English Verse Part 10

... Down, down, down!

Down to the depths of the sea!

She sits at her wheel in the humming town, Singing most joyfully.

Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy, For the humming street, and the child with its toy!

For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; For the wheel where I spun, And the blessed light of the sun!"

And so she sings her fill, Singing most joyfully, Till the spindle drops from her hand, And the whizzing wheel stands still.

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, And over the sand at the sea; And her eyes are set in a stare; And anon there breaks a sigh, And anon there drops a tear, From a sorrow-clouded eye, And a heart sorrow-laden, A long, long sigh, For the cold strange eyes of a little mermaiden, And the gleam of her golden hair.

(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _The Forsaken Merman._)

Then the music touch'd the gates and died; Rose again from where it seem'd to fail, Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale; Till thronging in and in, to where they waited, As 'twere a hundred-throated nightingale, The strong tempestuous treble throbbed and palpitated; Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound, Caught the sparkles, and in circles, Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes, Flung the torrent rainbow round: Then they started from their places, Moved with violence, changed in hue, Caught each other with wild grimaces, Half-invisible to the view, Wheeling with precipitate paces To the melody, till they flew, Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces, Twisted hard in fierce embraces, Like to Furies, like to Graces, Dash'd together in blinding dew.

(TENNYSON: _Vision of Sin._)

ii. _Verses in which individual feet are altered from the metrical scheme._

Even in metre exhibiting no marked irregularities, it is of course rather exceptional than otherwise to find all the feet in a verse conforming to the type-foot of the metre. Departures from the typical metre may be conveniently cla.s.sified in five groups: Deficiency in accent; excess of accent; inversion of accent; light syllable added to dissyllabic foot; light syllable omitted in trisyllabic foot.

Deficiency of accent is the most common of all the variations, if we understand by "accent" such syllabic stress as would be ordinarily appreciable in the reading of the word in question. It would be safe to say that in English five-stress iambic verse, read with only the ordinary etymological and rhetorical accents, twenty-five per cent of the verses lack the full five stresses characteristic of the type. In many cases, too, a foot with deficiency in stress is compensated for by another foot in the same verse showing excess of stress. Feet thus deficient in stress may conveniently be called _pyrrhics_, the pyrrhic being understood as made up of two unstressed syllables. This term has never become fully domesticated in English prosody, and some object to its use on the ground that we have no feet wholly without stress. Its use in the sense just indicated, however, seems to be an unquestionable convenience.

Excess of accent, while less common than deficiency of accent, is even more easily recognizable. The foot containing two stressed syllables, even though one of the stresses may be distinctly stronger than the other, may conveniently be called a _spondee_.

Inversion of accent is exceedingly familiar, especially at the beginning of the verse and after the medial pause. It consists, technically speaking, in the subst.i.tution of a trochee for an iambus or an iambus for a trochee (the latter very rarely).

A light syllable inserted in dissyllabic measure is not unusual, though by no means so common as the variations previously enumerated. Such a syllable is frequently spoken of as "hypermetrical"; or, the variation may be considered as the subst.i.tution of an anapest for an iambus, in iambic measure, or the subst.i.tution of a dactyl for a trochee, in trochaic measure.

The omission of one of the two light syllables from the foot in trisyllabic verse is so common as to make it difficult to find pure anapestic or dactylic verse in English. This fact is due in part to preference for dissyllabic measures, and in part to the usual indifference, in all Germanic verse, to accuracy in the number of light syllables. The variation may frequently be regarded as involving a prolongation of the light syllable of the foot, or a pause equal to the time of the omitted syllable; technically speaking, it consists in the subst.i.tution of an iambus for an anapest, or a trochee for a dactyl.

Examples of all these variations may best be found in the specimens of verse included in the preceding pages. A few specimens of detail are added here, for the sake of greater clearness.

_Deficiency in accent (subst.i.tuted pyrrhic)._

To further this, Achit_ophel_ unites The malcontents of all the Israelites, Whose differing par_ties he_ could wisely join For several ends to serve the same design; The best (_and of_ the princes some were such) Who thought the power of mon_archy_ too much; Mistaken men and patr_iots in_ their hearts, Not wick_ed, but_ seduced by impious arts; By these the springs of prop_erty_ were bent, And wound so high they crack'd the gov_ernment_.

(DRYDEN: _Absalom and Achitophel_, I.)

_Excess of accent (subst.i.tuted spondee)._

And ten _low words_ oft creep in one _dull line_.

(POPE: _Essay on Criticism._)

_Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens_, and shades of death.

(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, II. 621.)

_See, see_ where Christ's _blood streams_ in the firmament!

(MARLOWE: _Faustus_, sc. xvi.)

O great, _just, good G.o.d! Mis_erable me!

(BROWNING: _The Ring and the Book_, VI.)

A tree's _head snaps_--and there, _there, there, there, there_!

(BROWNING: _Caliban upon Setebos._)

_Inversion of accent (subst.i.tuted trochee)._

Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, _Gorged with_ the dearest morsel of the earth.

(SHAKSPERE: _Romeo and Juliet_, V. iii. 45 f.)

Finds tongues in trees, _books in_ the running brooks, _Sermons_ in stones, and good in every thing.

(_As You Like It_, II. i. 16 f.)

The watery kingdom whose ambitious head _Spits in_ the face of heaven.

(_Merchant of Venice_, II. vii. 44 f.)

Long lines of cliff _breaking_ have left a chasm.

(TENNYSON: _Enoch Arden._)

There whirled her white robe like a blossomed branch _Rapt to_ the horrible fall: a glance I gave, No more; but woman-vested as I was _Plunged; and_ the flood _drew; yet_ I caught her; then _Oaring_ one arm,...

(TENNYSON: _The Princess._)

_Stabbed through_ the heart's affections to the heart!

_Seethed like_ a kid in its own mother's milk!

_Killed with_ a word worse than a life of blows!

(TENNYSON: _Merlin and Vivien._)

He flowed _Right for_ the polar star, past Orgunje, _Br.i.m.m.i.n.g_, and bright, and large; then sands begin,...

(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _Sohrab and Rustum._)

_Hypermetrical syllable (subst.i.tuted anapest)._

_Let me see, let me see_, is not the leaf turn'd down?

(SHAKSPERE: _Julius Caesar_, IV. iii. 271.)