CHAPTER III

No one would read the sentence with a very clear feeling of this definite movement; in fact, to do so rather obscures the meaning. But the potential rhythm is there, and the reader with a keen rhythmic sense will be to some extent aware of it.

Again, there is in the following sentence from Disraeli's Endymion a latent rhythm which actually affects the purely logical manner of reading it:

She persisted in her dreams of riding upon elephants.

Here one almost inevitably pauses afterdreams(or prolongs the word beyond its natural length), though there is no logical reason for doing so. Why? Partly, at least, becausepersisted in her dreamsandof riding upon el-have the same 'swing,' and the parallelism of mere sound seems to require the pause.

For these reasons, then, among others, the most 'natural' spontaneous and straightforward prose is not always the best. Study and careful revision arenecessary in order to avoid an awkward and unpleasant monotony of rhythmic repetition, and at the same time obtain a flow of sound which will form a just musical accompaniment to the ideas expressed. Only the great prose masters have done this with complete success. Of the three following examples the first is from Bacon; the second is from Milton, who as a poet might have been expected to fall into metre while writing emotional prose; the third is from Walter Pater—the famous translation into words of the Mona Lisa painted by Leonardo da Vinci. The first is elaborate but unaffected, the second is probably spontaneous, the third highly studied.

This kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the schoolmen: who having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle their dictator) as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of nature or time, did out of no great quantity of matter and infinite agitation of wit spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books. For the wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures of God, worketh according to the stuff and is limited thereby; but if it work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit.Advancement of Learning, Bk. I, iv, 5.Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on; but when he ascended, and his Apostles after him were laid asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From thattime ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them.Areopagitica.Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the world are come," and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. ... She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants: and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands."Leonardo da Vinci," in The Renaissance.

Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Master, and was a perfect shape most glorious to look on; but when he ascended, and his Apostles after him were laid asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators how they dealt with the good Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From thattime ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them.Areopagitica.

Hers is the head upon which all "the ends of the world are come," and the eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. ... She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her; and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants: and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands."Leonardo da Vinci," in The Renaissance.

Here no continuous patterns are recognizable, yet the whole is felt to be musically and appropriately rhythmic. In the next excerpt, however (from John Donne), and in many passages in the Authorized Version of the Psalms, of Job, of the Prophets, there is a visible balance of phrases and of clauses, a long undulating swing which one perceives at once, though only half consciously, and which approaches, if it does not actually possess, the intentional coincidence of cadenced prose.

If some king of the earth have so large an extent of dominion in north and south as that he hath winter and summer together in his dominions; so large an extent east and west as that he hath day and night together in his dominions, much more hath God mercy and justice together. He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; He can bring thy summer out of winter though thou have no spring; though in the ways of fortune, or ofunderstanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest to fill all penuries. All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons.

Cadenced Prose.Cadenced prose is in English chiefly an historical phenomenon of the seventeenth century. It is part of the late Renaissance literary movement, when prose, after vaguely classic models, was held worth cultivating on its own account; and is in some degree a tempered afterglow of the crude brilliance of euphuistic balance and alliteration. It made no effort to conceal its definite rhythmic movements—rather, it gloried in them; but was always careful that they should not become monotonous or too palpable.

In the following examples the rhythmic units are for the sake of clearness indicated by separate lines, after the fashion of 'free-verse.' The passages should be read first with the line-division uppermost in the attention; then as continuous prose. The result of the second reading will be perhaps a fuller appreciation of the rhythmic richness of the sentences, both as to variety and uniformity. Sing-song and 'pounding' are by all means to be deprecated.

(a) Simple two-and three-beat rhythms—

O eloquent justand mighty Death!whom none could advisethou hast persuaded;what none hath daredthou hast done;and whom all the world hath flatteredthou only hast cast out of the world and despised.Thou hast drawn togetherall the far-stretched greatnessall the pride crueltyand ambition of man,and covered it all overwith these twonarrow wordsHic jacet.Sir Walter Raleigh, History of the World, Bk. V, ch. vi.

