Chapter CXIV: Section IV: The Kinds of Verse (4)

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"Far from the | _battle's shock_,
Fate hath fast | bound thee;
Chain'd to the | _rugged rock_,
Waves warring | round thee.

[Now, for] the | _trumpet's sound_,
Sea-birds are | shrieking;
Hoarse on thy | _rampart's bound_,
Billows are | breaking."

OBS. 2.--This may be regarded as verse of the Composite Order; and, perhaps, more properly so, than as Dactylic with mere incidental variations. Lines like those in which the questionable foot is here Italicized, may be united with longer dactylics, and thus produce a stanza of great beauty and harmony. The following is a specimen. It is a song, written by I know not whom, but set to music by Dempster. The twelfth line is varied to a different measure.

"ADDRESS TO THE SKYLARK."

OBS. 3.--It is observed by Churchill, (_New Gram._, p. 387,) that, "Shakspeare has used the dactyl, as appropriate to mournful occasions." The chief example which he cites, is the following:--

OBS. 4.--These six lines of Dactylic (or Composite) Dimeter are subjoined by the poet to four of Trochaic Tetrameter. There does not appear to me to be any particular adaptation of either measure to mournful subjects, more than to others; but later instances of this metre may be cited, in which such is the character of the topic treated. The following long example consists of lines of two feet, most of them dactylic only; but, of the seventy-six, there are twelve which _may_ be otherwise divided, and as many more which _must_ be, because they commence with a short syllable.

"THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS."--BY THOMAS HOOD.

Alas, for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the | sun!
O, it was | pitiful!
Near a whole | city full,
Home she had | none.

Where the lamps | quiver
So far in the river,
With many a light,
From window and casement,
From garret to basement,
She stood, with amazement,
Houseless, by | night.

OBS. 5.--As each of our principal feet,--the Iambus, the Trochee, the Anapest, and the Dactyl,--has always one, and only one long syllable; it should follow, that, in each of our principal orders of verse,--the Iambic, the Trochaic, the Anapestic, and the Dactylic,--any line, not diversified by a secondary foot, must be reckoned to contain just as many feet as long syllables. So, too, of the Amphibrach, and any line reckoned Amphibrachic. But it happens, that the common error by which single-rhymed Trochaics have so often been counted a foot _shorter_ than they are, is also extended by some writers to single-rhymed Dactylics--the rhyming syllable, if long, being esteemed _supernumerary!_ For example, three dactylic stanzas, in each of which a pentameter couplet is followed by a hexameter line, and this again by a heptameter, are introduced by Prof. Hart thus: "The _Dactylic Tetrameter, Pentameter_, and _Hexameter_, with the _additional_ or _hypermeter syllable_, are all found combined in the following extraordinary specimen of versification. * * * This is the only specimen of Dactylic _hexameter_ or even _pentameter_ verse that the author recollects to have seen."

LAMENT OF ADAM.

OBS. 6.--Of Dactylic verse, our prosodists and grammarians in general have taken but very little notice; a majority of them appearing by their silence, to have been utterly ignorant of the whole species. By many, the dactyl is expressly set down as an inferior foot, which they imagine is used only for the occasional diversification of an iambic, trochaic, or anapestic line. Thus Everett: "It is _never used_ except as a _secondary foot_, and then in the _first place_ of the line."--_English Versification_, p. 122. On this order of verse, Lindley Murray bestowed only the following words: "The DACTYLIC measure being very uncommon, we shall give only one example of one species of it:--

Fr=om th~e l~ow pl=eas~ures ~of th=is f~all~en n=at~ure,
Rise we to higher, &c."--_Gram._, 12mo, p. 207; 8vo, p. 257.

Read this example with _"we rise"_ for _"Rise we,"_ and all the poetry of it is gone! Humphrey says, "_Dactyle_ verse is seldom used, as remarked heretofore; but _is used occasionally_, and has three metres; viz. of 2, 3, and 4 feet. Specimens follow. 2 feet. Free from anxiety. 3 feet. Singing most sweetly and merrily. 4 feet. Dactylic measures are wanting in energy."--_English Prosody_, p. 18. Here the prosodist has made his own examples; and the last one, which unjustly impeaches all dactylics, he has made very badly--very prosaically; for the word "_Dactylic_," though it has three syllables, is properly no dactyl, but rather an amphibrach.

