Lift her with care! Fashioned so slenderly, Young, and so fair! -THOMAS HOOD, The Bridge of Sighs. A dactyl is a foot of three syllables, the first syllable accented, the second and third syllables unaccented-just the reverse of the anapæst, as the trochee is the reverse of the iambus. (Some of the foregoing lines are catalectic.) 5. Scanning As a To divide a line into its constituent feet, to mark the accented and unaccented syllables, to count the feet and name their character, is called scanning. Socratic illustration, and also to furnish some exercises which are especially needed before we take up the next section, let us scan the first line of "Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard": The curfew tolls | the knell | of part | ing day. How does the accent fall? An unaccented syllable is followed by an accented one. What is the name of this measure? Iambic. How many feet are there in each line; not syllables, mind, but feet? There are ten syllables, but only five feet. Our glossary tells us that a line of five feet is a pentameter. pentameter. "Elegy," therefore, is written in iambic pentameter. Gray's We have already seen that "A Psalm of Life" is written in trochaic measure. How many feet in the first line? In the second? Find the name for each line by referring to the glossary. What is a catalectic line? What is the measure of the following line? And his cohorts were gleam | ing with purple and gold. Anapastic. How many anapæstic feet in the line? What then shall we call the line? What is the character of the feet in the first line of 'The Charge of the Light Brigade"? Dactylic. How many feet in the line? Two. What then shall we call the line? Dactylic Dimeter. 6. The Law of Quantity in English Verse We have seen that English verse is governed primarily by accent; but quantity, or the law governing the time of certain syllables, must not be lightly dismissed. How shall we read the following line from Wordsworth? A violet by a mos | sy stone. This is four-foot iambic measure, and yet we have said that an iambic foot consists of two syllables. Shall we pronounce "violet" as "vi'let?" Surely not. Surely not. We have said that the syllables of "viol" are really shorter than those of "landmark. We could not scan "A landmark low by a mossy stone" as four-foot iambic measure, but we can so scan, "A violet by a mossy stone," for the extra short syllable gives an effect akin to that of a grace note in music—that is, it is slipped in with a light touch, so to say. In the hands of a master, such irregularities add new and unsuspected beauties to meter, but a tyro should attempt them sparingly.1 Another such device is the use of a pause. Take the following stanza from Tennyson: Birds in the high Hall-garden Birds crying and calling to her, Where is Maud, Maud, Maud? Here the au in "Maud" is a diphthong and may be said to be pronounced long, but are the five syllables of the third line really equal to the seven of the first? No, they are not, yet the lines balance. We find that the effect is 1 See chapter on Irregularities. produced by the instinctive pause after the word Maud, Where is Maud-Maud-Maud? and that these pauses serve to lengthen the line. Tennyson uses the same device in the well-known lines, Break! Break! Break! On thy cold gray stones, O sea! Coleridge also uses it in the opening lines of "Christabel:" 'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, And the owls have awaken'd the crowing cock; Tu-whit! Tu-whoo! We see, therefore, that additional short syllables are occasionally allowable, and that a long syllable followed by a pause may be used to lengthen a line. Such use of pauses does not, however, strictly correspond to quantity in the classical sense, though we may say that quantity occurs as a minor element in English verse. In summing up we see that: English verse is governed primarily by accent, EXERCISES FOR CLASS USE AND SELF-INSTRUCTION 1. Scan (mark the accents and feet in) the following: (a) Maiden crowned with glossy blackness, (b) (c) (d) (e) Long-armed naiad, when she dances, On a stream of ether floating. —GEORGE ELIOT, Song from the Spanish Gypsy. As I sat sorrowing, Love came and bade me sing And every bird doth greet Unto young hours' feet. -JOHN PAYNE, Spring Sadness. Loudly the sailors cheered Svend of the Forkéd Beard. -LONGFELLOW, Saga of King Olaf. Come live with me and be my love. -MARLOWE, The Passionate Shepherd. Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's Plutonian shore. -POE, The Raven. (f) I think of thee!-my thoughts do twine and bud Put out broad leaves, and soon there's nought to see |