(b) Simple three-and four-beat rhythms—

They that have great intrigues of the worldhave a yoke upon their necksand cannot look back.And he that covets many things greedilyand snatches at high things ambitiouslythat despises his neighbor proudlyand bears his crosses peevishlyor his prosperity impotently and passionatelyhe that is a prodigal of his precious timeand is tenacious and retentive of evil purposesis not a man disposed to this exercise:he hath reason to be afraid of his own memoryand to dash his glass in piecesbecause it must needs represent to his own eyesan intolerable deformity.Jeremy Taylor, Holy Dying, ch. ii, sect. 2.

Now since these dead boneshave already outlastedthe living ones of Methuselahand in a yard under groundand thin walls of clayoutworn all the strongand spacious buildings above it,and quietly restedunder the drums and tramplingsof three conquests;what Prince can promisesuch diuturnityunto his reliquesor might not gladly say'Sic ego componi versus in ossa velim.'Sir Thomas Browne, Urn Burial, ch. v.

(d) Mainly three-beat rhythms—

What song the Syrens sangor what name Achilles assumedwhen he hid himself among women though puzzling questionsare not beyond all conjecture.What time the persons of these ossuariesentered the famous nations of the deadand slept with princes and counsellorsmight admit a wide solution.But who were the proprietaries of these bonesor what bodies these ashes made upwere a question above antiquarism;not to be resolved by mannor easily perhaps by spiritsexcept we consult the provincialguardians or tutelary Observators.Ibid.

Metrical Prose.The above passages are daring, but greatly daring. So great is the subtlety, the variety, the art, that they never fail of their intended effect. They are justifiable because they justify themselves—partly by their lofty and dignified content, partly of course by their sheer artistry. But when the same thing is attempted by unskilful hands it fails ingloriously. We say it has "a palpable design upon us,"and balk. Gibbon and Burke, as inheritors of the seventeenth-century tradition, sometimes fell into the error; Ruskin, with his 'poetical' style, was sometimes guilty; but the worst and most conspicuous offenders were Dickens and Blackmore. Examples are abundant. Not all are equally unpleasant; the individual taste of some readers will approve passages which others will reject. With Dickens and Blackmore, however, the phenomenon approaches downright deliberate trickiness.

The calculation of profit in all such wars is false. On balancing the account of such wars, ten thousand hogsheads of sugarare purchased at ten thousand times their price. The blood of man should neverbe shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind.The rest is vanity; the rest is crime.Burke, Letters on a Regicide Peace, I.

When Death strikes down the innocent and youngfor every fragile form from which he letsthe panting spirit freea hundred virtues risein shapes of mercy, charity, and love,to walk the world and bless it.Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shedon such green gravessome good is bornsome gentler nature comes.Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, ch. 72"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost,"I made it link by link, and yard by yard."Dickens, Christmas Carol.I cannot rest, I cannot stay,I cannot linger anywhere.Ibid.Much they saw and far they went,and many homes they visited,but always with a happy end.Dickens, Christmas Carol.But above the curved soft elbow,where no room was for one cross word(according to our proverb)three sad gashesedged with crimsonspoiled the flow of the pearly flesh.Blackmore, Lorna Doone, ch. 38.

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost,"I made it link by link, and yard by yard."Dickens, Christmas Carol.

I cannot rest, I cannot stay,I cannot linger anywhere.Ibid.

Much they saw and far they went,and many homes they visited,but always with a happy end.Dickens, Christmas Carol.

But above the curved soft elbow,where no room was for one cross word(according to our proverb)three sad gashesedged with crimsonspoiled the flow of the pearly flesh.Blackmore, Lorna Doone, ch. 38.