OBS. 7.--By the Rev. David Blair, this order of poetic numbers is utterly misconceived and misrepresented. He says of it, "DACTYLIC verse consists of a _short syllable_, with one, two, or three feet, _and a long syllable_; as,

'D~istr=act~ed w~ith w=oe,
'I'll r=ush ~on th~e f=oe.' ADDISON."--_Blair's Pract. Gram._, p. 119.

"'Y~e sh=eph~erds s~o ch=eerf~ul ~and g=ay,
'Wh~ose fl=ocks n~ev~er c=arel~essl~y r=oam;
'Sh~ould C=or~yd~on's h=app~en t~o str=ay,
'Oh! c=all th~e p=oor w=and~er~ers h=ome.' SHENSTONE."--_Ib._, p. 120.

It is manifest, that these lines are not dactylic at all. There is not a dactyl in them. They are composed of iambs and anapests. The order of the versification is Anapestic; but it is here varied by the very common diversification of dropping the first short syllable. The longer example is from a ballad of 216 lines, of which 99 are thus varied, and 117 are full anapestics.

OBS. 8.--The makers of school-books are quite as apt to copy blunders, as to originate them; and, when an error is once started in a grammar, as it passes with the user for good learning, no one can guess where it will stop. It seems worth while, therefore, in a work of this nature, to be liberal in the citation of such faults as have linked themselves, from time to time, with the several topics of our great subject. It is not probable, that the false scansion just criticised originated with Blair; for the Comprehensive Grammar, a British work, republished in its third edition, by Dobson, of Philadelphia, in 1789, teaches the same doctrine, thus: "Dactylic measure may consist of one, two, or three Dactyls, introduced by a feeble syllable, and terminated by a strong one; as,

To this, the author adds, "Dactylic measure becomes Anapestic by setting off an Iambic foot in the beginning of the line."--_Ib._ These verses, all but the last one, unquestionably have an iambic foot at the beginning; and, for that reason, they are not, and by no measurement can be, dactylics. The last one is purely anapestic. All the divisional bars, in either example, are placed wrong.

ORDER V.--COMPOSITE VERSE.

Composite verse is that which consists of various metres, or different feet, combined,--not accidentally, or promiscuously, but by design, and with some regularity. In Composite verse, of any form, the stress must be laid rhythmically, as in the simple orders, else the composition will be nothing better than unnatural prose. The possible variety of combinations in this sort of numbers is unlimited; but, the pure and simple kinds being generally preferred, any stated mixture of feet is comparatively uncommon. Certain forms which may be scanned by other methods, are susceptible also of division as Composites. Hence there cannot be an exact enumeration of the measures of this order, but instances, as they occur, may be cited to exemplify it.

_Example I.--From Swift's Irish Feast_.

Here the measure is tetrameter; and it seems to have been the design of the poet, that each hemistich should consist of one iamb and one anapest. Such, with a few exceptions, is the arrangement throughout the piece; but the hemistichs which have double rhyme, _may_ each be divided into two amphibrachs. In Everett's Versification, at p. 100, the first six lines of this example are broken into twelve, and set in three stanzas, being given to exemplify "_The Line of a single Anapest preceded by an Iambus_," or what he improperly calls "The first and shortest species of Anapestic lines." His other instance of the same metre is also _Composite_ verse, rather than Anapestic, even by his own showing. "In the following example," says he, "we have this measure alternating with Amphibrachic lines:"

_Example II.--From Byron's Manfred._

Here the last two lines, which are not cited by Everett, are pure anapestic tetrameters; and it may be observed, that, if each two of the short lines were printed as one, the eight which are here scanned otherwise, would become four of the same sort, except that these would each begin with an iambus. Hence the specimen _sounds_ essentially as anapestic verse.

_Example III.--Woman on the Field of Battle_.

"Gentle and | lovely form,
What didst | thou here,
When the fierce | battle storm
Bore down | the spear?

Banner and | shiver'd crest,
Beside | thee strown,
Tell that a |-midst the best
Thy work was done!

Low lies the | stately head,
Earth-bound | the free:
How gave those | haughty dead
A place | to thee?

Slumb'rer! thine | early bier
Friends should | have crown'd,
Many a |flow'r and tear
Shedding | around.

