Part 2 — CHAPTER XV NON-STROPHIC, ANISOMETRICAL COMBINATIONS OF RHYMED VERSE
Reading edition
§ 206. Non-strophic anisometrical combinations of rhymed verse consist of lines of different metres, rhyming in pairs, and recurring in a definite order of succession. One of these combinations, known as the Poulter’s Measure (Alexandrine + Septenary), already occurs in the Middle English Period (cf. § 146) and has remained in use down to the present day. It was at one time extremely popular, and has in the Modern English Period been imitated in other metres.
The most common variety of this metre is that in which the verses have an iambic-anapaestic rhythm; they are usually printed in short lines, as e.g. in a poem by Charles Kingsley:
When Í was a gréenhorn and yóung, And wánted to bé and to dó, I púzzled my bráins about chóosing my líne, Till I fóund out the wáy that things gó.
Before his time Burns had composed a poem in the same metre, Here’s a Health to them that’s awa (p. 245); and at the end of the seventeenth century Philips (Poets, vi. 560) wrote a Bacchanalian Song in similar verses.
In the same metre are the Nonsense Rhymes by Edward Lear,[178] as well as many other quatrains of a similar kind, the humour of which is often somewhat coarse.
An unusual sub-species of this metre, consisting of trochaic verses, occurs only very rarely in Leigh Hunt, e.g. in Wealth and Womanhood (p. 277):
Háve you séen an héiress ín her jéwels móunted, Tíll her wéalth and shé seem’d óne, ánd she míght be cóunted? Háve you séen a bósom wíth one róse betwíxt it? And díd you márk the gráteful blúsh, whén the brídegroom fíx’d it?
§ 207. Other anisometrical combinations consist of a five-foot line followed by one consisting of four, three, or two feet. This form we find pretty often; Ben Jonson, e.g., uses it (five + four feet) in his translation of Horace, Odes v. 11 (Poets, iv. 596):
Háppy is hé, that fróm all búsiness cléar, Ás the old ráce of mánkind wére, Wíth his own óxen tílls his síre’s left lánds, And ís not ín the úsurer’s bánds; Nor sóldier-líke, stárted with róugh alárms, Nor dréads the séa’s enráged hárms, &c.
He used the reverse order in Odes iv. 1. In Wordsworth’s poem The Gipsies (iv. 68) we have the couplets: a a5 b b4 c c5 d d4, &c., but not divided into stanzas.
Five- and three-foot lines a5 a3 b5 b3 c5 c3 d5 d3, &c., occur in Ben Jonson, The Forest, XI. Epode (Poets, vi, pp. 555–6); and with reverse order (a3 a5 b3 b5 c3 c5, &c.) in his Epigrams (Poets, iv. 546).
The combination of five- and two-foot lines seems to occur in modern poets only; e.g. in W. S. Landor, Miscellanies, clxxv (ii. 649):
Néver may stórm thy péaceful bósom véx, Thou lóvely Éxe! O’er whóse pure stréam that músic yésterníght Pour’d frésh delíght, And léft a vísion for the éye of Mórn To láugh to scórn, &c.
With crossed rhymes (feminine and masculine rhymes, alternately) this combination occurs in Mrs. Browning, A Drama of Exile (i. 12), where the scheme is a ~5 b2 a ~5 b2 c ~5 d2 c ~5 d2, and in R. Browning, A Grammarian’s Funeral (iv. 270), the formula being a5 b ~2 a5 b ~2 c5 d ~2 c5 d ~2, &c.
§ 208. Combinations of four- and two-foot lines (masculine and feminine endings) occur in Ben Jonson, Epigrams, cxx (Poets, iv. 545); iambic and anapaestic verses similarly combined in R. Browning, Prospice, vi. 152.
In the same poet we have three- and two-foot iambic-anapaestic lines with the formula a ~3 b2 c ~3 b2 d ~3 e2 f ~3 e2; in The Englishman in Italy (iv. 186):
Fortú, Fortú, my belóved one, Sit hére by my side, On my knées put up bóth little féet! I was súre, if I tried, &c.
In Mrs. Browning we find this metre, which might be taken also as five-foot iambic-anapaestic couplets, broken up by internal rhyme (according to the formula a ~3 b2 a ~3 b2 c ~3 d2 c ~3 d2, &c.) in A Drama of Exile (i. 3). For other specimens see Metrik, ii, §§ 244–8.
A number of other anisometrical combinations of verses will be mentioned in Book II, in the chapter on the non-strophic odes.