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NOTES
In some of these poems, as in others of the Six Poems (see Bibliography), a quantitative
metrical system has been used which seems to have puzzled some critics,
apparently because it does not follow the laws of quantity obtaining in the
ancient classical languages. But those laws are quite alien to the rhythm and
sound-structure of the English tongue; the attempt to observe them has always
ended in deserved and inevitable failure. Another system has been followed here
which is in agreement with the native rhythm of English speech. There what
determines the metrical length or brevity of syllables is weight, the weight of
the voice emphasis or the dwelling of the voice upon the sound. Where there is
that emphasis or that dwelling of the voice, the syllable may be considered
metrically long; where both are absent there will be, normally, a recognisable shortness which can only be cured by some aid
of consonant weight or other lengthening circumstance. All stressed syllables
are metrically long in English and cannot be otherwise however short the vowel
may be, for they dominate the verse movement; this is a fact which is ignored
in the traditional account of English quantity and which many experimenters in
quantitative verse have chosen to disregard with disastrous consequences, - all
their genius or skill in metrical technique could not save them from failure.
On the other hand, a long-vowel syllable can be regarded as metrically long
even if there is no stress upon it. In the quantitative system used in these
poems this possibility is converted into a law: metrical length is obligatory
for all such natural syllabic longs, while a short-vowel syllable unstressed is
normally short for metrical purposes unless it is very heavily weighted with
consonants. But the mere occurrence of two or more consonants after a short
vowel does not by itself make the syllable long as it necessarily does in
Greek, Latin or Sanskrit.
The system may then be reduced to the following rules: -
1. All stressed syllables are regarded as metrically long, as also all
syllables supported on a long vowel.
2. All short-vowel syllables not stressed are regarded as
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short unless they are heavily weighted with
consonants. But on this last point no fixed rule can be given; in each case the
ear must be the judge.
3. There are a great number of sounds in English which can be regarded
according to circumstances either as longs or as shorts. Here too the ear must
decide in each case.
4. English quantity metres cannot be as rigid as the metres of ancient tongues.
The rhythm of the language demands a certain variability, free or sparing,
without which monotony sets in; accordingly, in all English metres modulation
is admitted as possible. Even the most regular rhythms do not altogether shut our
the substitution of other feet than those fixed in the normal basic arrangement
of the line; they admit at least so much as is needed to give the necessary
pliancy or variety to the movement. There is sometimes a very free use of such
variations; but they ought not to be allowed to break the basic movement or
overburden or overlay it. The same rule must apply in quantitative metres;
especially in long poems modulations are indispensable.
This system is not only not at discord with the sound-structure of the
language, it accords closely with its natural rhythm; it only regulates and
intensifies into metrical pitch and tone the cadence that is already there even
in prose, even in daily speech. If we take passages from English literature
which were written as prose but with some intensity of rhythm, its movement can
be at once detected, e.g.,
Cŏnsīdĕr | thĕ
līlĭĕs | ŏf
thĕ fīēld, |
hōw thēy grōw; | | thēy tōīl nŏt, |
nēīthĕr do | thēy
spīn; | | yĕt Ī
| sāy ŭntŏ |
yŏu thăt ēvěn | Sōlŏmŏn
|
ĭn āll hĭs | glōrў | | wăs nŏt ărrāyed | līke ŭntŏ | ōne ŏf thēse: | |
or again,
Blēssĕd are | thĕ
mēēk; | fŏr thēy shăll | ĭnhērĭt | thĕ
ēārth | . . . .
