Note 114 — Chapter VI · THE LAST STAGE—TENNYSON TO SWINBURNE
Reading edition
A few examples may be given:—
(1)Oh || heart! oh! | blood that | freezes, | blood that | burns! Earth's re|turns For whole | centu|ries of | folly, | noise, and | sin! Shut them | in With their | triumphs | and their | glories, | and the | rest; Love is | best.
(Love, among the Ruins.)
(Regular trochees alternately trimeter and monometer, but both catalectic. One monosyllabic substitution.)
(2)What hand and brain went ever paired? What heart alike conceived and dared? What act proved all its thought had been? What will but felt the fleshly screen? We ride | and I see | her bosom heave. There's ma|ny a crown | for who can reach. Ten lines, a statesman's life in each! The flag stuck on a heap of bones, A soldier's doing! what atones? They scratch his name | on the Ab|bey stones. My ri|ding is bet|ter, by their leave.
(The Last Ride Together.)
(Iambic dimeter stanza; three or four trisyllabic substitutions.)
(3)Oh, | what a dawn | of day! How the March | sun feels | like May! All is blue | again After last | night's rain, And the South | dries the haw|thorn spray. On|ly, my Love's | away! I'd as lief | that the blue | were grey.
(Iambic-anapæstic with monosyllabic feet admitted into partnership.)
(4)Is all | our fire | of ship|wreck wood, Oak ¦ and | pine? Oh, for | the ills | half-un|derstood, The dim | dead woe | Long ¦ a|go Befallen | this bit|ter coast | of France! Well, poor | sailors | took their | chance: I ¦ take | mine.
(Iambic-trochaic; or, if monosyllabic initial feet be granted in some lines, all iambic, and perhaps better so.)