Process of the Grammars, a mere jumble, throughout, of catalecticism, acatalecticism, and hypermeter.īy discarding, however, our clumsy conventional notions of mere verse, we shall see, at once, that the lines are The lines, it is discovered that what flow>ed so harmoniously in perusal, is, upon subjection to the scanning A slight difficulty still remains, to be sure. Tail, and to be “catalectic” at the head. The verse in question is pronounced to “form hypermeter” at the Wanting, the verse is said to be catalectic when the measure is exact, the line is acatalectic when there is a redundant Riddle, in the learned “ observation” quoted in the commencement of this paper - “When a syllable is In despair, our inquirer turns over the pages of his Prosody, and at length is blessed by a full solution of the The Grammars admitted no such foot as one of a single syllable, and besides This would have been satisfactory, but for the forced elision and the difficulty ofĪccounting for the odd syllable “ clime “. ēmblĕms of | dēēds thăt ăre | dōne ĭn thĕir Of, perhaps, a hundred persons whom I have heardĭiscussing >these lines>their>line that these must be dactylic. Rhythm and this conception alone can furnish the key to the riddle. With their evident irregularity, when scanned in accordance with the rules of our Prosodies for these Prosodies, insisting upon theirīald and incomprehensive dogmas about mere verse, >had neglected to afford a true conception of While no one could deny their harmony, it has been found impossible to reconcile this harmony The flow of these remarkable lines has been the theme of universal admiration and not more of admiration than Oh, wild as the accents of lovers’ farewell,Īre the hearts that they bear and the tales that they tell. ‘T is the land of the East - ‘tis the clime of the Sun -Ĭan he smile on such deeds as his children have done? Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twineĪnd all, save the spirit of man, is divine? Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,Īnd the voice of the nightingale never is mute? Wax faint o’er the gardens of Gul in her bloom? Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine,Īnd the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume, Now melt into softness, now madden to crime? Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtleĪre emblems of deeds that are done in their clime. For this purpose let us quote the commencement of Lord Byron's Of mere versification, or the division of rhythms into verse. Prosodists) we can now proceed to an exemplification of what has been said respecting the arbitrary or conventional nature This understanding of the cæsura (the most important foot in the English, or in any metre, and most blindly rejected by our In the first verse above, weĭwell upon the “ vis” just so long as it would take us to pronounce the “ nas ata” preceding. The lines quoted just above, it has the value of a spondee, or dactyl occupying precisely equal time. Or value but, in its application, it has the force of any foot >with the exception of the pyrrhic.<< In We should >then “as a single long syllable,” because this is, apparently, its abstract force The cæsura effects the lapse from to a variation Supply the place of the original spondee and dactyl. Single long syllable (the cæsura foot ) and in the two succeeding, although the general rhythm remains undisturbed, two dactyls Pulsations, or feet, consist of a spondee and a dactyl each amounting to four short syllables. The general rhythm of these lines will be at once recognised as dactylic, or equivalent to dactylic. A third and fourth pulsation may embody half, or double, or any proportion of the time occupied Beyond two pulsations there is no necessity for equality of time.Īll beyond is arbitrary or conventional. >Bearing the sum of the times of the syllables in the other. Readily effected) would do little more than present this idea in a popularly intelligible dress. Modulation of their sentences they fulfil the idea of metre and their arrangement, or rather their division, into lines (which could be More than any thing else, has induced the easy admission, into the realms of Pöesy, of such works as the Indeed, an afterthought, or an embellishment, or an improvement, rather than an element of rhythm and this is the fact which, perhaps, In so doing we shall avoid a world of confusion. Rhythm, the idea of versification, or the construction of verse. I >should prefer to dismiss entirely, from the consideration of the principle of
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