No marvel that | the lady wept, | it was | the land | of France, Bell. I thought to pass | away | before, | and yet | alive | I am; To die before the snow drop came, | and now | the vio let's here. Hemans. Chapman's translation of the Iliad, and many of Macaulay's Lays, &c. are written in this measure. It is customary to divide many of these verses into two lines of four and three feet, making it into ballad or Service metre: e. g. God moves | in a | mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his foot steps in | the deep, And rides upon | the storm. Cowper. Sometimes, but rarely, octameter iambics are met with, but these are now generally printed as two tetrameter lines, constituting the Long metre of our psalms: e. g. When in the night | I sleep less lie, My soul with heaven | ly thoughts | supply: No powers of darkness me | molest. Ken. All the examples given above are perfect, and symmetrical, i. e. the number of syllables in each verse is a multiple of the number of accents. Poets, however, are not bound to a slavish adherence to metrical laws. Sometimes of necessity, and sometimes intentionally, in order to vary the character of the melody, other kinds of feet are introduced, and an additional syllable is added to the line, these extra syllables forming double rhymes. Verses of the latter kind are called hypermetrical. Examples of such licenses will be seen in the following extracts : : Burns. Tennyson. Father Prout (Francis Mahoney). Day after day, | day after day We stuck, nor breath | nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted o | cean. Coleridge. Be good, sweet maid, ❘ and let | who will be clev|er; My life | is cold and dark | and drearly; Kingsley: My thoughts | still cling to the mouldering Past, And the days are dark | and dreary. Longfellow. BLANK VERSE. So much of our poetry is in Blank Verse, and so many are the variations from strict metrical laws allowable in it, that it will be well to make a few remarks about it here apart from other iambic measures. Blank verse consists of five iambic feet without rhyme. It was first employed in English by the Earl of Surrey, at the time of Henry VIII., in a translation he made of the 4th book of the Æneid; but the first great original poem written in it was the 'Paradise Lost.' It is perhaps the easiest,' the most natural of all English metres, and seems specially adapted to the genius of the language, as Hexameter verse 2 is to the classical ones. In it the poet is less trammelled by artificial restrictions, and has more licenses granted him than in any other kind of versification. All our dramatic, and most of our epic and descriptive, poetry is written in it. On all these grounds, therefore, it may safely be pronounced to be the finest metre in English, and, perhaps, in any other language. Although the measure of this verse is so simple, and, on first thought, would seem so likely to become wearisome in lengthy compositions, there is no other metre in the language that admits of such infinite variety. The character of the rhythm may change in almost every line. Each great master that has employed it to any extent has given to it a distinctive character, amounting almost to what might be regarded as a separate kind of verse, that might well bear his name. The fullmouthed melody of Milton, for example, is as different from 1 Byron, and with him many others, held that octosyllabic iambic is the easiest measure in English; it must be remembered, however, that it is always in rhyme. 2 Note that there is nothing in common between iambic hexameter and classical hexameter verse, except the number of feet. the homely sweetness and flexible grace of most that Shakspere has written, as can possibly be; and if we compare the verse of either of these with such a poem as the Task by Cowper, we should find another widely differing variety. The licenses allowed in Blank verse, and especially in dramatic, may be summed up as follows: (1) A trochee may be substituted for an iambus in almost any part of the line, though seldom in the second or the fifth foot, but frequently in the first. Two trochees, however, are rarely found together. (2) Two, and sometimes even three, unaccented syllables may occur in any part of a verse instead of the unaccented half of the foot: in other words, an anapest may be used for an iambus almost anywhere. (3) A spondee may take the place of an iambus anywhere. (4) At the end of the fifth foot, one or even two unaccented syllables may be added, but this does not make the verse an Alexandrine, as there is no sixth accent. (5) Rarely, a verse of nine syllables occurs, such a line being called catalectic. (6) We sometimes meet with a part of a verse perfect as far as it goes: this is called a hemistich. About | them frisk ing played All beasts of the earth, | since wild, | and of | all chase In wood or wilderness, | forest, | or den; Sporting the lion romped, | and in his paw Dandled the kid; bears, tilgers, ounces, pards, To make them sport | used all | his might, | and wreathed Milton. Farewell, a long | farewell | to all | my greatness The tender leaves | of hope, | to-morrow blossoms, I see thee yet | in form | as palpable Shakspere. Thou marshal'st me | the way that I was going. Through manly a dark | and dreary vale They passed, and many a region dolorous, O'er manly a frozen, manly a fiery Alp, Ibid. Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, | bogs, dews, | and shades of death. Milton. TROCHAIC MEASURE.' (a) Of one and two feet (Monometer and Dimeter). As the difference between symmetrical and hypermetrical metres has been clearly pointed out in iambics, there is no necessity to keep the two apart any longer. |