Rhymes and Meters Part 2

And there is the three-line stanza in many forms, of which this from Landor is an example:

"Children, keep up that harmless play, Your kindred angels plainly say By G.o.d's authority ye may."

And the four-line stanza--its name is legion.

The whole question resolves itself into the suitability of the form to the matter. The vehicle which carries the thought best is the one to be selected. The more appropriate the construction of the poem--the rhymes, the meter and the stanza--the better it will carry out the writer's intention. Instead of hampering his thought it will a.s.sist it.

As a means of becoming acquainted with the wide resources which wait the verse maker, the student should copy and imitate every stanza form not familiar to him. In this way he will learn for himself why the Spenserian stanza used by Keats in his "Eve of St. Agnes" is good for one sort of narrative and why the ballad stanza used by Coleridge in his "Ancient Mariner" is good for another; why one sort of stanza sings merrily and why another is fitted for funeral hymns. Best of all, he will learn that he does not have to choose among "long meter," "short meter" and "Hallelujah meter," but that an almost indefinite field lies open for him.

Also he will discover that it is not necessary to create a new stanza form in order to write a great poem. The sonnet, at which every poet has thrummed, still waits for a new master, and the "Recessional," perhaps the greatest poem of the last quarter century, was written in one of the simplest and oldest of stanzas.

V

SUBTLETIES OF VERSIFICATION

CHAPTER V

SUBTLETIES OF VERSIFICATION

The more one writes the better he becomes acquainted with what might be called "the tricks of the trade." These "tricks," "helps," or "devices"

can be explained only in a general way. Most of them each verse maker must learn for himself, but there are some broader strokes which can be more easily traced and pointed out and which are governed by fixed rules.

Perhaps the most noticeable of these is alliteration. By alliteration is meant the succession of two or more words whose initial sounds are identical or very similar.

"The _rich, ripe rose_ as with incense streams"

is a good example.

Through alliteration certain effects are produced which would otherwise be impossible. Instances will occur to every reader. To quote only one example:

"When dandelions fleck the green And robins' songs _throb through_ the trees."

In these two lines by William Allen White, the two "th"s, though out of place in most verse, here express the "throbbing" idea perfectly.

Alliteration at the beginning of accented syllables is very useful in humorous verse, helping along the rhythm and binding the lines together.

The use of onomatopoetic words, words whose sound signifies the sense, is so common that we seldom give it a thought. We have the "splash" of water; the "bang" of a gun; the "crackle" of branches and so on indefinitely. In verse this idea is carried a step farther. Lines are constructed not only with the purpose of conveying a given idea, as in prose, but with the additional end of strengthening this idea and impressing it on the mind of the reader through the choice and arrangement of the words.

"Up a _high hill_ he _heaves_ a _huge_ round stone."

In this the successive "h" sounds suggest the hard breathing and labor of the ascent.

Browning imitates the sound of galloping in the meter of his ride from Ghent to Aix.

"I sprang to the stirrup and Joris and he, I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three."

Tennyson is full of such turns as this:

"Where lay the bones of ancient men, Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang, _Shrill, chill_, with flakes of foam."

The two words certainly give a most wonderful impression of the shriek of the cold sea-wind.

Instances of this sort might be added indefinitely but these are enough to give the general idea. As a rule the best use of any device of this purpose is served when it is not too apparent; when it produces the effect without calling attention to the means.

In a certain sort of languis.h.i.+ng verse of the mystical type an effect of quaintness and dreaminess is produced by emphasizing the last syllables of words whose accent by right falls on a previous syllable. This is done by pairing them with p.r.o.nounced rhymes. For instance, "tears"

rhymes with "barriers," "her" with "well-water" and so on. It must be understood that, as an attempt to rhyme, this sort of thing is not to be countenanced, but it is perfectly allowable when it is used to obtain a certain effect.

Take this stanza from Whitman's "Song of the Broad-Axe," one of the few specimens we have of his attempts at rhyme and meter. It is a true barbaric chant whose full-mouthed syllables reproduce in little the blows of the axe.

"Weapon shapely, naked, wan, Head from the mother's bowels drawn, Wooded flesh and metal bone, limb only one and lip only one, Gray blue leaf by red-heat grown, helve produced from a little seed sown, Resting the gra.s.s amid and upon, To be leaned and to lean on."

Though our English verse largely disregards the quant.i.ty or length of a syllable, in some lines this must be considered as well as accent. A light meter and stanza may very easily be spoiled by the introduction of a too-strong word. For instance, "gnarled," "strength," "thrust," and so on are very much longer than "may," "well," "the," "for," and many other of the one-syllabled words. When a line scans correctly but "somehow sounds wrong," in nine cases out of ten the fault can be traced to a long syllable that should have been short or a short syllable that should have been long.

VI

THE QUATRAIN AND SONNET

CHAPTER VI

THE QUATRAIN AND SONNET

_The Quatrain_

In the seventeenth century the quatrain was a favorite tool of the old English writers who wished to embody a stinging epigram or epitaph in verse. The works of Robert Herrick contain several, most of them, unfortunately, not fit for print. Nor was he the only unblus.h.i.+ng exponent of the questionable quatrain.

But times have changed and like everything else the quatrain has grown respectable. From the disuse and misuse into which it had fallen the modern magazine editor rescued it and by creating a market revived the art of quatrain making. To-day sometimes the four lines are descriptive; again they contain a kindly or clever epigram, or perhaps an unexpected twist at the end that makes for a joke.

The average quatrain is in iambic pentameter with alternate lines rhyming. Sometimes the first and fourth lines rhyme and the second and third, and occasionally one sees a detached Omaric stanza. It all depends upon the thought and the way it is to be expressed. One thing is certain, that the quatrain because of its very brevity demands more care and polis.h.i.+ng than a longer piece of verse. The thought must not only be concise and clearly expressed but the four lines must contain nothing else.

The following example by Frank Dempster Sherman not only describes this form of verse but is an excellent quatrain in itself:

"Hark at the lips of this pink whorl of sh.e.l.l And you shall hear the ocean's surge and roar: So in the quatrain's measure, written well A thousand lines shall all be sung in four."

_The Sonnet_