CHAPTER III

METER

Here, at the outset, we find precisely what differentiates verse from prose. These two possess much in common. Their ideals are often similar; their subjects may be identical; their cadences sometimes coincide. Yet there is an essential difference, which has seldom been rightly stated, and which is a difference of mechanical method. The units of prose are diverse, irregular in length, rarely conformed to a common pattern. In verse, on the other hand, succession is continuous. Something recurs with regularity. This is the distinctive note of verse, making its structure differ from that of prose; no other absolute line of demarcation can be drawn. Typical recurrence, uniform repetition, is the prime postulate of meter. -T. S. OMOND: A Study of Meter. We have seen that the habits of the English language are such as to make it practically impossible to write English verse except in one of the four rhythms which we call iambic, trochaic, anapestic and dactylic. And the practice of the poets reveals that any poem in our language must be in one or another of these rhythms. The poet, having accustomed our ear to the rhythm he has chosen, must keep to the pattern of his choice. He must give us the succession of beats in the order he has promised them to us. He may make varied substitutions and frequent suppressions inside his lines, but he must preserve always the expected framework of the chosen form. That is to say, he must decide once for all, whether he will compose in an iambic rhythm or a trochaic, an anapestic or a dactylic.

Of these four rhythms, the iambic has ever been the favorite. Indeed, there seem to have been periods when it was the only rhythm known. In King James' rules

for writing verse, published in 1585, only the iambus is considered, as if it was the sole possible rhythm. Even in Greek, Aristotle held the iambic to be the most colloquial, since "conversational speech runs into iambic form more frequently than into any other kind of verse." Probably nine tenths of English poetry is iambic; this is the basis of the blank verse of Shakspere's plays and of Milton's epic, of most ballads old and new, of the heroic couplet of Dryden and of Pope, of the sonnet, and of a large majority of the hymns. Even in the nineteenth century, when poets were eager in devising new stanzaic arrangements, most of them clung to the iambus. Perhaps this immense popularity is due to the simplicity of the rhythm, with its short followed by a long, in accord with the rhetorical precept of putting the emphasis at the end. Perhaps it is due to the fact that when the iambic is once established in the ear of the listener, the poet can avoid monotony by a wide variety of substitutions and suppressions.

Although iambic and trochaic rhythms consist in a similar succession of alternating longs and shorts, the iambic is far bolder; it is more masculine; it has a direct vigor, which seems often to be lacking to the trochaic. The iambic apparently has a majesty of its own which fits it for loftier themes. The trochaic is gentler, sweeter, more feminine, adapted for consolation rather than for reinvigoration. It is inferior in terseness and in sharpness.

The anapestic rhythm had served chiefly for satire and for humor, until the nineteenth century, when English poets began to appreciate it and to employ it for nobler topics. It was the favorite of Swinburne, who handled it with superb freedom and mastery.

The dactylic rhythm is least used of the four, although Hood proved that it had advantages of its own, and although Browning employed it with clear understanding of its special characteristics.

In rimeless verse a poet might let any one of these rhythms flow on indefinitely, breaking off only when he had come to the end of his topic. But this un broken flow is too fatiguing for the ear; and therefore poems are divided into lines, so that the ear can have intervals of rest. When a rhythm is thus cut into sections we have meter, for we can measure every line by the number of times the foot happens to be repeated. In the verse of the modern languages, the ends of the lines are generally distinguished by rimes, a device unknown to the ancients. In some modern languages, especially in French which lacks boldness of accent, these terminal rimes are so important as to be almost essential. But in English, although rime is useful, it is not necessary; and the poets of our language have adventured themselves in many forms of unrimed verse.

Whether there is or is not a terminal rime, there is generally a pause of some sort to mark the end of the line; and there is often a full stop, although the more accomplished masters of meter reveal their dexterity in carrying over the sense from line to line while still keeping the structure distinct. Here again the appeal is to the ear and not to the eye; the poet may choose to print his lines to suit his own whim; but the way in which he presents them does not determine the metrical scheme. That is decided by the ear of the listener and not by the eye of the reader. We may even disregard the arrangement of the rimes

in deciding what the meter really is. For example, Shelley chose to write this as six lines:

And Scott chose to write this as four lines:

Who spilleth life, shall forfeit life,

So bid my lord believe;

That lawless love is guilt above,

This awful sign receive.

While Macaulay was satisfied to set this down as only two lines:

Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are ; And glory to our sovereign liege, King Henry of Navarre.

But however different these three on the printed page may appear to the eye, the ear recognizes them at once as identical. They are all three of the iambic heptameter, modulated by occasional anapests. And when we translate them into symbols we see that Shelley's

The differing typographical presentations and the differing rime-schemes may be disregarded since the effect upon the ear is identical in all three cases. Other examples of the advisability of disregarding the way in which the poet may have written his lines have been given in the second chapter,- from Poe's "For Annie" and from Byron's "Bride of Abydos." In all these poems, the way in which the poet has preferred to present these lines to the eye of the reader is not really the way in which he composed them for his own ear and for the ears of his future readers.

There is no limit to the number of feet which may be included in a single line, except in so far as excessive length may impose an undue burden on the ear and make it more difficult to carry the tune. Swinburne wrote a ballade in anapestic hexameter :

There are cliffs to be climbed on land, there are ways to be trodden and ridden; but we

Strike out from the shore as the heart invites and beseeches, athirst for the foam.

And once he even ventured on a long-drawn anapestic octameter, which called for twenty-four syllables in every line:

Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and the splendor of winter had passed out of sight,

The ways of the woodland were fairer and stranger than dreams that fulfil us in sleep with delight.