"Wild is thy lay, and loud, Love gives it energy, | love gave it | birth: Where, on thy | dewy wing, Where art thou | journeying? Over the cloudlet dim, Over the rainbow's rim, Musical | cherub, hie, | hie thee a | -way. "Then, when the gloamin comes, Thy lay | is in heaven, thy love | is on earth. Sweet will thy | welcome and | bed of love | be. "O'er moor and | mountain green, O'er fell and fountain sheen, Emblem of happiness, O'er the red streamer that | heralds the | day; O! to a | -bide in the desert with | thee!" OBS. 3.-It is observed by Churchill, (New Gram., p. 387,) that, Shakspeare has used the dactyl, as appropriate to mournful occasions." The chief example which he cites, is the following:Graves, yawn and | yield your dead, Till death be uttered "Midnight, assist our moan, Help us to sigh and groan Heavily, heavily. Heavily, heavily."--Much Ado, V, 3. OBS. 4.-These six lines of Dactylic (or Composite) Dimeter are subjoined by the poet to four of Trochaic Tetrameter. There does not appear to me to be any particular adaptation of either measure to mournful subjects, more than to others; but later instances of this metre may be cited, in which such is the character of the topic treated. The following long example consists of lines of two feet, most of them dactylic only; but, of the seventy-six, there are twelve which may be otherwise divided, and as many more which must be, because they commence with a short syllable. "THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS."-BY THOMAS HOOD. Still, for all slips of hers,- Oozing so clammily. Escaped from the comb,- Had she a brother? Feelings had changed: Even God's providence Seeming c-stranged. With many a light, The bleak wind of March Or the black-flowing river: The rough river ran,— Clapp's Pioneer, p. 54. OBS. 5.-As each of our principal feet,-the Iambus, the Trochee, the Anapest, and the Dactyl, -has always one, and only one long syllable; it should follow, that, in each of our principal orders of verse, the Iambic, the Trochaic, the Anapestic, and the Dactylic,--any line, not diversified by a secondary foot, must be reckoned to contain just as many feet as long syllables. So, too, of the Amphibrach, and any line reckoned Amphibrachic. But it happens, that the common error by which single-rhymed Trochaics have so often been counted a foot shorter than they are, is also extended by some writers to single-rhymed Dactylics-the rhyming syllable, if long, being esteemed supernumerary! For example, three dactylic stanzas, in each of which a pentameter couplet is followed by a hexameter line, and this again by a heptameter, are introduced by Prof. Hart thus: "The Dactylic Tetrameter, Pentameter, and Hexameter, with the additional or hypermeter syllable, are all found combined in the following extraordinary specimen of versification. * This is the only specimen of Dactylic hexameter or even pentameter verse that the author recollects to have seen." LAMENT OF ADAM. "Glad was our meeting: thy | glittering | bosom I | heard, * ** Bright were thine | eyes as the stars, and their | glances were | radiant as | gleams "Happy as seraphs were | we, for we | wander'd a | -lone, Trembling with passionate | thrills, when the twilight had | flown: Languish'd un-heard and un | -known, like the breath of the blossoming | buds of the grove. "Life hath its pleasures, but fading are they as the flowers: Sin hath its sorrows, and sadly we turn'd from those | bowers: Bright were the angels be | -hind with their | falchions of | heavenly | flame! OBS. 6. Of Dactylic verse, our prosodists and grammarians in general have taken but very little notice; a majority of them appearing by their silence, to have been utterly ignorant of the whole species. By many, the dactyl is expressly set down as an inferior foot, which they imagine is used only for the occasional diversification of an iambic, trochaic, or anapestic line. Thus Everett: "It is never used except as a secondary foot, and then in the first place of the line."English Versification, p. 122. On this order of verse, Lindley Murray bestowed only the following words: "The DACTYLIC measure being very uncommon, we shall give only one example of one species of it: From the low pleasures of this fallen nätŭre, Rise we to higher, &c."-Gram., 12mo, p. 207; 8vo, p. 257. Read this example with "we rise" for "Rise we," and all the poetry of it is gone! Humphrey says, "Dactyle verse is seldom used, as remarked heretofore; but is used occasionally, and has three metres; viz. of 2, 3, and 4 feet. Specimens follow. 2 feet. Free from anxiety. 3 feet. Singing most sweetly and merrily. 4 feet. Dactylic measures are wanting in energy.”—English Prosody, p. 18. Here the prosodist has made his own examples; and the last one, which unjustly impeaches all dactylics, he has made very badly-very prosaically; for the word "Dactylic," though it has three syllables, is properly no dactyl, but rather an amphibrach. OBS. 7.-By the Rev. David Blair, this order of poetic numbers is utterly misconceived and misrepresented. He says of it, "DACTYLIC verse consists of a short syllable, with one, two, or three feet, and a long syllable; as, 'Distracted with wōe, 'I'll rush on the foe.' ADDISON."-Blair's Pract. Gram., p. 119. 'Oh! call the poor wanderers hōme.' SHENSTONE."