We, in the ages lying

In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy (1844-1881)

"Break, Break, Break," a lament for Arthur Henry Hallam, was intended as a part of In Memoriam, but, because of its different meter, was printed separately. The first line presents the phenomenon of omitting all the unaccented syllables. Whether the omissions be explained on the ground of pauses or on the ground of the prolongation of the accented syllables, the three-word lines are trimeters—as are the other lines of the poem. "Break, Break, Break" proves that a poet's mind may transcend his surroundings. "It was made," says Tennyson, "in a Lincolnshire lane at five o'clock in the morning between blossoming hedges."

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea,

And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O, for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Modern poets show an occasional use of accented syllables in pairs and even in threes-traits illustrated in the two following poems. The marked words in these lines could hardly be read except as indicated:

a a

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree.

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries.

This variation from the traditions of English meter is one symptom of the poetic iconoclasm of today. In these poems it is well handled and apparently has possibilities. Like so much that is seemingly new, it is simply very old. For example, the xxaa of it's a fine land was the Latin foot, ionic a minore.

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping

slow,

Dropping from the veils of morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavement gray, I hear it in the deep heart's core.

William Butler Yeats (1865-)

THE WEST WIND

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries;
I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes;
For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills,
And April's in the west wind, and daffodils.

It's a fine land, the west land, for hearts as tired as mine, Apple orchards blossom there, and the air's like wine. There is cool green grass there, where men may lie at rest, And the thrushes are in song there, fluting from the nest.

"Will you not come home, brother?

away.

You have been long

It's April, and blossom time, and white is the spray;
And bright is the sun, brother, and warm is the rain,—
Will you not come home, brother, home to us again?

"The young corn is green, brother, where the rabbits run, It's blue sky, and white clouds, and warm rain and sun.

It's a song to a man's soul, brother, fire to a man's brain, To hear the wild bees and see the merry spring again.

"Larks are singing in the west, brother, above the green wheat, So will you not come home, brother, and rest your tired feet? I've a balm for bruised hearts, brother, sleep for aching eyes," Says the warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries.

It's the white road westwards is the road I must tread
To the green grass, the cool grass, and rest for heart and head,
To the violets and the brown brooks and the thrushes' song,
In the fine land, the west land the land where I belong.

John Masefield (1874- )

CHAPTER V

IAMBIC PENTAMETER

I salute thee, Mantovano, I that loved thee since my day began,

Wielder of the stateliest measure ever moulded by the lips

of man.

Tennyson: “To Virgil"

For longer, more elevated poems, English poetry has no one metrical form comparable to the classical hexameter of Homer and Vergil. Blank verse, the heroic couplet, the Spenserian stanza, and several other forms have been used in its stead. These forms, however, all employ the iambic pentameter line (5xa), which in English poetry is used oftener than any other. It is more flexible and less monotonous than the tetrameter line, which tends to divide into two equal parts. Either with or without rime, iambic pentameter is the meter commonly employed in narrative, dramatic, reflective, and descriptive poetry; in other words, in longer poems of all kinds.

Blank verse, which is iambic pentameter without rime, is the most distinguished of all English metrical forms. It is the meter which we instinctively associate with the two greatest English poets, Shakespeare and Milton. One of Emerson's very interesting fragments will illustrate the metrical structure of blank verse:

This shining moment is an edifice
Which the Omnipotent cannot rebuild.