measure of Goldsmith's _Retaliation_, especially the passage beginning--

"Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can;
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man."

The small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning,
The murmuring streamlet winds clear through the vale;
The hawthorn trees blow in the dews of the morning,
And wild scatter'd cowslips bedeck the green dale.

(BURNS: _The Chevalier's Lament_. 1788.)

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

(BYRON: _The Destruction of Sennacherib_. 1815.)

(With three-stress:)

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be ador'd, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.

(THOMAS MOORE: _Believe me, if all those endearing young charms._ ab. 1825.)

_four-stress dactylic_.

After the pangs of a desperate lover,
When day and night I have sighed all in vain;
Ah, what a pleasure it is to discover
In her eyes pity, who causes my pain!

(DRYDEN: Song in _An Evening's Love_. 1668.)

Of this song Mr. Saintsbury says that it is "one of the rare examples of a real dactylic metre in English, where the dactyls are not, as usual, equally to be scanned as anapests." (_Life of Dryden_, Men of Letters Series, p. 62.) Here, as almost always in English, the measure is catalectic, a final dactyl being instinctively avoided, except in short two-stress lines.

Warriors and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword
Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord,
Heed not the corse, though a king's, in your path:
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!

(BYRON: _Song of Saul before his Last Battle._ 1815.)

Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King,
Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing:
And, pressing a troop, unable to stoop
And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop,
Marched them along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.

(BROWNING: _Cavalier Tunes._ 1843.)

Here the metre is varied interestingly by pauses. Thus in lines 1 and 5 the light syllables of the second foot are wholly wanting.

_Five-stress iambic._

(For specimens, see Part Two.)

_Five-stress trochaic._

What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy?
Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal,
Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy),
All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos),
She would turn a new side to her mortal,
Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman--
Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace,
Blind to Galileo on his turret,
Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats--him, even!

(BROWNING: _One Word More._ 1855.)

This is a rare specimen of unrimed verse in other than iambic rhythm.

(Catalectic:)

Then methought I heard a mellow sound,
Gathering up from all the lower ground;
Narrowing in to where they sat assembled
Low voluptuous music winding trembled,
Wov'n in circles: they that heard it sighed,
Panted, hand-in-hand with faces pale,
Swung themselves, and in low tones replied;
Till the fountain spouted, showering wide
Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail.

(TENNYSON: _The Vision of Sin._ 1842.)

_Five-stress anapestic._

As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being beloved!
He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most
weak.
'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek
In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me,
Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!

(BROWNING: _Saul._ 1845.)

Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a wind,
We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still,
And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind;
It is better to fight for the good than to rail at the ill;
I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind,
I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom assign'd.

(TENNYSON: _Maud_, III. vi. 1855.)

Here frequent iambi are substituted for anapests; as in line 1, second and fourth feet; lines 2 and 3, fifth foot; line 5, third foot.

_Five-stress dactylic._