—Ib., p. 120. It is manifest, that these lines are not dactylic at all. There is not a dactyl in them. They are composed of iambs and anapests. The order of the versification is Anapestic; but it is here varied by the very common diversification of dropping the first short syllable. The longer example is from a ballad of 216 lines, of which 99 are thus varied, and 117 are full anapestics. OBS. 8.—The makers of school-books are quite as apt to copy blunders, as to originate them; and, when an error is once started in a grammar, as it passes with the user for good learning, no one can guess where it will stop. It seems worth while, therefore, in a work of this nature, to be liberal in the citation of such faults as have linked themselves, from time to time, with the several topics of our great subject. It is not probable, that the false scansion just criticised originated with Blair; for the Comprehensive Grammar, a British work, republised, in its third edition, by Dobson, of Philadelphia, in 1789, teaches the same doctrine, thus: "Dactylic measure may consist of one, two, or three Dactyls, introduced by a feeble syllable, and terminated by a strong one; as, My dear Irish | folks, Come leave off your jokes, And buy up my halfpence so | fine; A cobler there was and he | liv'd in ǎ | ställ, No ambition he had, and no | dūns at his | gate."-Comp. Gram., p. 150. To this, the author adds, "Dactylic measure becomes Anapestic by setting off an Iambic foot in the beginning of the line."-Ib. These verses, all but the last one, unquestionably have an iambic foot at the beginning; and, for that reason, they are not, and by no measurement can be, dactylics. The last one is purely anapestic. All the divisional bars, in either example, are placed wrong. ORDER V.-COMPOSITE VERSE. Composite verse is that which consists of various metres, or different feet, combined, not accidentally, or promiscuously, but by design, and with some regularity. In Composite verse, of any form, the stress must be laid rhythmically, as in the simple orders, else the composition will be nothing better than unnatural prose. The possible variety of combinations in this sort of numbers is unlimited; but, the pure and simple kinds being generally preferred, any stated mixture of feet is comparatively uncommon. Certain forms which may be scanned by other methods, are susceptible also of division as Composites. Hence there cannot be an exact enumeration of the measures of this order, but instances, as they occur, may be cited to exemplify it. Example I-From Swift's Irish Feast. "O'Rourk's noble fare will ne'er | be forgot, By those who were there, or those who were not. of man | -tle and kerch | -er: the de'il | take the search | -er." Johnson's Works of the Poets, Vol. v, p. 310. Here the measure is tetrameter; and it seems to have been the design of the poet, that each hemistich should consist of one iamb and one anapest. Such, with a few exceptions, is the arrangement throughout the piece; but the hemistichs which have double rhyme, may each be divided into two amphibrachs. In Everett's Versification, at p. 100, the first six lines of this example are broken into twelve, and set in three stanzas, being given to exemplify "The Line of a single Anapest preceded by an Iambus," or what he improperly calls "The first and shortest species of Anapestic lines." His other instance of the same metre is also Composite verse, rather than Anapestic, even by his own showing. "In the following example," says he, "we have this measure alternating with Amphibrachic lines:" "The Captive Usurper, Example II.-From Byron's Manfred. Hurl'd down from the throne, Lay buried in torpor, Forgotten and lone; I broke through his slumbers, I shiv-er'd his chain, I leagued him with numbers- With the blood of a mill-ion he'll an | -swer my care, With a nation's destruction-his flight | and despair."-Act ii, Sc. 3. Here the last two lines, which are not cited by Everett, are pure anapestic tetrameters; and it may be observed, that, if each two of the short lines were printed as one, the eight which are here scanned otherwise, would become four of the same sort, except that these would each begin with an iambus. Hence the specimen sounds essentially as anapestic verse. Example III.-Woman on the Field of Battle. "Gentle and lovely form, What didst thou here, When the fierce | battle storm Bore down the spear? Banner and shiver'd crest, Tell, that a -midst the best Low lies the stately head, Earth-bound the free: Slumb'rer! thine | early bier Soft voices, dear and young, Should have bid | vi'lets wave Here are fourteen stanzas of composite dimeter, each having two sorts of lines; the first sort consisting, with a few exceptions, of a dactyl and an amphimac; the second, mostly, of two iambs; but, in some instances, of a trochee and an iamb;-the latter being, in such a connexion, much the more harmonious and agreeable combination of quantities. "Love sounds the alarm, What mortal fears dy | -ing? AIR 2. How fleet-ing's the pleasure, In pursuit of the fair: The joys that attend | it, By moments we measure; To measure our care." GAY'S POEMS: Johnson's Works of the Poets, Vol. vii, p. 378. These verses are essentially either anapestic or amphibrachic. The anapest divides two of them in the middle; the amphibrach will so divide eight. But either division will give many iambs. By the present scansion, the first foot is an iamb in all of them but the two anapestics. OBS. 1.