Soft voices, | dear and young,
Mingling | their swell,
Should o'er thy | dust have sung
Earth's last | farewell.

Sisters a |-bove the grave
Of thy | repose
Should have bid | vi'lets wave
With the | white rose.

Now must the | trumpet's note.
Savage | and shrill,
For requi'm | o'er thee float,
Thou fair | and still!

And the swift | charger sweep,
In full | career,
Trampling thy | place of sleep--
Why cam'st | thou here?

Why?--Ask the | true heart why
Woman | hath been
Ever, where | brave men die,
Unshrink |-ing seen.

Unto this | harvest ground,
Proud reap |-ers came,
Some for that | stirring sound,
A warr |-ior's name:

Some for the | stormy play,
And joy | of strife,
And some to | fling away
A wea |-ry life.

But thou, pale | sleeper, thou,
With the | slight frame,
And the rich | locks, whose glow
Death can |-not tame;

Only one | thought, one pow'r,
_Thee_ could | have led,
So through the | tempest's hour
To lift | thy head!

Only the | true, the strong,
The love | whose trust
Woman's deep | soul too long
Pours on | the dust."

HEMANS: _Poetical Works_, Vol. ii, p. 157.

Here are fourteen stanzas of composite dimeter, each having two sorts of lines; the first sort consisting, with a few exceptions, of a dactyl and an amphimac; the second, mostly, of two iambs; but, in some instances, of a trochee and an iamb;--the latter being, in such a connexion, much the more harmonious and agreeable combination of quantities.

_Example IV.--Airs from a "Serenata."_

Air 1.

Air 2.

GAY'S POEMS: _Johnson's Works of the Poets_, VoL vii, p. 378.

These verses are essentially either anapestic or amphibrachic. The anapest divides two of them in the middle; the amphibrach will so divide eight. But either division will give many iambs. By the present scansion, the _first foot_ is an iamb in all of them but the two anapestics.

_Example V.--"The Last Leaf."_

OBSERVATIONS.

OBS. 1.--Composite verse, especially if the lines be short, is peculiarly liable to uncertainty, and diversity of scansion; and that which does not always abide by one chosen order of quantities, can scarcely be found agreeable; it must be more apt to puzzle than to please the reader. The eight stanzas of this last example, have eight lines of _iambic trimeter_; and, since seven times in eight, this metre holds the first place in the stanza, it is a double fault, that one such line seems strayed from its proper position. It would be better to prefix the word _Now_ to the fourth line, and to mend the forty-third thus:--

"And should | I live | to be"--

The trissyllabic feet of this piece, as I scan it, are numerous; being the sixteen short lines of monometer, and the twenty-four initial feet of the lines of seven syllables. Every one of the forty--(except the thirty-sixth, "_The_ last leaf"--) begins with a monosyllable which may be varied in quantity; so that, with stress laid on this monosyllable, the foot becomes an _amphimac_; without such stress, an _anapest_.

OBS. 2.--I incline to read this piece as composed of iambs and anapests; but E. A. Poe, who has commended "the effective harmony of these lines," and called the example "an excellently well conceived and well managed specimen of versification," counts many syllables long, which such a reading makes short, and he also divides all but the iambics in a way quite different from mine, thus: "Let us scan the first stanza.

This," says he, "is the general scansion of the poem. We have first three iambuses. The second line shifts the _rhythm_ into the _trochaic_, giving us three trochees, with a cæsura equivalent, in this case, to a trochee. The third line is a trochee and equivalent cæsura."--POE'S NOTES UPON ENGLISH VERSE: _Pioneer_, p. 109. These quantities are the same as those by which the whole piece is made to consist of iambs and amphimacs.

OBS. 3.--In its _rhythmical effect_ upon the ear, a supernumerary short syllable at the end of a line, may sometimes, perhaps, compensate for the want of such a syllable at the beginning of the next line, as may be seen in the fourth example above; but still it is unusual, and seems improper, to suppose such syllables to belong to the scansion of the subsequent line; for the division of lines, with their harmonic pauses, is greater than the division of feet, and implies that no foot can ever actually be split by it. Poe has suggested that the division into lines may be disregarded in scanning, and sometimes must be. He cites for an example the beginning of Byron's "Bride of Abydos,"--a passage which has been admired for its easy flow, and which, he says, has greatly puzzled those who have attempted to scan it. Regarding it as essentially anapestic tetrameter, yet as having some initial iambs, and the first and fifth lines dactylic, I shall here divide it accordingly, thus:--

