English with their usual names short and long, except with the understanding that these terms have no necessary reference to the amount of time required for pronouncing a syllable.

In addition to the iambic there are three other frequently occurring feet: the trochee (ax), the anapest (xxa), and the dactyl (axx). These are respectively exemplified in the three lines below. The corresponding adjectives are trochaic, anapestic, and dactylic.

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.
x x | a x x

a

Take her up tenderly.

The four types of feet thus far exemplified are all which need consideration in an elementary study. The numerous additional types listed in treatises on versification have no real place in English except in imitations of Latin and other foreign rhythms. A few of these exotic feet are the pyrrhic (xx), the spondee (aa), the amphibrach (xax), the amphimacer (axa), the anapestic pœon (xxxa), and the dactylic paon (axxx). Attempts at employing these feet, as well as imitations of the classical meters, are usually, by the ordinary reader, felt to be either free verse or approximations at various combinations of the four familiar meters.

The four English meters-iambic, trochaic, anapestic, dactylic-may be divided according to two criteria. The iambic and anapestic meters are, in the first place, some

times classed together as ascending or rising meters because they begin with a light syllable and pass to a stressed syllable; and, for the opposite reason, the trochaic and dactylic meters are classed together as descending or falling. This classification is logical and convenient; that it is not fundamental may be shown by citing the fact that from the latter half of a line it is often impossible to determine whether a measure is ascending or descending. A second and more important division is made between the iambic and trochaic meters on the one hand, and the anapestic and dactylic on the other. The meters whose feet consist of two syllables are called double cr duple; those whose feet consist of three syllables are called triple. The double meters present a steady alternation between stressed and unstressed syllables, while the movement of the triple meters is more rapid. The distinction between double and triple rhythms is natural; it is sensed by the ear throughout a poem.

Since English nouns and verbs are commonly preceded by weaker parts of speech, particularly articles and pronouns, the first syllable in a sentence is likely to bear no accent, and English poetry accordingly is much more frequently ascending than descending. Moreover, since accented and unaccented syllables occur in approximately equal proportions, English poetry is much more frequently duple than triple. In fact, ever since the modern type of versification displaced the Old English alliterative poetry, the iambic rhythm, which is at once duple and ascending, has been the standard English rhythm. It is the vehicle of most of the great poetry of the language. The naturalness of the iambic rhythm may be further

shown by pointing out that lofty prose often has an iambic quality. Well-known examples are Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address," and the concluding pages of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities.

The following stanza from Burns's "Bonnie Doon" (second version) is as purely iambic as the quotation from Noyes:

Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,

That sings upon the bough;

Thou minds me o' the happy days

When my fause luve was true.

Common as is the iambic meter, a poem with no substituted feet is not the rule but the rare exception. Among Byron's Hebrew Melodies is found a poem which is purely iambic except for the first foot in the fourth line. This foot must be read not ra but ax; it is trochaic. In the first foot of an iambic line the trochee is a legitimate substitution, which affords variety and emphasis.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)

The second duple meter, the trochaic, has already been partly described. The following selections are scanned respectively:

and

ax | ax | ax | a

ax | ax | ax | ax.

Queen and Huntress, chaste and fair,

Now the sun is laid to sleep,

Seated in thy silver chair

State in wonted manner keep.

From "Hymn to Diana," by Ben Jonson

The meter of the first of the above selections lacks the unaccented syllable of the last foot of the line and is consequently said to be catalectic. Since poems of the first type are, however, more frequent than poems of the latter,

the full trochaic line is often distinguished from the shorter by the term acatalectic.

Although there is no great fundamental difference between the iambic and the trochaic meters, the two are, except for substituted feet, usually not employed in the same poem. Well-known poems in which these meters are combined include, however, Milton's "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso." The former has a far larger number of trochaic lines. In fact, if the trochaic meter can be said to have preempted any one field, it is that of lively emphatic presentment of a subject. The stress on the initial syllables is likely to induce an animated reading of the poem. In the following passage from William Blake's "The Tiger" the first three lines are trochaic while the last is iambic:

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The blending of the two duple meters is nowhere better shown than in Scott's

HUNTING SONG

Waken, lords and ladies gay,
On the mountain dawns the day,

All the jolly chase is here,

With hawk and horse and hunting-spear!
Hounds are in their couples yelling,
Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling,
Merrily, merrily, mingle they,

"Waken, lords and ladies gay."