3. | Place me in | régions of e | térnal | winter | Where not a | blossom to the | breeze can | open but | | Darkening | tempests" | closing all a | round me" | Chill the creation. | 2. | Sage beneath a | spreading | oak ~ | Sate the | Druid | hoary | chief ~ | | Every | burning | word he | spoke ~ | て I Full of rage and | full of | grief. ~ | 3.1 SIX AND FOUR BARS. When he who adores thee has left but Of his | fault and his | sorrow be | hind~ | て | say wilt thou | weep when they | | ~ Of a | life that for | thee was re | signed ~? | SIX BARS, P 2. | A | chilles' | wrath to | Greece the | direful | springTM | Of woes un number'd" | heavenly | Goddess" | sing. It will be found by reading verse according to this system, -of marking the rhythm by time and accentuation,—that it will flow much more easily than when read by prosodial scanning: nor shall we be obliged to, make elisions of vowels for the purpose of preserving the apparent regularity of the line,that is, according to the plan of counting the syllables on the fingers. No poet has suffered more from this pedantic method of measuring English verse, than Shakspeare, whose commentators have not scrupled to add syllables to, or deduct syllables from his lines, in order to give them “the right butter-woman's pace to market;" and this because these learned gentlemen, instead of receiving the music of his verse through their ears, measured his lines, like tape, upon their fingers: and if they did not happen exactly to fit the prescribed length, they laid him upon the Procrustes' bed of their prosodial pedantry, and stretched him out, if too short, or cut him down, if too long! Thus they have succeeded, in some instances, in "curtailing" his verse of its beauty and "fair proportions," by the elision or blending of vowels, whose utterance really forms the music of the lines. For example, of the line て |O| Romeo! | Romeo! | wherefore | art thou | Romeo? | they would make a verse of what they would call five feet, with a redundant syllable; and, to do this, they are obliged to reduce the melodious name of Ro-me-o to two syllables; and scan it thus: Oh Romyo Ro | myo where | fore art | thou Ro | myo?thus clipping and defacing the language, for the sake of levelling it to the standard of a false prosody. Again, if we follow this prosodial finger-measuring of verse, what becomes of the force and depth of the heart-wrung exclamation of Samson, (Agonistes,) when he exclaims: Oh! dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon! The prosodians would thus measure it : Oh dark | dark dark | amid | the blaze | of noon | and thus destroy all the force and passion of the line: a rational prosody, preserving the feeling, as well as the rhythın of the verse, would thus divide it into eight bars, timing it duly, and marking it with rests that add to its beauty and power. Thus we preserve all the expression of the verse, and distinguish its melody and rhythm from such a verse as the following, which has exactly the same number of syllables as the above line, and would, by the prosodians, be scanned exactly in the same manner; yet it has quite a different movement: A burdenous drone, to visitants a gaze. If we follow the prosodians, we shall thus scan this line: Å burd' | nous drone | to vis | itants | ǎ gaze. a If we follow good taste, common sense, and rhythmical accentuation, we shall thus measure it: 3. | A | burdenous | drone to ❘ visitants a | gaze.~ It is thus a line of five bars, in triple time: and the change from common time is in keeping with the expression. The same of the following line, which owes its lightness and beauty to its accentuation and triple time: 3. Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the morn. It is on the variation of time and accentuation that the verse of Milton depends so much for its force and melody. The poet has studiously adapted the time and movement of his verse to the effect intended to be produced; but the system of scanning rẹ, duces all verse to the same humdrum jog-trot, "The native wood-notes, wild," says Kemble, "which could delight the cultivated ear of a Milton, are not to be regulated by those who measure verses by their fingers." And yet it is recorded of Kemble, (and the anecdote is an excellent satire upon prosodial scanning,) that, in obedience to this finger-measuring of verse, the second of the following lines, in the Tempest, " I'll rack thee with old cramps, Fill all thy bones with aches; make thee roar, was thus read by Kemble: "Fill all thy bones with aitches, make thee roar,”— an absurdity really ridiculous, committed in order to make up the full number of ten syllables, or five feet, of which, according to prosodial scanning, the verse is composed. The time, measure, and reading of the line are thus: 2. Fill all thy | bones with | aches | make thee | roar | The rest after "aches" fills up the rhythm, prevents the absurdity of perverting "aches" into a word of two syllables, and adds to the force and expression of the line. Thus we see that, in rhythmical reading, the rests or pauses are as necessary to the measure as the notes or syllables themselves. The Casural pause, spoken of by Blair and the prosodians, may sometimes suffice, with the rest at the close of the line, to make out the rhythm and sense of the verse; but, for fine, musical, and expressive reading of verse, other rests are necessary, not only in the middle and at the close of the line, but in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or whatever bar the rhythm, sense, or feeling demands them. And the accentuation of the lines will not run on in the same unvarying Iambic jog-trot, but will change from common to triple time, and back again, just as the poet, (if he have a fine vary his verse, to produce a severe or light and ear,) shall airy effect. The following lines in blank verse and common time, are exceedingly rhythmical and melodious; but their rhythm will be almost destroyed, and they will become merely poetical prose, if, in delivering them, we neglect to mark the variation, which is occasionally made by the poet in the movement of his verse,by change of time and accentuation. A SABBATH MORN.-GRAHAME. How still the morning" of the hallow'd day!" Mute is the voice of rural labor, hush'd" The ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's song. The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath Of tedded grass, mingled with faded flowers, That yestermorn bloom'd waving in the breeze. The distant bleatingTM midway up the hill.— |