OBS. 4.--These lines this ingenious prosodist divides not thus, but, throwing them together like prose unpunctuated, finds in them "a regular succession of _dactylic rhythms_, varied only at three points by equivalent _spondees_, and separated into two distinct divisions by equivalent terminating _cæsuras_." He imagines that, "By all who have ears--not over long--this will be acknowledged as the true and the sole true scansion."--_E. A. Poe: Pioneer_, p. 107. So it may, for aught I know; but, having dared to show there is an other way quite as simple and plain, and less objectionable, I submit both to the judgement of the reader:--

OBS. 5.--In the sum and proportion of their quantities, the anapest, the dactyl, and the amphibrach, are equal, each having two syllables short to one long; and, with two short quantities between two long ones, lines may be tolerably accordant in rhythm, though the order, at the commencement, be varied, and their number of syllables be not equal. Of the following sixteen lines, nine are pure anapestic tetrameters; one _may_ be reckoned dactylic, but it may quite as well be said to have a trochee, an iambus, and two anapests or two amphimacs; one is a spondee and three anapests; and the rest _may_ be scanned as amphibrachics ending with an iambus, but are more properly anapestics commencing with an iambus. Like the preceding example from Byron, they lack the uniformity of proper composites, and are rather to be regarded as anapestics irregularly diversified.

THE ALBATROSS.

"'Tis said the Albatross never rests."--_Buffon_.

OBS. 6.--It appears that the most noted measures of the Greek and Latin poets were not of any simple order, but either composites, or mixtures too various to be called composites. It is not to be denied, that we have much difficulty in reading them rhythmically, according to their stated feet and scansion; and so we should have, in reading our own language rhythmically, in any similar succession of feet. Noticing this in respect to the Latin Hexameter, or Heroic verse, Poe says, "Now the discrepancy in question is not observable in English metres; where the scansion coincides with the reading, _so far as the rhythm is concerned_--that is to say, if we pay no attention to the _sense_ of the passage. But these facts indicate _a radical difference_ in the genius of the two languages, as regards their capacity for modulation. In truth, * * * the Latin is a far more _stately_ tongue than our own. It is essentially spondaic; the English is as essentially dactylic."--_Pioneer_, p. 110. (See the marginal note in §3d. at Obs. 22d, above.) Notwithstanding this difference, discrepance, or difficulty, whatever it may be, some of our poets have, in a few instances, attempted imitations of certain Latin metres; which imitations it may be proper briefly to notice under the present head. The Greek or Latin Hexameter line has, of course, six feet, or pulsations. According to the Prosodies, the first four of these may be either dactyls or spondees; the fifth is always, or nearly always, a dactyl; and the sixth, or last, is always a spondee: as,

Of this sort of verse, in English, somebody has framed the following very fair example:--

OBS. 7.--Of this species of versification, which may be called Mixed or Composite Hexameter, the most considerable specimen that I have seen in English, is Longfellow's Evangeline, a poem of one thousand three hundred and eighty-two of these long lines, or verses. This work has found admirers, and not a few; for, of these, nothing written by so distinguished a scholar could fail: but, surely, not many of the verses in question exhibit truly the feet of the ancient Hexameters; or, if they do, the ancients contented themselves with very imperfect rhythms, even in their noblest heroics. In short, I incline to the opinion of Poe, that, "Nothing less than the deservedly high reputation of Professor Longfellow, could have sufficed to give currency to his lines as to Greek Hexameters. In general, they are neither one thing nor another. Some few of them are dactylic verses--English dactylics. But do away with the division into lines, and the most astute critic would never have suspected them of any thing more than prose."--_Pioneer_, p. 111. The following are the last ten lines of the volume, with such a division into feet as the poet is presumed to have contemplated:--

OBS. 8.--An other form of verse, common to the Greeks and Romans, which has sometimes been imitated--or, rather, which some writers have _attempted to imitate_--in English, is the line or stanza called Sapphic, from the inventress, Sappho, a Greek poetess. The Sapphic verse, according to Fabricius, Smetius, and all good authorities, has eleven syllables, making "five feet--the first a trochee, the second a spondee, the third a dactyl, and the fourth and fifth trochees." The Sapphic stanza, or what is sometimes so called, consists of three Sapphic lines and an Adonian, or Adonic,--this last being a short line composed of "a dactyl and a spondee." Example from Horace:--