A peculiar instance of metrical prose, avowedly an experiment and fortunately (as most will think) not repeated, is the passage near the end of Kingsley's Westward Ho! Kingsley called it 'prose shaped into song.' The objection is simply that in such a situation song is out of place. Let prose do the legitimate work of prose; and when the intensity of feeling justifies song, let there be song. No hybrids, no cross-breeding—unless, as here, for purposes of experiment. Here is a part of the passage:

Then he took a locket from his bosom; and I heard him speak, Will, and he said: "Here's the picture of my fair and true lady; drink to her, Señors, all." Then he spoke to me, Will, and called me, right up through the oar-weed and the sea: "We have had a fair quarrel, Señor; it is time to be friends once more. My wife and your brother have forgiven me; so your honour takes no stain."

Elements of Prose Rhythm.Thus far the discussion of language rhythm has been confined to a general perception of rhythmic movement. When an attempt is made to carry the investigation into greater detail, more difficult and from a prosodic point of view really crucialproblems present themselves. The essential thing in any perception of rhythm is the experience of groups; but what are the nature and determining qualities of these groups? In music there are bars—the primary rhythmic group, comprising a single rhythmic wave, that is, covering the time-distance from one point of division to another—phrases, cadences, etc. The dual nature of language, however, its union of sound elements and thought elements, gives the question another aspect. Corresponding to the musical bar there is the metrical foot; to the musical phrase, the logical phrase; to the musical cadence, a similar melodious flow of word-sounds. But there are also in prose what are called breath-groups and attention-groups, series of words bound together by the physiological requirements of utterance and the mental requirements of perception and understanding.[13]The first step towards clearness will be a closer distinction between prose and metrical rhythms.

Syllable.The simplest and smallest unit of speech-sound is the syllable; then follow, in increasing magnitude, the word, the phrase (that is, words held together by their meaning or by their sound), the clause, the sentence, the paragraph. These units exist in verse as well as in prose, but while verse has other units (which are arbitrary and artificial), prose rhythm has only these. The rhythm of a paragraph is determined by the length, structure, content, and arrangement of the sentences; that of a sentence by the length, structure,content, and arrangement of the phrases; that of the phrase by the length, structure, content, and arrangement of the words; that of a word by the character of the syllables. Now syllables, as has been explained above, have the sound attributes of duration, intensity (or lack of intensity), and pitch—called, however, in the terminology of phonetics, length or quantity, accent (or no accent), and pitch. These must be studied individually before their combined effects can be understood.

Length.Length is of course comparative. Some vowels require a longer time to enunciate than others: theeinpenalthan theiinpin, theoincoatthan theoincot, etc. Again, some consonants are shorter by nature than others: the explosives,p,t,k, etc., than the continuantss,z,th,f,m,n,l, etc. When vowels and consonants are combined into syllables the comparative length is still more apparent: thusformis longer thangod,stolethanpoke,curlthancut, etc. Moreover, it is not alone the natural quantity of vowels and consonants that affects or determines their length, but also their position in a word and in a sentence. Thus, for example, the same sounds are uttered more rapidly when closely followed by one or more syllables than when alone: asbit,bitter,bitterly;hard,hardy,hardily. This elasticity of syllabic quantity is clearly shown in Verrier's examples:[14]

They come fast—faster yet—faster and faster Barren mountain tracts—barren affections.

These indications, moreover, cover normal utterance only; in emotional language or elocutionary delivery there are deliberate and arbitrary lengthenings and shortenings.[15]

Accent and Stress.The termaccentmay best be reserved for grammatical or dictionary accent—the greater emphasis placed according to standard usage upon one syllable of a word as compared with the others. Thusportionhas an accent on the first syllable,materialon the second,apprehensionon the third,deliberationon the fourth. The other syllables are either unaccented, as the first ofmaterialand the second ofportion, or have a secondary accent, as the second ofdeliberation.

Accent should be distinguished fromstress, which is the rhythmical emphasis in a series of sounds. In prose the rhythmical stress is determined almost wholly by accent; in verse the two sometimes coincide and sometimes differ markedly.

In certain words whose accent is somewhat evenly divided between two syllables, and in certain combinationsof monosyllables, there is a tendency to subject even grammatical accent to rhythmical stress. Hence the common pronunciationsNewfoundland,Hawthornden; the alternation of stress inpoor old man,sad hurt heart; and the shift of accent in "In aChinese restaurant the waiters are Chinese."

