Feminine ending

'Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

'Life is but an empty dream!' For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem."

Another variety of cadence is given here by the use, in the first and third lines, of the double,1 or feminine rhyme; e.g., numbers, slumbers. But the rhythm has not been altered thereby; the last measure is filled out, that is all, instead of ending, as in the first two examples, upon the first accented word. The feminine ending gives an added vibration.

Example Number III varies from Number I only in having one more measure to the verse or line. It is 2/5. This is one of the purest examples we have of the heroic verse, so common in English verse, and its greatest glory. Whether employed in stanzas, rhymed couplets, or blank verse, it is the most dignified and elevated poetic medium we have.

Number IV is also in 2-beat rhythm, but it is metrically irregular, the lines being (within the stanza) of different lengths. The poem is not, however, an irregular poem, because the stanzas are alike.

Number V is our first example of triple, or 3-beat, rhythm. This poem is also strict, having the anacrusis regularly throughout.

As we shall see, by an examination of this and the following poems in triple measure, the full three notes, or

Triple rhythm

syllables, are not required to appear in every bar, nor indeed in absolutely every line; but it must be clearly indicated at the outset, so that the ear takes the impression of this rhythm, and it must appear

'The feminine ending will be found treated with more expansion in chap. iii.

in certainly every other line, so that this impression shall be continued and not become weakened or lost. In some extant poems one has to read several lines in order to discover whether the generic rhythm be 3-beat or 2-beat; as in this song from Browning's "Pippa Passes.'

"Overhead the treetops meet,

Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet;
There was naught above me, naught below
My childhood had not learned to know:
For what are the voices of birds

-Ay and of beasts-but words, our words,
Only so much more sweet?"

This poem is really in 3-beat rhythm, but there is nothing in the first two lines to indicate this; they are plain 2-beat. The true rhythm is first indicated-none too clearly in the anacrusis of the third line, and does not distinctly take possession of the ear until the fifth line. This has always seemed to me an artistic defect. The rhythmic key-note should be clearly struck at the beginning, so that the ear become imbued with it; and, if irregularities are to occur, they should come later.

Numbers V and VI are rhythmically and metrically identical-both being 3/4; but, as we saw in a previous instance, the direct attack of "The Flower's Name" gives it more vibration; the presence of the feminine. ending in the first and third lines of every quatrain varying the cadence still further.

We have in the "Bridge of Sighs"-Number VII— a very melodious poem, although, less well handled, so short a line might easily have a choppy, grotesque effect; -vide some of the " Bab Ballads." It has one slight defect to my ear; and this is that, the direct attack having been basically adopted, the irregularity of an anacrusis

has been allowed to creep into several of the later stanzas, thus preventing entire artistic perfection.

Very similar in movement is James Hogg's" Skylark."

"Bird of the wilderness,

Blythesome and cumberless,

Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling-place

O to abide in the desert with thee!"

Here the increased length of the third and sixth lines gives a good balance to the shorter ones.

Free verse

In Number VIII we have our first example of free verse. There is nothing in the English language more melodious or more rhythmically suggestive than this little lyric. Observe the perfect manner in which the lines with direct attack are contrasted with the strict lines, making beautiful verse. Also the prolonged syllables of the first and third lines seem to give a liquid suggestion, as of gliding waters. The equilibrium between the full and non-full bars is very nice; and the full beats of the last line seem to impart to it an accelerated motion, as if the gliding changed to rushing.

Of Number IX I might almost repeat my remarks as to the suggestive effects of the rhythmic management, except that in "Break, Break, Break" the impression intended is of breaking, not gliding, waters. This is admirably done by the staccato syllables followed by rests. We seem to get the very impact of the surf. The key to the rhythm is distinctly struck in the anacrusis of the second line, and it sweeps in fully in the third. is never the slightest doubt.

There

Number X is also an excellent example of the equilibrium of measures with the direct attack preserved uni

formly throughout. Observe the lulling sound of the long, full-barred line at the end. These nuances are due, not to accident, but are the subtle touches of great masters of verse.

In Number XI we have a lyric famous for its spirited cadences; but few persons analyse closely enough to detect that there is in it quite a Shakespearean freedom in the handling of the 2-beat rhythm. The prolonged syllables we and Eve give a fine swing, increased by the use of the direct attack, while the solitary opening anacrusis appeals to the ear, as in some of Shakespeare's songs, as quite legitimate, if sporadic.

Doubled notes

"Christabel "-Number XII-is rhythmically, perhaps, the most remarkable of modern poems, inasmuch as Coleridge, more than any other modern poet, seems to have quite caught that Elizabethan faculty of doubling syllables without giving the slightest sense of superfluous syllables. The rhythmic balance here is quite as perfect as in Shakespeare's lyrics.

It may be asked why are not these lines, where the doubled notes, or syllables, occur, in regular triple rhythm? They are not in triple rhythm because the extra syllables are sporadic, not organic; that is, the whole poem scheme is in 2-beat rhythm, and the sense of the two beats remains undisturbed to the ear by these extra syllables, which naturally settle themselves into the doubled notes indicated in the notations. This power of writing doubled notes is, however, a ticklish business and requires the feeling of a master. It may

be studied in its very perfection in the two songs from Shakespeare given in Numbers XIV and XV. If the doubled notes are compared with the pure 3-beat movement of Number XVI, the radical difference will be easily apparent.

The 2-beat rhythm and the 3-beat rhythm are as antipodal and as distinct from each other as oil and water, Rhythms and quite as impossible to mix as those incon

cannot be

inter

changed

gruous elements. They are not interchangeable, and one may never be substituted for the other. To introduce measures of one into a poem cast in the other is to commit a fault against artistic purity, and is productive, not of poetry, but of doggerel. No musical composer would think of writing a piece of music with one or two bars in 3/8 time, the next in 4/4 time, another in 12/8, and so on, because this would result in musical chaos. But the movement which he selects is adhered to uniformly throughout the piece.1 Thus is the composition homogeneous. The same is true of verse.

Of course no poet who is at the same time an artist ever does confuse them; but there are some who, for the elevation of their thought and their eloquence of diction, take high rank, yet whose ears are too defective for true rhythmic perfection. There is scarcely a poem of Emerson's where this artistic solecism is not committed, the confusions of rhythm giving to much of his verse that halting quality, often so painful to the ears of even his best lovers. Wordsworth too, though in a very much less degree, was defective of ear. Witness his "Ode to a Skylark," which opens with a panting triple beat:

"Up with me, up with me into the clouds!"

but before the end of the first stanza it flats out into a somewhat broken 2-beat measure, and never regains the first rhythmic fervour.

This is not to say that music or verse may not be legi

'It must always be borne in mind that, in these comparisons, I am referring only to the simplest forms of musical composition.