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145. Meter.

English verse is primarily dependent for its poetic form upon the arrangement of words in such order as will bring accented syllables at regular intervals, and will give to each line a definite number of these accented syllables. A line of poetry is measured by a certain unit of measure called the foot, each foot containing, ordinarily, one accented and one, two, or rarely even three unaccented syllables differently arranged in different poems, but in any one poem following the same model with little variation. The various combinations of syllables forming a foot are given names according to the relative position of the accented and the unaccented syllables. Below are given examples of the various kinds of feet, the marks following indicating the arrangement of the syllables. To avoid confusion with Latin and Greek verse systems, in which syllabic length or quantity, and not accent, is the determining feature, it has seemed best to employ the accent mark,' and the oblique cross x for accented and unaccented syllables, instead of the usual marks of long, and short, which, however, are also given.

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Anapæstic, | Undertake |, | XX, or |

x / x

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Amphibrachic, Forsaking |, | × 1 × |, or │U-ul

Spondaic,

Room-mate, /

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The verse takes its name from the prevailing foot in it, and is called iambic, trochaic, dactylic or anapastic verse, as the case may be.

146. Accented and Long Syllables. In most cases it will be true that the accented syllable is long also; but when the accent is a secondary accent, as may happen in the case of words of several syllables, the time required to say it may not be much greater than that required for unaccented syllables. On the other hand, unaccented syllables are sometimes long. The rhythm of a poem is affected by the length of the syllables as well as by the accent. Verse in which the unaccented syllables are uniformly light is more rapid in movement than that in which longer unaccented syllables occur. The rhythm of poetry is, of course, more affected by the arrangement of vowel and consonant sounds, and by the ease or difficulty of pronouncing them in succession, than that of prose. The first stanza following illustrates the effect of delay produced by long unaccented syllables; the second, the effect of hurry produced by short unaccented syllables. The two have the same verse form. To facilitate comparison, marks to indicate accent and length have been placed over the words.

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The lambkin crops its crimson gem;

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In each line of the above there are four iambi, the whole line being divided into feet as follows:

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Lines

147. Length of Line. The length of a line is determined by the number of feet which it contains. of four feet, whether these feet are iambic, trochaic, dactylic or anapæstic, are called tetrameter. The English ballad stanza is composed of such lines alternating with lines of three feet, trimeter, prevailingly iambic, but admitting an occasional anapast, as in the following stanza from an old English ballad of Robin Hood:

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| Then he put on | the old man's hat, |

| It stood | full high | on the crown : |

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"The first | bold bar | gain that Í | côme at, |

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| It shall make thee | côme down." |

Lines of one foot, called monómeter, are of rare

Occurrence.

Lines of two feet, called dimeter, are shown below, the anapastic having an added syllable.

Iambic, Go love | ly róse. |

Trochaic, Faíry | Lílian. |

Dactylic, Like a storm | súddenly. |

Anapæstic, Where the white | mists forév | er.
Amphibrachic, | Fold clósely, | O náture. |

Lines of three feet, called trimeter, are found more frequently than lines of two feet, but the anapæstic and dactylic are rare, except in combination with other forms.

Iambic, | And I will plédge | with mine.
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Trochaic, Like a high born | maiden. |

Dactylic, Thése in the | róbings of | glóry. |
Anapæstic, I am món | arch of áll | I survey. |
Amphibrachic, | I lúred him | not hither | Ulysses. |

Iambic tetrameter has been spoken of, but examples of the other meters in lines of four feet are given below.

Trochaic, Íre | mémber | Í re | mémber. |

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Dactylic, | Hail to the chief who in | tríumph ad- | vánces.

Anapæstic, | From the church | came a múr | mur of fólk at their prayers. |

Lines of five feet are called pentameter and are of frequent occurrence.

Iambic, They ál | so sérve | who ón | ly stánd | and wait. |

148. Other Meters. Other meters are found in lines of five feet; but as they are like those above with an additional foot, examples need not be given. There are also lines of six feet, hexámeter, lines of seven feet,

heptámeter, and lines of eight feet, octometer. Of these the dactylic hexameter is perhaps the most important, although it is a Greek rather than an English measure. The examples of dactylic trimeter and tetrameter given above, it will be noticed, are incomplete in that the last foot has only two instead of three syllables. A line ending with two unaccented syllables would be unpleasantly weak, and therefore the last foot of a line of dactylic hexameter should contain only two syllables. These two syllables should both be accented, or at least long syllables; in other words, the foot should be a spondee. As words which end with two consecutive long or accented syllables are rare in the English language, this measure is not very available for English poets. The spondaic foot, of course, occurs only as an occasional variant in other meters, as it would be almost impossible to write a line of any length composed of spondees.

149. The Prevailing English Verse. A casual glance over almost any collection of representative English poetry will at once reveal the fact that the meter is very largely iambic. It is not only the meter of the English heroic ballad, as we have seen, but it is also employed almost entirely in blank verse, which is prevailingly iambic pentameter. In this measure the greater poets of the time of Queen Elizabeth and since have written much of their best poetry. It is the verse of Shakespeare's plays, of Tennyson's " Idyls of the King,” “The Princess" and other poems, of Browning's dramas and

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