Pitch.Pitch is a very uncertain and variable phenomenon. For the most part it is an ornament or aid to simple language rhythms, but under some conditions it plays an important rôle which cannot be neglected. Because of the physical structure of the vocal organs pitch is constantly changing in spoken discourse, though often the changes are not readily perceptible. Usually it coincides with accent.[16]It is also a frequent but by no means regular means of intensifying accent: compare "That was done simply" (normal utterance) with "That was simply wonderful" (intensive utterance). On the other hand pitch and accent sometimes clash: compare "The idea is good" (normal utterance) with "Theidea!" (exclamatory). Other examples ofpitch as a significant factor in prose are: "One should not say 'good' but 'goodly,' not 'brave' but 'bravely'"; "Not praise but praisinggives him delight."[17]

Another aspect of pitch is that which in the rhetorics is usually called inflection. A question is uttered with rising inflection, that is, with a higher pitch at the end. Declarative sentences usually have a falling inflection just before the final period, that is, a lower pitch. Exclamations often have a circumflex inflection, as "Really!" spoken in a sarcastic tone; that is, the pitch rises and falls.

Experimental attempts to indicate variations of pitch by our common musical notation are given by Verrier. A single example will suffice here.[18]

I come from haunts of coot and hern

Perhaps the most important aspect of pitch from the point of view of rhythm is its actual influence upon accent. We say naturally: "He wasfifteen years old"; but place the numeral for emphasis at the end of the sentence and it receives a kind of pitch accent: "Hisage was fifteen." Compare alsoChinese and Chinesein the example above.

Observe carefully the elements of duration, stress, accent, and pitch in the following sentences:

Now he's a great big man.He was aremarkable young fellow, but he had anungovernable temper.Off went Joy; on came Despair.

Now he's a great big man.

He was aremarkable young fellow, but he had anungovernable temper.

Off went Joy; on came Despair.

Word and Phrase Rhythm.The next larger unit after the syllable is the word; after the word, the phrase. Something has already been said in the previous paragraphs on word and phrase rhythm: it remains to examine them more closely.

Words vary in length from one to eight or even ten syllables; and the accents (main and secondary) may fall on any of these syllables according to the origin and historical development of the word—thus words of two syllables:ápple,alóne; of three syllables:béautiful,accéssion,appercéive; of four syllables:ápoplexy,matérial,evolútion,interreláte. But generally in polysyllables the tendency to rhythmic alternation of stress produces one or more secondary accents more or less distinctly felt; thus on the first syllable ofapperceiveand on the third ofapoplexythere is an obvious secondary accent; on the third syllable ofbeautifuland the fourth ofmaterialthere are potential accents, not regularly felt as such but capable, under certain circumstances, of rhythmic stress. For example, in the phrase 'beautiful clothes' there is no accent and no stress on -ful; but in 'beautiful attire' the syllable -fulreceives a very slight accent (properly not recognizedby the dictionaries) which can well serve as a weak rhythmic stress. Long words illustrate the same principle:antitranssubstantionalistic,pseudomonocotyledonous,perfectibiliarianism. This potential stress is of the utmost importance in verse—as when Milton out of three words, two of which have no recognized secondary accent, makes a 5-stress line:

Immutable, immortal, infinite.Paradise Lost, III, 373.

The result of this tendency to alternation, or in other words of the difficulty of pronouncing more than three consecutive syllables without introducing a secondary accent or stress, is that English phrases fall naturally into four rhythmic patterns or movements (and their combinations): 1. accent + no-accent (a.one syllable,b.two syllables); 2. no-accent (a.one syllable,b.two syllables) + accent. Examples: 1abeauty, 1bbeautiful, 2arelate, 2bintercede. These four movements are variously named: the first two are calledfalling, the second tworising; 1a and 2a are calleddupleordissyllabic, 1b and 2btripleortrisyllabic; 1a is calledtrochaic, 1bdactylic, 2aiambic, 2banapestic(after the names of the metrical feet in classical prosody).Beauty, by this usage, is a trochee,beautifula dactyl,relatean iamb,intercedean anapest. But these patterns alone are by no means sufficient to explain or register all the phrasal movements of English prose—as a single sentence will show.

