THE POEMS in this book
1 are written some in Running Rhythm, the common rhythm
in English use, some in Sprung Rhythm,
and some in a mixture of the two. And those
in the common rhythm are some counterpointed,
some not.
Common English rhythm, called
Running Rhythm above, is measured by feet of
either two or three syllables and (putting
aside the imperfect feet at the beginning and
end of lines and also some unusual measures,
in which feet seem to be paired
together and double or composite feet
to arise) never more or less.
Every foot has one principal
stress or accent, and this or the syllable it falls on may
be called the Stress of the foot and
the other part, the one or two unaccented
syllables, the Slack. Feet (and the
rhythms made out of them) in which the stress
comes first are called Falling Feet
and Falling Rhythms, feet and rhythm in which the
slack comes first are called Rising
Feet and Rhythms, and if the stress is between
two slacks there will be Rocking Feet
and Rhythms. These distinctions are real and
true to nature; but for purposes of
scanning it is a great convenience to follow the
example of music and take the stress
always first, as the accent or the chief account
always comes first in a musical bar.
If this is done there will be in common English
verse only two possible feet—the so-called
accentual Trochee and Dactyl, and
correspondingly only two possible uniform
rhythms, the so-called Trochaic and
Dactylic. But they may be mixed and
then what the Greeks called a Logaoedic
Rhythm arises. These are the facts and
according to these the scanning of ordinary
regularly-written English verse is very
simple indeed and to bring in other principles is
here unnecessary.
But because verse written
strictly in these feet and by these principles will become
same and tame the poets have brought
in licences and departures from rule to give
variety, and especially when the natural
rhythm is rising, as in the common
ten-syllable or five-foot verse, rhymed
or blank. These irregularities are chiefly
Reversed Feet and Reversed or Counterpoint
Rhythm, which two things are two
steps or degrees of licence in the same
kind. By a reversed foot I mean the putting
the stress where, to judge by the rest
of the measure, the slack should be and the
slack where the stress, and this is
done freely at the beginning of a line and, in the
course of a line, after a pause; only
scarcely ever in the second foot or place and
never in the last, unless when the poet
designs some extraordinary effect; for these
places are characteristic and sensitive
and cannot well be touched. But the reversal
of the first foot and of some middle
foot after a strong pause is a thing so natural that
our poets have generally done it, from
Chaucer down, without remark and it
commonly passes unnoticed and cannot
be said to amount to a formal change of
rhythm, but rather is that irregularity
which all natural growth and motion shews. If
however the reversal is repeated in
two feet running, especially so as to include the
sensitive second foot, it must be due
either to great want of ear or else is a calculated
effect, the superinducing or mounting
of a new rhythm upon the old; and since the
new or mounted rhythm is actualy heard
and at the same time the mind naturally
supplies the natural or standard foregoing
rhythm, for we do not forget what the
rhythm is that by rights we should be
hearing, two rhythms are in some manner
running at once and we have something
answerable to counterpoint in music, which
is two or more strains of tune going
on together, and this is Counterpoint Rhythm. Of
this kind of verse Milton is the great
master and the choruses of Samson Agonistes
are written throughout in it—but with
the disadvantage that he does not let the reader
clearly know what the ground-rhythm
is meant to be and so they have struck most
readers as merely irregular. And in
fact if you counterpoint throughout, since one
only of the counter rhythms is actually
heard, the other is really destroyed or cannot
come to exist, and what is written is
one rhythm only and probably Sprung Rhythm,
of which I now speak.
Sprung Rhythm, as used in
this book, is measured by feet of from one to four
syllables, regularly, and for particular
effects any number of weak or slack syllables
may be used. It has one stress, which
falls on the only syllable, if there is only one, if
there are more, then scanning as above,
on the first, and so gives rise to four sorts of
feet, a monosyllable and the so-called
accentual Trochee, Dactyl, and the First
Paeon. And there will be four corresponding
natural rhythms; but nominally the feet
are mixed and any one may follow any
other. And hence Sprung Rhythm differs
from Running Rhythm in having or being
only one nominal rhythm, a mixed or
‘logaoedic’ one, instead of three, but
on the other hand in having twice the flexibility
of foot, so that any two stresses may
either follow one another running or be divided
by one, two, or three slack syllables.
But strict Sprung Rhythm cannot be
counterpointed. In Sprung Rhythm, as
in logaoedic rhythm generally, the feet are
assumed to be equally long or strong
and their seeming inequality is made up by
pause or stressing.
Remark also that it is natural
in Sprung Rhythm for the lines to be rove over, that is
for the scanning of each line immediately
to take up that of the one before, so that if
the first has one or more syllables
at its end the other must have so many the less at
its beginning; and in fact the scanning
runs on without break from the beginning, say,
of a stanza to the end and all the stanza
is one long strain, though written in lines
asunder.
Two licences are natural
to Sprung Rhythm. The one is rests, as in music; but of
this an example is scarcely to be found
in this book, unless in the Echos, second line.
The other is hangers or outrides, that
is one, two, or three slack syllables added to
a foot and not counting in the nominal
scanning. They are so called because they
seem to hang below the line or ride
forward or backward from it in another
dimension than the line itself, according
to a principle needless to explain here. These
outriding half feet or hangers are marked
by a loop underneath them, and plenty of
them will be found.
The other marks are easily
understood, namely accents, where the reader might be
in doubt which syllable should have
the stress; slurs, that is loops over syllables, to
tie them together into the time of one;
little loops at the end of a line to shew that the
rhyme goes on to the first letter of
the next line; what in music are called pauses
, to shew
that the syllable should be dwelt on; and twirls , to mark
reversed or counterpointed rhythm.
Note on the nature and history
of Sprung Rhythm—Sprung Rhythm is the most
natural of things. For (1) it is the
rhythm of common speech and of written prose,
when rhythm is perceived in them. (2)
It is the rhythm of all but the most
monotonously regular music, so that
in the words of choruses and refrains and in
songs written closely to music it arises.
(3) It is found in nursery rhymes, weather
saws, and so on; because, however these
may have been once made in running
rhythm, the terminations having dropped
off by the change of language, the stresses
come together and so the rhythm is sprung.
(4) It arises in common verse when
reversed or counterpointed, for the
same reason.
But nevertheless in spite
of all this and though Greek and Latin lyric verse, which is
well known, and the old English verse
seen in Pierce Ploughman are in sprung
rhythm, it has in fact ceased to be
used since the Elizabethan age, Greene being the
last writer who can be said to have
recognised it. For perhaps there was not, down
to our days, a single, even short, poem
in English in which sprung rhythm is
employed—not for single effects or in
fixed places—but as the governing principle of
the scansion. I say this because the
contrary has been asserted: if it is otherwise the
poem should be cited.
Some of the
sonnets in this book 1 are in five-foot, some in six-foot or Alexandrine
lines.
Nos. 13 and 22 are Curtal-Sonnets,
that is they are constructed in proportions
resembling those of the sonnet proper,
namely 6+4 instead of 8+6, with however a
halfline tailpiece (so that the equation
is rather 12/8 + 9/2 = 21/2 = 10.5).