English Verse Part 54

Morn and noon and night, Here I lie in the ground; No faintest glimmer of light, No lightest whisper of sound.

Here I lie in the ground; The worms glide out and in; No lightest whisper of sound, After a lifelong din.

The worms glide out and in; They are fruitful and multiply; After a lifelong din I watch them quietly.

They are fruitful and multiply, My body dwindles the while; I watch them quietly; I can scarce forbear a smile.

My body dwindles the while, I shall soon be a skeleton; I can scarce forbear a smile, They have had such glorious fun.

I shall soon be a skeleton, The worms are wriggling away; They have had such glorious fun, They will fertilize my clay.

The worms are wriggling away, They are what I have been; They will fertilize my clay; The gra.s.s will grow more green.

They are what I have been.

I shall change, but what of that?

The gra.s.s will grow more green, The parson's sheep grow fat.

I shall change, but what of that?

All flesh is gra.s.s, one says.

The parson's sheep grow fat, The parson grows in grace.

All flesh is gra.s.s, one says; Gra.s.s becomes flesh, one knows; The parson grows in grace: I am the grace he grows.

Gra.s.s becomes flesh, one knows.

He grows like a bull of Bashan.

I am the grace he grows; I startle his congregation.

He grows like a bull of Bashan, One day he'll be Bishop or Dean.

I startle his congregation; One day I shall preach to the Queen.

One day he'll be Bishop or Dean, One of those science-haters; One day I shall preach to the Queen.

To think of my going in gaiters!

One of those science-haters, Blind as a mole or bat; To think of my going in gaiters, And wearing a shovel hat!

Blind as a mole or bat, No faintest glimmer of light, And wearing a shovel hat, Morning and noon and night.

FOOTNOTES:

[47] On the early history of these forms in France, see Stengel's article in Grober's _Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie_. vol. ii. pp.

87-96.

[48] On these ballades of Graunson, a "knight of Savoy," see the articles by A. Piaget, in _Romania_, vol. xix., and Lounsbury's _Studies in Chaucer_, vol. iii. p. 450.

PART THREE

THE TIME-ELEMENT IN ENGLISH VERSE[49]

Nearly all modern writers on the theory of verse have admitted that English words have no fixed syllabic quant.i.ties such as are postulated for the cla.s.sical languages, but that English quant.i.ties, so far as they exist, are variable and (in part at least) subjective in character. To this it is true there are exceptions, chiefly among the poets, like some of those considered in the preceding section on Imitations of Cla.s.sical Metres.

Writers who have agreed that English words have no fixed quant.i.ties, are still at variance as to the relation of the element of syllabic time to the element of accent in English verse. Two extremes may at once be distinguished: that represented by the familiar statement that our rhythms differ from those of cla.s.sical poetry in being based wholly on accent, and that represented most notably by the late Sidney Lanier, who held that syllabic time-values in English verse are as exact and regular (hence as accurately measurable) as the notes of music. Lanier applied his theory with admirable consistency, and represented all sorts of English verse, even that of the Anglo-Saxon period, in musical notation.

He is almost universally regarded, however, as having been led by the a.n.a.logy between music and poetry to carry his method to quite impossible lengths. The most characteristic example of this is his representation of the familiar "blank verse" measure in "three-four" time, each accented syllable being given a time-value twice as long as that of the adjacent unaccented syllable--a method of reading which can easily be shown to be contrary to all common practice. It should not be forgotten, however, that a debt of grat.i.tude is owed Mr. Lanier for having been one of the first to emphasize adequately the fact that verse, like music, is _rhythmical sound_.

Besides those who make English verse to depend wholly on accent, and those who give it time-values equally regular and measurable with those of music, there is a third cla.s.s disposed to confuse the two elements of quant.i.ty and accent. Of this cla.s.s was Edgar Poe, who in his essay on The Rationale of Verse constantly spoke of accented and unaccented syllables as "long" and "short," respectively, and was even disposed to carry the identification into Latin verse itself. This essay of Poe's has lately been defended by Mr. John M. Robertson, in the interesting Appendix to his _New Essays toward a Critical Method_ (1897).

Unfortunately Mr. Robertson seems to have perpetuated deliberately the confusion which he found in Poe in the use of the terms "accent" and "quant.i.ty." He even says that the attempt to distinguish them is ill-founded, "that quant.i.ty in speaking _must_ amount substantially to the same thing as stress," and, again, that "Poe's identification of stress with length is perfectly sound." Whatever be the fundamental fact here, the use of terms cannot be commended. If quant.i.ty is swallowed up in accent, so that accent alone dominates our verse, that is one thing; if the conditions are such that a heavy stress and a long quant.i.ty nearly always coincide, that is also a possible doctrine; but that is not to say that the two things should be identified. If all tall men wear long coats, or if all men--tall and short--wear long coats, it follows in neither case that tallness and long-coatedness are the same thing. It is a mere matter of physics that duration of sound and intensity of sound are perfectly distinguishable, and that they have no necessary connection with each other. The problem is: how are they related in practice?