Blēssĕd are | thĕ
pūre ĭn hēārt; | fŏr thēy shăll sēē | Gōd;
or again, from Shakespeare's prose,
Thĭs gōōdly frāme, | thĕ ēāth, sēēms tŏ | mĕ ă stērile | prōmŏntŏrў;
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thĭs mōst
ēxcĕl|lĕnt cānŏpў,
| thĕ āīr, lōōk yoŭ, | thĭs brāve
ō'ērhāng|ĭng fīrmăměnt,
| thĭs măjēstĭc|ăl
rōōf frēttěd
| with gōlděn fire |
and so on with a constant recurrence of the same quantitative movement all
through; or, yet more strikingly,
Hōw ārt thōū | făllĕn
frŏm | Hēāvěn,
0 | Lūcĭfěr, | sōn
ŏf thĕ mōrnĭng!
This last sentence can be read indeed as a very perfect hexameter. The first of
these passages could be easily presented as four lines of free quantitative
verse, each independent in its arrangement of feet, but all swaying in a single
rhythm. Shakespeare's is most wonderfully balanced in a series of differing
four-syllabled, with occasional shorter, feet, as if
of deliberate purpose, though it is no intention of the mind but the ear of the
poet that has constructed this fine design of rhythmic prose. A free
quantitative verse in this kind would be perfectly possible.
A more regular quantitative metre can be of
two kinds. There could be lines all with the same metrical arrangement
following each other without break or else alternating lines with a different
arrangement for each, forming a stanza, - as in the practice of accentual metres. But there could also be an arrangement in strophe and antistrophe as in
the Grtek chorus. In Thought the Paraclete the first rule is followed; all the lines are
on the same model. The metre of this poem has a certain rhythmic similarity to
the Latin hendecasyllable which runs ¯ ¯ | ¯ ˘ ˘ | ¯ ˘ | ¯ ˘ | ˘˘,e.g.
Sōlēs | ōccĭdĕr(e)
| ēt rĕ|dīrĕ
| pōssūnt,
Nōbīs | cūm sĕmĕl | ōccĭd|īt
brĕ|vīs lūx
Nōx ēst | pērpĕtŭ(a) | ūnă
| dōrmĭ|ēndă.1
But here the metre runs
- ˘ |
- - | - ˘ ˘ | - ˘ | - - ˘ | ; a trochee
1Suns may set and come again;
For us, when once our brief light has set,
There is one perpetual night to be slept
CATULLUS
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is transferred from the closing flow of
trochees to the beginning of the line, the spondee and dactyl are pushed into
the middle, the last syllable of the closing trochee is most often dropped
altogether. Classical metres cannot always with success be taken over just as
they are into the English rhythm; often some modifications are needed to make
them more malleable.
In Moon of Two Hemispheres the
strophe antistrophe system has. been used: the lines of the stanza differ from
each other in the nature and order of the feet, no identity or approach to
identity is imposed; but each line of the antistrophe follows scrupulously the
arrangement of the corresponding line of the strophe. An occasional modulation
at most is allowed, e.g., the substitution of a trochee for a spondee.
The whole poem, however, in spite of its metrical variations, follows a single
general rhythmic movement.
Rose of God, like a
previous poem In Horis Aeternum,
is wntten in pure stress metre. As stress and high
accentual pitch usually coincide, it is possible to scan accentual metre on the
stress principle and stress metre also can be so written that it can be scanned
as accentual verse; but pure stress metre depends entirely on stress ictus. In
ordinary poetry stress and natural syllabic quantity enter in as elements of
the rhythm, but are not, qua stress and quantity, essential elements of
the basic metre: in pure stress metre there is a reversal of these values;
quantity and accentual inflexion are subordinate and help to build the rhythm,
but stress alone determines the metrical basis. In Rose of God each line
is composed of six stresses, and the whole poem is built of five stanzas, each
containing four such lines; the arrangement of feet varies freely to suit the
movement of thought and feeling in each line. Thus,
Róse of |
Gód, | damask fórce of |
Infínity, | red ícon of | míght,
Róse of | Pówer | with thy díam|ond hálo
| piércing
| the níght,
Abláze | in the wíll of | the mórtal, |
desígn | the wónder of| thy
plán,
Ímage of |
Ímmor|tálity,
| outbréak of | the Gódhead |
in man.
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