Part 2 — CHAPTER XIV IAMBIC-ANAPAESTIC AND TROCHAIC-DACTYLIC METRES

§ 189. The iambic-anapaestic rhythm has been touched on before in connexion with the four-stressed verse (cf. § 72) which was developed from the alliterative long line, and which at the end of the Middle English and in the beginning of the Modern English period, under the growing influence of the even-beat metres, had assumed more or less regular iambic-anapaestic character.

When during the same period a definitive separation of the rising and falling rhythms took place, the even-measured rhythm of this four-stressed modern metre became more conspicuous and was made up frequently, although not always, of a regular series of iambic-anapaestic measures. It was thus differentiated still more distinctly from the uneven-beat Old and Middle English long line, the character of which mainly rested on the four well-marked beats only. It deserves notice further that it was not until the Modern English period that the rest of the iambic-anapaestic and trochaic-dactylic metres (the eight-, seven-, six-, five-, four-, three-, and two-foot verses) were imitated from the then common corresponding iambic rhythms.

In the sixteenth century Puttenham quotes four-foot dactylics, and in his time the dactylic hexameter had already been imitated in English. But most of the other trisyllabic rising and falling metres, except the Septenary, occur first in English poetry at the end of the eighteenth and during the course of the nineteenth century.

It must also be noted that in many cases, especially in the eight-, four-, and two-foot verses of this kind (i.e. in those metres that are connected with the old four-stressed verse), the rising and falling rhythms are not strictly separated, but frequently intermingle and even supplement one another.

I. Iambic-anapaestic Metres.

§ 190. Eight-foot iambic-anapaestic verses rhyming in long lines are very rare, but appear in the following four-lined stanza of four-foot verses by Burns, The Chevalier’s Lament (p. 343):

In this metre each of the two periods begins with an iambic measure and then passes into anapaests, the feminine ending of the first (or third) line and the iambic beginning of the second (or fourth) forming together an anapaest.

In a poem by Swinburne (Poems, ii. 144) four-foot anapaestic and dactylic lines alternate so as to form anapaestic periods:

For other less correct specimens of such combinations of verse cf. Metrik, ii, §225.

§ 191. The seven-foot iambic-anapaestic verse would seem to be of rare occurrence except in the most recent period; in long lines and masculine rhymes it has been used by Swinburne, as e.g. in The Death of Richard Wagner;[173] we quote the middle stanza:

The occurrence of an iambus or a spondee at the end and sometimes in the middle of the verse is remarkable, as well as the arbitrary treatment of the caesura, which does not, as in the iambic Septenary verse, always come after the fourth foot (as in the second line), but sometimes in other places; in the first and third lines, for instance, there is a feminine caesura in the fifth foot.

More often this Septenary metre occurs in short lines (and therefore with fixed masculine caesura). In this form it appears as early as the seventeenth century in a poem by the Earl of Dorset, To Chloris:

Poets, vii. 513.

Another specimen of the same rhythm, very artistically handled (cf. Metrik, i, § 226) is Charles Wolfe’s well-known poem The Burial of Sir John Moore. The same metre also occurs with masculine rhymes.

§ 192. The six-foot iambic-anapaestic verse sometimes occurs in Modern English poets, as Tennyson, The Grandmother, Maud, &c., Robert Browning, Abt Vogler, Mrs. Browning, Confessions, Swinburne, Hymn to Proserpine, &c.

We quote the following verses from Tennyson’s Maud to illustrate this metre, which, however, in consequence of the fluctuating proportion of iambic and anapaestic measures occurring in it is handled very differently by different poets (cf. Metrik, ii, § 227):

The caesura is sometimes masculine after the third foot (as in lines 1 and 3), sometimes feminine in the fourth (line 2) or the fifth (line 4); so that its position is quite indeterminate. The rhymes are mostly masculine, but feminine rhymes are also met with, as e.g. in Mrs. Browning’s Confessions. Swinburne’s verses are printed in long lines, it is true, but they are broken into short lines by inserted masculine and feminine rhymes.