Here the first phrase is in falling rhythm, the second (probably) in rising rhythm, the third is—rising or falling? To some readers it will appear of one sort, to others of another. The fourth phrase is probably rising, the fifth doubtful, the sixth falling, the seventh probably rising. To say that the first phrase is made up of a dactyl and two trochees means very little. The primary fact to be recognized and understood is that these four patterns exist in English speech not as absolute entities but as tendencies. In prose they are discontinuous, irregularly alternating, often hardly perceptible; but they are there as potential forces whose latent effects are brought out by regular metre.

Another problem at once obvious is to determine the limits of a phrase. Some readers will feel "to fortune" in the above sentence as a separate phrase, others will join it to the three words that precede. No rules can be laid down. Two tentative but useful criteria are possible, however. A phrase may be regarded as purely musical, a group of sounds that either by their own nature or by their possibility of utterance in a single expulsion of breath seem to belong together. But this is an uncertain criterion, since we separate the sounds of words with great difficulty from their meaning, and the periods of breathing are subject to arbitrary control. And some phrases are uttered in much less than the time required in normal breathing. The other criterion, sometimes supporting sometimes contradicting the former, is the logical content of words. But this also is uncertain, since logical content ought to hold subject and verb together, whereas in the exampleabove it clearly does not. And neither breath grouping nor logical grouping will enable us to determine whether "either of virtue or of mischief" is two phrases or one.

The limits of the sentence, with its clauses, are, largely through the modern conventions of printing, more distinctly felt and observed. But its rhythm is none the less complex. For it is not only the sum of the smaller rhythmic movements of word and phrase and clause, but forms a new entity of itself, created by the union of the lesser elements—just as a building is more than its component bricks, stones, and timbers.

Composite Speech Rhythm.Such, briefly described, are the rhythmic elements of spoken English prose. When only small sections are analyzed singly, it is possible to understand something, at least, of the intricate pattern of forces which are interwoven in the rhythms of ordinary language. When one undertakes to analyze and express the combined rhythms—musical, logical, emotional—of connected sentences and paragraphs, one finds no system of notation adequate; the melodies and harmonies disappear in the process of being explained. Those who wish to enjoy to the fullest the rhythmic beauties of English prose must patiently scrutinize the smallest details, then study the details in larger and still larger combinations—the balance and contrast of phrases, the alternation of dependent and independent clauses, the varieties of long and short sentences, of simple, compound, periodic sentences—and finally endeavor to rejoin the parts into a completewhole. To pursue the subject further would be to encroach upon the domain of formal rhetoric and would be out of place here. The best counsel is the old counsel: try tounderstandandfeelthe great passages of the great prose masters. A few examples have been given on pages 25 ff., above; they should be studied diligently.

Prose and Verse Rhythm.It is but a short step from the occasional regularity of rhythm in the passages on pages 27-29 to the deliberately continuous regularity of verse. A tendency to rhythmic flow, it has already been shown, is inherent in ordinary language. When the words are made to convey heightened emotion this tendency is increased, and "the deeper the feeling, the more characteristic and decided the rhythm" (John Stuart Mill). Then, as Coleridge says, "the wheels take fire from the mere rapidity of their motion," and finally we have

high and passionate thoughtsTo their own music chanted.