-Composite verse, especially if the lines be short, is peculiarly liable to uncertainty, and diversity of scansion; and that which does not always abide by one chosen order of quantities, can scarcely be found agreeable; it must be more apt to puzzle than to please the reader. The eight stanzas of this last example, have eight lines of iambic trimeter; and, since seven times in eight, this metre holds the first place in the stanza, it is a double fault, that one such line seems strayed from its proper position. It would be better to prefix the word Now to the fourth line, and to mend the forty-third thus: "And should I live | to be " The trissyllabic feet of this piece, as I scan it, are numerous; being the sixteen short lines of monometer, and the twenty-four initial feet of the lines of seven syllables. Every one of the forty (except the thirty-sixth, "The last leaf") begins with a monosyllable which may be varied in quantity; so that, with stress laid on this monosyllable, the foot becomes an amphimac; without such stress, an anapest. OBS. 2.-I incline to read this piece as composed of iambs and anapests; but E. A. Poe, who has commended "the effective harmony of these lines," and called the example "an excellently well conceived and well managed specimen of versification," counts many syllables long, which such a reading makes short, and he also divides all but the iambics in a way quite different from mine, thus: "Let us scan the first stanza. This," says he, "is the general scansion of the poem. We have first three iambuses. The second line shifts the rhythm into the trochaic, giving us three trochees, with a cæsura equivalent, in this case, to a trochee. The third line is a trochee and equivalent cæsura."-POE'S NOTES UPON ENGLISH VERSE: Pioneer, p. 109. These quantities are the same as those by which the whole piece is made to consist of iambs and amphimacs. OBS. 3.-In its rhythmical effect upon the ear, a supernumerary short syllable at the end of a line, may sometimes, perhaps, compensate for the want of such a syllable at the beginning of the next line, as may be seen in the fourth example above; but still it is unusual, and seems improper, to suppose such syllables to belong to the scansion of the subsequent line; for the division of lines, with their harmonic pauses, is greater than the division of feet, and implies that no foot can ever actually be split by it. Poe has suggested that the division into lines may be disregarded in scanning, and sometimes must be. He cites for an example the beginning of Byron's "Bride of Abydos," '—a passage which has been admired for its easy flow, and which, he says, has greatly puzzled those who have attempted to scan it. Regarding it as essentially anapestic tetrameter, yet as having some initial iambs, and the first and fifth lines dactylic, I shall here divide it accordingly, thus: cœsuras." "Know ye thě | land where the | cypress and | myrtlě Arẻ em -blēms of deeds | that are done | in their clime- Where the flow'rs | ever blos | -som, the beams | ever shine, "Tis the land of the East- | 't is the clime | of the Sun- Are the hearts that they bear, and the tales | that they tell." OBS. 4.-These lines this ingenious prosodist divides not thus, but, throwing them together like prose unpunctuated, finds in them "a regular succession of dactylic rhythms, varied only at three points by equivalent spondees, and separated into two distinct divisions by equivalent terminating He imagines that, "By all who have ears-not over long-this will be acknowledged as the true and the sole true scansion."-E. A. Poe: Pioneer, p. 107. So it may, for aught I know; but, having dared to show there is an other way quite as simple and plain, and less objectionable, I submit both to the judgement of the reader: "Know ye the land where the | cypress and | myrtlě ǎre | emblems of | deeds that ǎre | done in their clime where the rage of the vulture the love of the turtlě now melt into softness now madden to | crime. Know ye thě | land of the | cedar and | vine where the flow'rs ever | blossom the beams ěvěr | shine where the light wings of | zephyr op | -press'd with perfume wax | faint o'er the gardens of Gul in her bloom where the citron and ōlive are fairest of | fruit and the voice of the nightingale | nevěr is mute where the❘ virgins are soft as the rōses they | twine and all save the spirit of man is di- | vine 'tis the land of the East 'tis the climě of the | Sun căn hě | smile on such | deeds as his children have done oh | wild as the | accents of | lōvěrs' fare- | well are the | hearts that they | bear and the tales that they | tell."-Ib. OBS. 5.-In the sum and proportion of their quantities, the anapest, the dactyl, and the amphibrach, are equal, each having two syllables short to one long; and, with two short quantities between two long ones, lines may be tolerably accordant in rhythm, though the order, at the commencement, be varied, and their number of syllables be not equal. Of the following sixteen lines, nine are pure anapestic tetrameters; one may be reckoned dactylic, but it may quite as well be said to have a trochee, an iambus, and two anapests or two amphimacs; one is a spondee and three anapests; and the rest may be scanned as amphibrachics ending with an iambus, but are more properly anapestics commencing with an iambus. Like the preceding example from Byron, they lack the uniformity of proper composites, and are rather to be regarded as anapestics irregu larly diversified. |