The Principles of English Metre |
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Common terms and phrases
accent according actual alliteration alternating apparently arrangement arsis beat break caesura called classical combination continuous couplet course dactylic depends distinct division duration effect emotional emphasis English equal equivalent examples expression fact fall feet final foot frequently give given Greek groups hand heavy iambic ictus important intervals kind language latter length less light lines longer lyric marked means measures merely metre metrical Milton movement natural necessary normal occur original pause period pitch poetry poets position possible preserved probably produce prose quantity reason regard regular represented rest rhetorical rhythm rhythmical rime rising rule says scan scansion scheme secondary seems sense short sometimes song sounds speech stanza stress strong substitution succession syllables theory thesis third thou thought trochaic true usually varying verse vowel weak whole
Popular passages
Page 200 - TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge ; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Page 190 - I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky ; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain when with never a stain The pavilion of Heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air...
Page 263 - Homer ruled as his demesne : Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken ; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He...
Page 207 - The Rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the Rose, •^The Moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare...
Page 273 - BRIGHT star ! would I were steadfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night. And watching, with eternal lids apart. Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores...
Page 263 - Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, It shall be still in strictest measure even...
Page 273 - Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain.
Page 241 - Oh ! young Lochinvar is come out of the west, Through all the wide Border his steed was the best ; And save his good broadsword he weapons had none, He rode all unarmed and he rode all alone. So faithful in love and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.
Page 239 - On Linden, when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow ; And dark as winter was the flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly. But Linden saw another sight, When the drum beat at dead of night, Commanding fires of death to light The darkness of her scenery.
Page 277 - Alas! regardless of their doom The little victims play; No sense have they of ills to come Nor care beyond to-day: Yet see how all around 'em wait The ministers of human fate And black Misfortune's baleful train!