Intensified, regularized rhythm is reciprocally both a result of impassioned feeling and a cause of it: hence its double function in poetry. It springs, on the one hand, from "the high spiritual instinct of the human being impelling us to seek unity by harmonious adjustment and thus establishing the principle thatallthe parts of an organized whole must be assimilated to the moreimportantandessentialparts." On the other hand, it "resembles (if the aptness of the simile may excuse its meanness) yeast, worthless or disagreeableby itself, but giving vivacity and spirit to the liquor with which it is proportionally combined."[19]

The question is as old as Aristotle, whether metre, that is, regularized rhythm, is an inalienable and necessary concomitant of poetry. The answer rests on a precise understanding of terms; for the right antithesis, so far as there is one, is not between prose and poetry, but between prose and verse. High and passionate thoughts, true poetical feeling and expression may and do exist in prose, but their most natural and characteristic expression is in verse. The old question has been lately reopened, however, by the anomalous form called 'free-verse.' Only the name is new; the thing itself is, at its best, but a carefully rhythmed prose printed in a new shape: an effort to combine in an effective union some of the characteristics of spatial rhythm with the established temporal rhythms of language. Free-verse will be discussed more fully on a later page; it is mentioned here because it is a natural transition between prose and verse, claiming as it does the freedom of the one and the powers of the other.

Another means of recognizing the close relations of verse and prose is to try to determine which of several passages of similarly heightened emotion, printed in the same form, was originally verse and which prose.

Yet, as I would not catch your love with a lie, but force you to love me as I am, faulty, imperfect, human, so I would not cheat your inward being with untrue hopes nor confuse pure truth with a legend. This only I have: I am true to my truth, I have not faltered; and my own end, the sudden departure from the virile earth I love so eagerly, once such a sombre matter, now appears nothing beside this weightier, more torturing bereavement.But follow; let the torrent dance thee down to find him in the valley; let the wild lean-headed eagles yelp alone, and leave the monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, that like a broken purpose waste in air. So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales await thee; azure pillars of the hearth arise to thee; the children call, I thy shepherd pipe.A late lark twitters from the quiet skies; and from the west, where the sun, his day's work ended, lingers as in content, there falls on the old, gray city an influence luminous and serene, a shining peace. The smoke ascends in a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires shine, and are changed. In the valley shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun, closing his benediction, sinks, and the darkening air thrills with a sense of the triumphing night—night with her train of stars and her great gift of sleep.There, suddenly, within that crimson radiance, rose the apparition of a woman's head, and then of a woman's figure. The child it was—grown up to woman's height. Clinging to the horns of the altar, voiceless she stood—sinking, rising, raving, despairing; and behind the volume of incense, that, night and day, streamed upwards from the altar, dimly was seen the fiery font, and the shadow of that dreadful being who should have baptized her with the baptism of death. But by her side was kneeling her better angel, that hid his face with wings; that wept and pleaded forher; that prayed whenshecouldnot; that fought with Heavenby tears forherdeliverance; which also, as he raised his immortal countenance from his wings, I saw, by the glory of his eye, that from Heaven he had won at last.Dost thou already single me? I thought gyves and the mill had tamed thee. Oh that fortune had brought me to the field where thou art famed to have wrought such wonders with an ass's jaw! I should have forced thee soon wish other arms, or left thy carcass where the ass lay thrown; so had the glory of prowess been recovered to Palestine.And when, in times made better through your brave decision now,—might but Utopia be!—Rome rife with honest women and strong men, manners reformed, old habits back once more, customs that recognize the standard worth,—the wholesome household rule in force again, husbands once more God's representative, wives like the typical Spouse once more, and Priests no longer men of Belial, with no aim at leading silly women captive, but of rising to such duties as yours now,—then will I set my son at my right hand and tell his father's story to this point.[20]

But follow; let the torrent dance thee down to find him in the valley; let the wild lean-headed eagles yelp alone, and leave the monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, that like a broken purpose waste in air. So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales await thee; azure pillars of the hearth arise to thee; the children call, I thy shepherd pipe.

A late lark twitters from the quiet skies; and from the west, where the sun, his day's work ended, lingers as in content, there falls on the old, gray city an influence luminous and serene, a shining peace. The smoke ascends in a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires shine, and are changed. In the valley shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun, closing his benediction, sinks, and the darkening air thrills with a sense of the triumphing night—night with her train of stars and her great gift of sleep.

