the mad fancy of a pedant.
From what I have said about the equalization of the several feet of a line, it must not be deduced that any necessity for equality in time exists between the rhythm of several lines. A poem, or even a stanza, may begin with iambuses in the first line, and proceed with anapaests in the second, or even with the less accordant dactyls, as in the opening of quite a pretty specimen of verse by Miss Mary A. S. Aldrich:
The wa / ter li / ly sleeps / in pride /
Down in the / depths of the / Azure / lake. /
Here azure is a spondee, equivalent to a dactyl; lake a caesura.
I shall now best proceed in quoting the initial lines of Byron’s “Bride of Abydos”:
Know ye the land where, the cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime,
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle
Now melt into softness, now madden to crime?
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine,
And the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume.
Wax faint o’er the gardens of Gul in their bloom?
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit
And the voice of the nightingale never is mute-
Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,
And all save the spirit of man is divine?
’Tis the land of the East- ’tis the clime of the Sun-
Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done?
Oh, wild as the accents of lovers’ farewell
Are the hearts that they bear and the tales that they tell.
Now the flow of these lines (as times go) is very sweet and musical. They have been often admired, and justly — as times go — that is to say, it is a rare thing to find better versification of its kind. And where verse is pleasant to the ear, it is silly to find fault with it because it refuses to be scanned. Yet I have heard men, professing to be scholars, who made no scruple of abusing these lines of Byron’s on the ground that they were musical in spite of all law. Other gentlemen, not scholars, abused “all law” for the same reason — and it occurred neither to the one party nor to the other that the law about which they were disputing might possibly be no law at all — an ass of a law in the skin of a lion.
The Grammars said nothing about dactylic lines, and it was easily seen that these lines were at least meant for dactylic. The first one was, therefore, thus divided:
Know ye the / land where the / cypress and / myrtle. /
The concluding foot was a mystery; but the Prosodies said something about the dactylic “measure” calling now and then for a double rhyme; and the court of inquiry were content to rest in the double rhyme, without exactly perceiving what a double rhyme had to do with the question of an irregular foot. Quitting the first line, the second was thus scanned:
are emblems / of deeds that / are done in / their clime. /
It was immediately seen, however, that this would not do — it was at war with the whole emphasis of the reading. It could not be supposed that Byron, or any one in his senses, intended to place stress upon such monosyllables as “are,” “of,” and “their,” nor could “their clime,” collated with “to crime,” in the corresponding line below, be fairly twisted into anything like a “double rhyme,” so as to bring everything within the category of the Grammars. But farther these Grammars spoke not. The inquirers, therefore, in spite of their sense of harmony in the lines, when considered without reference to scansion, fell upon the idea that the “Are” was a blunder — an excess for which the poet should be sent to Coventry — and, striking it out, they scanned the remainder of the line as follows:
-emblems of / deeds that are / done in their / clime.
This answered pretty well; but the Grammars admitted no such foot as a foot of one syllable; and besides the rhythm was dactylic. In despair, the books are well searched, however, and at last the investigators are gratified by a full solution of the riddle in the profound “Observation” quoted in the beginning of this article:—“When a syllable is wanting, the verse is said to be catalectic, when the measure is exact, the line is acatalectic; when there is a redundant syllable it forms hypermeter” This is enough. The anomalous line is pronounced to be catalectic at the head and to form hypermeter at the tail — and so on, and so on; it being soon discovered that nearly all the remaining lines are in a similar predicament, and that what flows so smoothly to the ear, although so roughly to the eye, is, after all, a mere jumble of catalecticism, acatalecticism, and hypermeter — not to say worse.
Now, had this court of inquiry been in possession of even the shadow of the philosophy of Verse, they would have had no trouble in reconciling this oil and water of the eye and ear, by merely scanning the passage without reference to lines, and, continuously, thus:
Know ye the / land where the / cypress and myrtle Are / emblems of deeds that are / done in their / clime Where the rage of the / vulture the / love of the / turtle Now / melt into / softness now / madden to / Know ye the / land of the / cedar and / vine Where the flowers ever / blossom the / beams ever / shine And the / light wings of / Zephyr op / pressed by per / fume Wax / faint o’er the / gardens of / Gul in their / bloom where the / citron and / olive are / fairest of / fruit And the / voice of the / nightingale / never is / mute Where the / virgins are / soft as the / roses they / twine And / all save the / spirit of / man is di / vine. ’Tis the / land of the / East ’tis the / clime of the / sum Can he / smile on such / deeds as his / children have / done Oh / wild as the / accents of / lovers’ fare / well Are the / hearts that they / bear and the / tales that they / tell.
Here “crime” and “tell” are caesuras, each having the value of a dactyl, four short syllables, while “fume Wax,” “twine And,” and “done Oh,” are spondees which, of course, being composed of two long syllables are also equal to four short, and are the dactyl’s natural equivalent. The nicety of Byron’s ear has led him into a succession of feet which, with two trivial exceptions as regards melody, are absolutely accurate, a very rare occurrence this in dactylic or anapaestic rhythms. The exceptions are found in the spondee “twine And,” and the dactyl “smile on such.” Both feet are false in point of melody. In “twine And” to make out the rhyme we must force “And” into a length which it will not naturally bear. We are called on to sacrifice either the proper length of the syllable as demanded by its position as a member of a spondee, or the customary accentuation of the word in conversation. There is no hesitation, and should be none. We at once give up the sound for the sense, and the rhythm is imperfect. In this instance it is very slightly so, not one person in ten thousand could by ear detect the inaccuracy. But the perfection of verse as regards melody, consists in its never demanding any such sacrifice as is here demanded. The rhythmical must agree thoroughly with the reading flow. This perfection has in no instance been attained, but is unquestionably attainable. “Smile on such,” a dactyl, is incorrect, because “such,” from the character of the two consonants ch cannot easily be enunciated in the ordinary time of a short syllable, which its position declares that it is. Almost every reader will be able to appreciate the slight difficulty here, and yet the error is by no means so important as that of the “And” in the spondee. By dexterity