To arrange eleven syllables in a line, and have half or more of them to form trochees, is no difficult matter; but, to find _rhythm_ in the succession of "a trochee, a spondee, and a dactyl," as we read words, seems hardly practicable. Hence few are the English Sapphics, if there be any, which abide by the foregoing formule of quantities and feet. Those which I have seen, are generally, if not in every instance, susceptible of a more natural scansion as being composed of trochees, with a dactyl, or some other foot of three syllables, at the _beginning_ of each line. The cæsural pause falls sometimes after the fourth syllable, but more generally, and much more agreeably, after the fifth. Let the reader inspect the following example, and see if he do not agree with me in laying the accent on only the first syllable of each foot, as the feet are here divided. The accent, too, must be carefully laid. Without considerable care in the reading, the hearer will not suppose the composition to be any thing but prose:--

"THE WIDOW."--(IN "SAPPHICS.")

Among the lyric poems of Dr. Watts, is one, entitled, "THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT; _an Ode attempted in English Sapphic_." It is perhaps as good an example as we have of the species. It consists of nine stanzas, of which I shall here cite the first three, dividing them into feet as above:--

"These lines," says Humphrey, who had cited the first four, "are good English Sapphics, and contain the essential traits of the original as nearly as the two languages, Greek and English, correspond to each other. This stanza, together with the poem, from which this was taken, may stand for a model, in our English compositions."--_Humphrey's E. Prosody_, p. 19. This author erroneously supposed, that the trissyllabic foot, in any line of the Sapphic stanza, must occupy the second place: and, judging of the ancient feet and quantities by what he found, or supposed he found, in the English imitations, and not by what the ancient prosodists say of them, yet knowing that the ancient and the modern Sapphics are in several respects unlike, he presented forms of scansion for both, which are not only peculiar to himself, but not well adapted to either. "We have," says he, "no established rule for this kind of verse, in our English compositions, which has been uniformly adhered to. The rule for which, in Greek and Latin verse, _as far as I can ascertain_, was this: = ~ | = = = | ~ ~ |= ~ | = = a trochee, a _moloss_, a _pyrrhic_, a trochee, and [a] _spondee_; and _sometimes, occasionally_, a trochee, instead of a spondee, at the end. But as our language is not favourable to the use of the spondee and moloss, the moloss is seldom or never used in our English Sapphics; but, instead of which, some other _trissyllable_ foot is used. Also, instead of the spondee, a trochee is commonly used; and sometimes a trochee instead of the pyrrhic, in the third place. As some prescribed rule, or model for imitation, may be necessary, in this case, I will cite a stanza from one of our best English poets, which may serve for a model.

OBS. 12.--In "the Works of George Canning," a small book published in 1829, there is a poetical dialogue of nine stanzas, entitled, "The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder," said to be "a burlesque on Mr. Southey's Sapphics." The metre appears to be near enough like to the foregoing. But these verses I divide, as I have divided the others, into trochees with initial dactyls. At the commencement, the luckier party salutes the other thus:--

OBS. 13.--Among the humorous poems of Thomas Green Fessenden, published under the sobriquet of Dr. Caustic, or "Christopher Caustic, M. D.," may be seen an other comical example of Sapphics, which extends to eleven stanzas. It describes a contra-dance, and is entitled, "Horace Surpassed." The conclusion is as follows:--

"Willy Wagnimble dancing with Flirtilla,
Almost as light as air-balloon inflated,
Rigadoons around her, 'till the lady's heart is
Forced to surrender.

Benny Bamboozle cuts the drollest capers,
Just like a camel, or a hippopot'mus;
Jolly Jack Jumble makes as big a rout as
Forty Dutch horses.

See Angelina lead the mazy dance down;
Never did fairy trip it so fantastic;
How my heart flutters, while my tongue pronounces,
'Sweet little seraph!'

Such are the joys that flow from contra-dancing,
Pure as the primal happiness of Eden,
Love, mirth, and music, kindle in accordance
Raptures extatic."--_Poems_, p. 208.

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The Grammar of English GrammarsChapter CXIV: Section IV: The Kinds of Verse (4)

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