There, suddenly, within that crimson radiance, rose the apparition of a woman's head, and then of a woman's figure. The child it was—grown up to woman's height. Clinging to the horns of the altar, voiceless she stood—sinking, rising, raving, despairing; and behind the volume of incense, that, night and day, streamed upwards from the altar, dimly was seen the fiery font, and the shadow of that dreadful being who should have baptized her with the baptism of death. But by her side was kneeling her better angel, that hid his face with wings; that wept and pleaded forher; that prayed whenshecouldnot; that fought with Heavenby tears forherdeliverance; which also, as he raised his immortal countenance from his wings, I saw, by the glory of his eye, that from Heaven he had won at last.

Dost thou already single me? I thought gyves and the mill had tamed thee. Oh that fortune had brought me to the field where thou art famed to have wrought such wonders with an ass's jaw! I should have forced thee soon wish other arms, or left thy carcass where the ass lay thrown; so had the glory of prowess been recovered to Palestine.

And when, in times made better through your brave decision now,—might but Utopia be!—Rome rife with honest women and strong men, manners reformed, old habits back once more, customs that recognize the standard worth,—the wholesome household rule in force again, husbands once more God's representative, wives like the typical Spouse once more, and Priests no longer men of Belial, with no aim at leading silly women captive, but of rising to such duties as yours now,—then will I set my son at my right hand and tell his father's story to this point.[20]

On the other hand, it is worth observing what effect metrical arrangement has upon the emotional quality and power of words and phrases. Hardly anyone would, perhaps, find the following passages strikingly melodious:

Prince Lucifer uprose on a starr'd night. The fiend, tired of his dark dominion, swung above the rolling ball, part screen'd in cloud, where sinners hugg'd their spectre of repose.Here there is sweet music that falls softer on the grass than petals from blown roses, or night-dews on still waters in a gleamingpass between walls of shadowy granite; music that lies gentlier on the spirit than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.

Prince Lucifer uprose on a starr'd night. The fiend, tired of his dark dominion, swung above the rolling ball, part screen'd in cloud, where sinners hugg'd their spectre of repose.

Here there is sweet music that falls softer on the grass than petals from blown roses, or night-dews on still waters in a gleamingpass between walls of shadowy granite; music that lies gentlier on the spirit than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.

But turn these words back to their original metrical order, and it is almost a miracle performed. One recalls Coleridge's definition of poetry as the best words in the best places.

On a starr'd night Prince Lucifer uprose.Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiendAbove the rolling ball in cloud part screen'd,Where sinners hugg'd their spectre of repose.Meredith, Lucifer in Starlight.There is sweet music here that softer fallsThan petals from blown roses on the grass,Or night-dews on still waters between fallsOf shadowy granite in a gleaming pass,Music that gentlier on the spirit liesThan tired eyelids upon tired eyes.Tennyson, Lotos Eaters.

There is sweet music here that softer fallsThan petals from blown roses on the grass,Or night-dews on still waters between fallsOf shadowy granite in a gleaming pass,Music that gentlier on the spirit liesThan tired eyelids upon tired eyes.Tennyson, Lotos Eaters.

It should now be clear that prose and verse are not so antithetical as is often supposed; that they are only different forms of the same substance, language; two branches from the same root. At certain points they overlap and are practically one; at other points the divergence is obvious but not great; and even in their extreme differences the common basis of the rhythms is the same. In both prose and verse are the same relations of time, stress, and pitch, except that in verse the arrangement and order of them are according to a perceptible pattern.Verse is but prose fitted over a framework of metre.Herein lies the whole art of versification, the whole psychology of poetic rhythm, the whole problem of metrical study and investigation.

We must always remember that "a line of verse is a portion of speech-material with all its phonetic features (corresponding to its ethos as well as its logos)adjusted, without violence, to a fixed and definite metrical scheme. The two entities, metrical scheme and portion of speech-material adjusted thereto, are distinct and the chief study of the metricist is the manner of adjustment of the latter to the former, the way in which a suitable portion of phonetic liquid is chosen and poured into metrical bottles."[21]Only after having grasped what can be grasped of the subtleties of prose rhythm, and having learned the common forms and patterns of metre, can we put the two together, recognize their new unity, perceive the new rhythmic beauties, harmonies, modulations that spring from their mutual adjustment.