§ 193. The five-foot iambic-anapaestic verse likewise does not occur till recent times, and is chiefly used by the poets just mentioned. Rhymed in couplets it occurs in Mrs. Browning’s The Daughters of Pandarus, Version II (vol. iv, p. 200):

The rhythm is here almost entirely anapaestic; the caesura occurs in the most diverse places and may be either masculine or feminine. The ending of the line is masculine throughout, as well as in Robert Browning’s Saul (iii. 146–96), but with many run-on lines.

In Swinburne’s A Word from the Psalmist (A Mids. Holiday, p. 176) we have another treatment of this metre. As a rule the line begins with an anapaest, and continues in pure iambic rhythm:

In other examples it has an iambic or spondaic rhythm at the beginning and end, with an anapaestic part in the middle, as in The Seaboard (ib., p. 3) by the same poet:

In A Century of Roundels, p. 1, &c., Swinburne uses this metre, which also occurs in Tennyson’s Maud, with feminine and masculine endings alternately.

§ 194. The four-foot iambic-anapaestic verse is essentially identical with the four-stressed verse treated of above (§ 72), except that it has assumed a still more regular, even-beat rhythm in modern times; generally it begins with an iambus and anapaests follow, as in the stanza quoted from Burns (§ 190). Occasionally this metre has an almost entirely anapaestic structure; as e.g. in Moore, In the Morning of Life:

In other examples the rhythm is chiefly iambic, intermingled with occasional anapaests; as e.g. in Moore’s You Remember Ellen:

When the stránger Wílliam, | had máde her his bríde,

And lóve was the líght | of her lówly cót.

Verses like these, which in their structure recall the earlier four-stressed verses, frequently occur (see §§ 72, 132) mixed with four-foot verses of a somewhat freer build in the narrative poems of Coleridge, Scott, and Byron.

§ 195. The three-foot iambic-anapaestic verse took its origin by analogy to the corresponding four-foot line, or perhaps to the two-foot line derived from it by inserted rhymes; it occurs as early as Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry (cf. Guest, ii, p. 251):

We have the same metre (two anapaests following the first iambic measure) in Rowe, Shenstone, Moore, and others, sometimes with alternate masculine and feminine rhymes.

§ 196. The two-foot iambic-anapaestic verse sprang from the breaking-up of the corresponding four-foot (or four-stressed) line by inserted or leonine rhyme, as we find it even in the Middle English bob-wheel stanzas; in Modern English we have it in Tusser for the first time:

This metre is used by Gay, Goldsmith, Scott, Moore, Longfellow, Robert Browning, and others; it is also found with an anapaest following the first iambic measure, and either with masculine and feminine rhymes alternately, as in the example quoted above, or (as is most usual) with these rhymes in indiscriminate succession.

§ 197. The one-foot iambic-anapaestic verse occasionally occurs in the Middle English bob-wheel stanzas. In Modern English we find it only as an element in anisometrical stanzas, as e.g. in the following half-stanza of Shelley’s Autumn (iii. 65):

In Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, III. ii. 448–63 (apart from the four-foot trochaic end-lines of the half-stanzas), we also have such verses apparently; the iambic-anapaestic character being clearly shown by a couplet like the following:

II. Trochaic-dactylic Metres

§ 198. These are much rarer than the iambic-anapaestic metres. Specimens of all of them are quoted, but some are only theoretical examples invented by, and repeated from, English or American metrists.

Theoretically the acatalectic dactylic verse in its rhymed form ought always to have trisyllabic or at least feminine caesura and ending. As a fact, however, these metres have just as frequently or perhaps more frequently masculine caesuras and rhymes.

The eight-foot trochaic-dactylic verse, alternating occasionally with iambic-anapaestic lines, occurs in Longfellow’s The Golden Legend, iv:[175]

Elsie.