It has already been observed that Mr. Lanier did good service in emphasizing the a.n.a.logy between music and poetry, but that he carried the a.n.a.logy too far. It may, therefore, be worth while to consider at just this point the elements of likeness and of difference in the two forms of art. Both are forms of _rhythmical_ art: music and verse are alike rhythmical sound. Lanier showed with sufficient certainty that rhythm is dependent upon both _time_ and _accent_. He said, to be sure, that "time is _the_ essential" element;[50] but this does not seem to have been altogether what he meant, for he himself pointed out that the ear insistently marks off time-elements by the sense of variation of stress, even when there is no real variation, as in the tick-tack of the clock. He also pointed out that accent marks the rhythm of music quite as truly as that of verse, the rule being that ordinarily the first note of each measure shall receive a special stress. It seems, then, that the rhythm of music is based on the recurrence of accented sounds at equal time-intervals. The same thing is true of the rhythm of verse. For every kind of metre there is a normal verse-rhythm which is present in the mind as the basis on which the verse is built up, no matter how many variations may constantly occur. This normal rhythm is formed by a succession of accents at exactly equal time-intervals,[51] such as can be marked off by a metronome, or by the mechanical beating of the foot on the floor. We realize that the verse as commonly read frequently departs from this regularity of intervals; but without the regularity as a norm to which to refer it, we should not recognize it as verse. The normal accent-interval we call a "foot."

Exception must therefore be taken, it seems to me, to another contention of Mr. Robertson's; namely, that "there is no time-unit." "Our feet," he says, "are a pure convention, and the sole rhythmic fact is the fluctuant relativity of long and short, or stress and slur." I am glad to be able to believe that the fundamental rhythmic fact is something more definite than this.[52] But the latest writer on the subject, Mr.

Mark Liddell, in his _Introduction to the Scientific Study of Poetry_, joins Mr. Robertson in finding no feet in English verse. Nay, he represents the metrist who makes use of the old conventions of rhythmical measurement as one who will "flounder ceaselessly amid the scattered timbers of iambuses, spondees, dactyls, tribrachs, never reaching the firm ground of truth"! Mr. Liddell points out that we do not p.r.o.nounce English words, even in verse, with mechanically regular alternations of stress; and he rejects the explanation that there is nevertheless a typical form in the poet's and the reader's mind, on the ground that it is "a strange state of affairs that the aesthetically imperfect should produce a greater pleasure than the aesthetically perfect." Strange, perhaps, but as familiar as sunrise, if by "aesthetically perfect" we mean absolutely regular. Here we need to recur to the a.n.a.logy of music, where the phenomenon in question is so obvious.

Let any one attempt to follow a symphony with a metronome in his hand, and he will soon discover that if the metronome represents the aesthetically perfect rhythm, the orchestra represents a more pleasurable imperfection. Its accelerations and r.e.t.a.r.dations carry on a continual conflict with the typical time of the music, yet that typical time is not only printed on every sheet, but is in the mind of every player. It is precisely so with verse.

It is true, of course, that the variations from regularity of rhythm are more numerous and conspicuous in verse than in music. The reason is obvious: the sounds of verse have constantly to effect a compromise between the typical rhythm to which they are set and the irregular stress-and time-variations of human speech, while music has no such complicated task. Lyrical verse, being closest to music, keeps the typical rhythm freest from interruption; and it is worthy of remark that Mr. Liddell's study of English rhythms is based very largely on those of a non-lyrical character, although he himself points out (p. 271) that these are the least regular. The drama is dominated, most of all forms of verse, by the necessity of representing natural human speech; hence it is not the place to look for the fundamental laws of verse at their purest.

There is, then, a unit of time on which all verse-rhythms, like all musical rhythms, are based; and this is what we commonly call in music the _measure_, and in verse, the _foot_, I shall recur to this matter a little later in considering the terminology of the subject; for the present let us return to the relations of verse and music. Both, we have seen, are based on the recurrence of accented sounds at equal time-intervals. There is some difference, however, in the emphasis which one naturally places on the respective parts of the statement. In music we feel that the fact of chief importance is that the measures shall be equal in time, while the recurring accent seems a mere means of marking this equality; but in verse we feel that the chief fact is that the accents shall recur, the equality of time-intervals being in a sense a secondary source of pleasure. In music, therefore, as we have seen, we treat departures from regularity of time-intervals as somewhat more exceptional than in verse. But the rhythm would suffer, would even disappear, were either element wholly removed.

If we look for further distinctions between verse and music, we find them in the separate sounds which go to make up the unit-measures. Not only are the measures of music of mathematically equal length, but all the sounds bear exact time-relations to each other: each is either half as long, or twice as long, or a quarter as long, or four times as long, as its neighbor. On the other hand, the number of separate sounds in the measure constantly varies; it is sufficient that the total length be that of the full measure. In verse these conditions are reversed. The separate syllables, while they doubtless vary in length, are not mathematically coordinated as to duration by the ordinary reader. It is almost as difficult to say just what the time-relation of any two adjacent syllables is, as to be sure that one is stressed just twice as strongly as the other. On the other hand, the _number_ of syllables in the foot (in good modern English verse) is tolerably constant.

For the sake of completeness, one may add two other fundamental distinctions which, _apart_ from the elements of rhythm, differentiate verse from music. Music, apart from rhythm, characteristically depends on variation of pitch, and only incidentally (as in the case of the use of different instruments in orchestration) on variation of sound-quality; whereas verse, apart from rhythm, characteristically depends on variation of sound-quality,--that is, on the different sounds of the different words,--and only incidentally on changes of pitch.

Finally, the changing sounds of music are only vaguely symbolic, while the changing sounds of verse are symbolic of definite ideas.

For the sake of easy comparison we may put these observations in a rough sort of table:

MUSIC VERSE _Rhythmical Sound_, i.e.

Recurrence of accented sounds Recurrence of _accented sounds_ _at equal time-intervals_. at equal time-intervals.

Separate sounds mathematically Separate sounds not mathematically related in length, and constantly related in length, and varying in number and arrangement. generally with unchanged number and arrangement.

Apart from rhythm, dependent on Apart from rhythm, dependent on variation of _pitch_ (incidentally variation of sound-_quality_ on sound-_quality_). (incidentally on _pitch_).

Sounds vaguely symbolic. Sounds symbolic of definite ideas.

Let us now consider more closely the time-values of the separate syllables of verse, asking just what we mean by a "long" or a "short"

syllable in English. It has already been indicated that the ear recognizes no such fixed proportions in the length of our syllables as are recognized for musical notes, or as are postulated for the syllables of Greek and Latin verse. It must also be remembered that the terms "long" and "short," as commonly used of English vowels, are of little significance for the matter of real quant.i.ty. They are applied for historical reasons, and do not describe present facts. Thus we call the _o_ in "hotel" _long_, and that in "cot" short; but it is fairly clear that the _o_ of "cot" takes rather more time, as commonly uttered, than that of "hotel." The so-called "short _o_" is, in fact, a sound so open that it has lost the _o_-quality. In the same way what we call "long _a_" is a short-_e_ sound diphthongized. We cannot be said to preserve in modern English any single vowels with fixed long quant.i.ty, such as we hear in German words like _Saal_ and _See_,--sounds which obviously take more time in utterance than others.

Can we speak accurately, then, of long syllables and short syllables in modern English? It may be said that we have a large number of genuine diphthongs; and such double sounds, especially where they are so open as to require unusual effort on the part of the vocal organs (like _-ow_, for example), may be a.s.sumed to take a longer time in utterance than monophthongs. Even such a sound as is represented by _-au_ or _-aw_, though it has but slight diphthongal quality, seems to sound longer than most monophthongs. But in none of these cases does ordinary p.r.o.nunciation make the sound-length at all conspicuous, except where it coincides with strong stress; and it requires a moment's reasoning to convince one's self that the vowel in _fine_ is any longer than that in _fan_. It is more than doubtful, then, whether our vowel sounds can be regarded as of significance for metrical time. A word like "saw" or "now," occurring in such a place in the verse as to be pa.s.sed over with the briefest and lightest utterance, would be p.r.o.nounced with rapidity by the ordinary reader, with no thought that the vowel-sound was too "long."

But in the earlier languages a syllable might be long, not only from the presence of a long vowel, but also from the presence of two or more consonants following the vowel. May this be said to hold good for modern English? In general, prolonged consonantal sounds seem to be avoided, as in the case of vowels. We pa.s.s over them rapidly, and have, for instance, no such clearly stopped syllables due to double consonants as are heard in Italian words like _madonna_. Yet we cannot doubt that two or three consonants require more time than one, and in words like _strength_, _flushed_, _fists_, and the like, every one would find the consonantal length perceptible. More than this, two consonants often serve to "close" the preceding syllable, by making it impossible to run the consonant at the end of it over into the following syllable, and hence really lengthen it. This, of course, is the reason why the first syllable of the Latin _avis_ is said to be short, but that of _alvus_ to be long. The Elizabethan metrists tried to apply these Latin rules of "quant.i.ty by position" to all English words; and many modern English writers, who have been trained from childhood in the appreciation of Latin quant.i.ties, easily perceive the differing consonantal quant.i.ties of English words. These quant.i.ties may, then, certainly be said to exist; but in ordinary English p.r.o.nunciation, and to the ordinary, untrained English ear, they must be strongly marked in order to attract attention. When thus strongly marked, they doubtless play some part in the structure of verse. In some lines attributed to Raleigh,

"His desire is a dureless content, And a trustless joy,"