English Verse Part 8

(SWINBURNE: _The Garden of Cymodoce_, in _Songs of the Springtides_.)

_Six-stress dactylic._

(For this, see chiefly Part Two.)

(Catalectic:)

Dosn't thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awaay?

Proputty, proputty, proputty--that's what I 'ears 'em saay.

Proputty, proputty, proputty--Sam, thou's an a.s.s for thy paains: Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs nor in all thy braains.

(TENNYSON: _Northern Farmer--new style._ ab. 1860.)

Thee I behold as a bird borne in with the wind from the west, Straight from the sunset, across white waves whence rose as a daughter Venus thy mother, in years when the world was a water at rest.

(SWINBURNE: _Hesperia._)

_Seven-stress iambic._

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay; 'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast, But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

(BYRON: _Stanzas for Music._ 1815.)

Here we have anacrusis in lines 2 and 4.

Beyond the path of the outmost sun, through utter darkness hurled-- Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled-- Live such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our world.

(KIPLING: _Wolcott Balestier._)

(See also under Seven-stress Verse, in Part Two.)

_Seven-stress trochaic._

(Catalectic:)

Clear the way, my lords and lackeys, you have had your day.

Here you have your answer, England's yea against your nay; Long enough your house has held you: up, and clear the way!

(SWINBURNE: _Clear the Way._)

_Seven-stress anapestic._

(With feminine ending:)

Come on then, ye dwellers by nature in darkness, and like to the leaves' generations, That are little of might, that are moulded of mire, unenduring and shadowlike nations, Poor plumeless ephemerals, comfortless mortals, as visions of creatures fast fleeing, Lift up your mind unto us that are deathless, and dateless the date of our being.

(SWINBURNE: _The Birds_, from Aristophanes.)

Of this translation Mr. Swinburne says that it was undertaken from a consideration of the fact that the "marvellous metrical invention of the anapestic heptameter was almost exactly reproducible in a language to which all variations and combinations of anapestic, iambic, or trochaic metre are as natural and pliable as all dactylic and spondaic forms of verse are unnatural and abhorrent." ... "I have not attempted," he says further, "the impossible and undesirable task of reproducing the rare exceptional effect of a line overcharged on purpose with a preponderance of heavy-footed spondees.... My main desire ... was to renew as far as possible for English ears the music of this resonant and triumphant metre, which goes ringing at full gallop as of horses who

'dance as 'twere to the music Their own hoofs make.'"

(_Studies in Song_, p. 68.)

_Seven-stress dactylic._

This form of verse may be said to be wanting. Schipper quotes as possible examples some lines which (as he remarks) seem to be made merely for the metrical purpose:

"Out of the kingdom of Christ shall be gathered, by angels o'er Satan victorious, All that offendeth, that lieth, that faileth to honor his name ever glorious."

(_Englische Metrik_, vol. ii. p. 419.)

_Eight-stress iambic._

This is almost unknown in English verse, because where conceivably occurring it shows an irresistible tendency to break up into two halves of four stresses each. William Webbe, in his _Discourse of English Poetrie_ (1586), quoted these lines as "the longest verse in length which I have seen used in English":

"Where virtue wants and vice abounds, there wealth is but a baited hook, To make men swallow down their bane, before on danger deep they look."

_Eight-stress trochaic._

(Catalectic:)

Love took up the gla.s.s of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands; Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pa.s.s'd in music out of sight.

(TENNYSON: _Locksley Hall._ 1842.)

Open then I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.

Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door,-- Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door.

(POE: _The Raven._ 1845.)

Night, in utmost noon forlorn and strong, with heart athirst and fasting, Hungers here, barred up forever, whence as one whom dreams affright, Day recoils before the low-browed lintel threatening doom and casting Night.

(SWINBURNE: _Night in Guernsey._)

In the last line of this specimen we have a nine-accent verse,--very rare in English poetry.

The tendency of all eight-accent lines being to break up into halves of four accents, the distinction between four-stress and eight-stress verse may be at times only a question of printing. Thus, Thackeray's _Sorrows of Werther_ might be regarded as eight-stress trochaic, though commonly printed in short lines:

"Werther had a love for Charlotte Such as words could never utter.

Would you know how first he saw her?