A word may be added here, though the subject is one rather of æsthetics than of prosody, on the function of metre in emphasizing and reinforcing the beauties of thought, emotion, and expression that poetry offers. Two practical illustrations have just been given above. Every writer on poetics, from Aristotle down, has had something to contribute, but the substance of it all may be found in the eighteenth chapter of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, from which a few sentences have already been quoted.[22]It is not merely that verse by its external appearance notifies the reader, or by itsperceptible regularity notifies the listener, that the writer is putting forth his highest efforts, that language is being driven to its highest possibilities; it is not that the use of verse signalizes greater aims and intentions than the use of prose; but rather that the higher efforts, the greater aims, turn by a natural, spontaneous, but partly mysterious instinct to metrical forms for adequate or fit expression. The poets themselves have proved this. No one, barring a few notable exceptions, who felt the creative powers of poetry within him has dared neglect or refuse the added difficulties and the potential beauties of metre. Not the sense of obstacles overcome, but of possibilities realized prompts to formal rhythms. Music, in Dryden's phrase, is inarticulate poetry; but poetry, while it remains articulate and endeavors to accomplish its own destinies, will always approach as close as its own conditions permit to the powers of music. Some poets are inclined more powerfully to music than others. Burns composed with definite melodies in mind; Shelley often began with a little tune which he gradually crystallized into words; Schiller tells us that inspiration often came to him first in the form of music. Tennyson, Swinburne, and others, have chanted rather than read their poetry aloud. And even Browning, who sometimes appears to prefer discord to music, is found to have studied not only the science of music, but also the musical effectiveness of words.

While it is unquestionably going too far to insist as Hegel does that "metre is the first and only condition absolutely demanded by poetry, yea even more necessarythan a figurative picturesque diction"; or even to say that the finest poetry is always metrical; still it remains a simple fundamental truth that metre is the natural form of poetic language. The great exceptions to this—the poetic prose of a Sir Thomas Browne, a Pater, a Carlyle, or the free-verse of Whitman—do but prove its soundness; for we always feel them to be something exceptional, something not quite natural though not quite amiss, something wonderful, liketours de force. We would not wish them otherwise, perhaps; but we should doubt them if we did not actually have them before us.

Elements of verse rhythm.The simplest metrical unit is the syllable; the next higher unit is the foot, a group of syllables; the next higher unit the line, a group of feet; then the stanza or strophe.

In some prosodies—as the French and Italian, for example—the standard unit of verse is the syllable. The first essential of a line is that it have a certain number of syllables; the accents or stresses may, theoretically at least, fall anywhere in the line. In English verse also the syllable has sometimes been regarded as the unit, but for the most part only by a few poets and prosodists of the late sixteenth, the seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.

The foot corresponds in English verse to what has been described in Chapter I as the rhythmic unit of all rhythms, namely that which recurs in regular sequence. It comprises, therefore, a point of emphasis and all that occupies the time-distance between that point of emphasis and the following one. In other words, a foot is a section of speech-rhythm containing a stressed element and an unstressed element, usually one or two unaccented syllables. So much is clear and undisputed in theory. But there are few single topics on which writers on English prosody are so much at variance ason the further, more accurate definition of the foot. One of the main sources of difficulty, however, is easily removed. The metrical foot is not a natural division of language, like the word or the phrase, but an arbitrary division, like the bar in music, an abstraction having no existence independent of the larger rhythm of which it is a part. The analogy between the metrical foot and the musical bar is very close: they are both artificial sections of rhythm which either in whole or in part may be grouped into such phrases as the ideas or melodies may require.[23]They may be isolated and treated by themselves only for the purposes of analysis, for they are merely theoretical entities, like the chemical elements. There is no reason, therefore, that the foot should correspond with word divisions, no objection to the falling of different syllables of one word into different feet. Thus in Gray's line

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