Ónward and ónward the híghway rúns || to the dístant cíty, | impátiently béaring

Tídings of húman jóy and disáster, || of lóve and of háte, | of dóing and dáring!

Prince Henry.

This lífe of óurs | is a wíld aeólian hárp | of mány a jóyous stráin,

But únder them áll there rúns | a lóud perpétual wáil, | as of sóuls in páin.

Elsie.

Fáith alóne can intérpret lífe, || and the héart that áches and bléeds with the stígma

Of pain, | alóne bears the likeness of Chríst, || and cán comprehénd its dárk enígma.

There are, as appears from this specimen, a great many licences in these verses; the caesura, mostly in the fourth foot, is masculine in lines 1, 5, 6, feminine in 2; so that the second half of the line has an iambic-anapaestic rhythm. Besides this most of the lines have secondary caesuras in different places of the verse; iambic-anapaestic verses (like 3, 4, 6) are decidedly in the minority. The rhymes are both feminine and masculine, but there is no regular alternation between them, as might be supposed from the above short specimen.

§ 199. The form of the seven-foot trochaic-dactylic verse may be illustrated by the following theoretical specimen, quoted from The Grammar of English Grammars (p. 880), by Goold Brown:

Verses of this form with masculine endings printed in short lines occur in a song by Burns (p. 217):

§ 200. The six-foot trochaic-dactylic verse may be illustrated by a theoretical specimen from Goold Brown (p. 880), which is strictly dactylic, with inserted rhymes:

Generally this metre is combined with iambic-anapaestic verses, as e.g. in Mrs. Browning’s Confessions (iii. 60) mentioned above, § 192, which is, for the greatest part, written in this form:

§ 201. The five-foot trochaic-dactylic verse occurs now and then in Swinburne’s A Century of Roundels, as e.g. on p. 5:

The verses are trochaic with two dactyls at the beginning. The caesura is variable; masculine in line 1; trisyllabic after the second arsis in line 2; a double caesura occurs in line 3, viz. a feminine one in the first foot, a masculine one in the fourth. The rhymes are both masculine and feminine.

§ 202. The four-foot trochaic-dactylic verse is mentioned first by Puttenham (p. 140), and occurs pretty often; seldom unrhymed as in Southey, The Soldier’s Wife;[176] mostly rhymed, as e.g. in Thackeray, The Willow Tree (p. 261):

For other specimens with occasional masculine rhymes see Metrik, ii, § 238; amongst them is one from Swinburne’s A Century of Roundels, of principally trochaic rhythm.

§ 203. The three-foot trochaic-dactylic verse with feminine rhymes occurs in R. Browning, The Glove (iv. 171):

Masculine rhymes occur in a song by Moore:

We have a strict dactylic rhythm, extending to the end of the line, in a short poem, To the Katydid, quoted by Goold Brown.[177]

§ 204. Two-foot dactylic or trochaic-dactylic verses (derived from the corresponding four-foot verses by means of inserted or leonine rhyme) are fairly common; generally, it is true, they have intermittent rhyme (a b c b),so that they are in reality four-foot rhyming couplets, merely printed in a two-foot arrangement, as in Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade (p. 260). There are, however, also some poems consisting of real short lines of this metre, i.e. of two-foot lines with alternately tumbling and feminine or tumbling and masculine rhymes; as, e.g., in Burns’s Jamie, come try me (p. 258), and in Hood, The Bridge of Sighs (p. 1):

Masculine rhymes throughout occur in Thackeray, The Mahogany Tree (p. 51), and in an imitation of the old four-stressed alliterative long line in Longfellow, The Saga of King Olaf I (p. 546):

§ 205. One-foot dactylic verses are not likely to occur except in anisometrical stanzas. We are unable to quote any proper example of them, but the following two four-lined half-stanzas from Scott’s Pibroch of Donald Dhu (p. 488), in which some of the two-foot lines admit of being resolved into verses of one foot, may serve to illustrate this metre: