Sprung rhythm is, of course, the special property of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Click for his own explanation. An irreverent definition of his practice might be to compare it to a sprung sofa, with stuffing leaking out and springs projecting from its beat-up contours. Sprung rhythm was a revival of an extreme accentualism, much like Old English poetry and somewhat like tumbling verse, where what counts is the number of strong beats in the line and where there may be wild variations in the number of unstressed syllables (and also stressed syllables) in between the beats. Hopkins did this even while making use of recognizable and conventional rhyming structure, such as the Petrarchan sonnet form. Here are a few lines from one of his poems, with what may be the most important beats marked rather arbitrarily. Other patterns could be equally persuasive. Hopkins combines a Whitman-like freedom and energy with an anguished but exhilarating discipline.

                                    /              /            /            /            /
                            I caught this morning morning's minion, king-

                                               /            /                          /                 /                    /
                               dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

                                            /                            /              /       /         /
                               Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, & striding

                                /                            /                    /              /            /
                             High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing

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