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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 or 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:

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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

anx | aux | anx | 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

Give me of your bark, O Birch-tree;
Of your yellow bark, O Birch-tree!
Growing by the rushing river,
Tall and stately in the valley!
I a light canoe will build me.
That shall float upon the river,
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily!

From "Hiawatha," by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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 preëmpted 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."

Waken, lords and ladies gay,
The mist has left the mountain gray,
Springlets in the dawn are steaming,
Diamonds on the brake are gleaming:
And foresters have busy been
To track the buck in thicket green;
Now we come to chant our lay,
"Waken, lords and ladies gay."

Waken, lords and ladies gay,
To the green-wood haste away;
We can show you where he lies,
Fleet of foot and tall of size;
We can show the marks he made,
When 'gainst the oak his antlers frayed;
You shall see him brought to bay,
"Waken, lords and ladies gay."

Louder, louder chant the lay,
Waken, lords and ladies gay!
Tell them youth and mirth and glee
Run a course as well as we;

Time, stern huntsman, who can balk,
Stanch as hound and fleet as hawk?
Think of this and rise with day,
Gentle lords and ladies gay.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

A similar call to a more serious purpose is voiced in vigorous trochaic verse in Alfred Edward Housman's "Reveille," from which we quote two stanzas:

Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying:
Hear the drums of morning play;
Hark, the empty highways crying
"Who'll beyond the hills away?

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