Page:The grammar of English grammars.djvu/873



MEASURE II.&mdash;TROCHAIC OF SEVEN FEET, OR HEPTAMETER.
Example.&mdash;Psalm LXX, Versified. Hasten, \ Lord, to \ rescue \ me, and \ set me \ safe from \ trouble; Shame thou \ those who \ seek my \ soul, re\-ward their \ mischief \ double. Turn the \ taunting \ scorners \ back, who \ cry, 'A\-ha!' so \ loudly; Backward \ in con\-fusion \ hurl the \ foe that \ mocks me \ proudly. Then in \ thee let \ those re\-joice, who \ seek thee, \ self-de\-nying; All who \ thy sal\-vation \ love, thy \ name be \ glory\-fying. So let \ God be \ magni\-fied. But \ I am \ poor and \ needy: Hasten, \ Lord, who \ art my \ Helper; \ let thine \ aid be \ speedy. This verse, like all other that is written in very long lines, requires a cæsural pause of proportionate length; and it would scarcely differ at all to the ear, if it were cut in two at the place of this pause&mdash;provided the place were never varied. Such metre does not appear to have been at any time much used, though there seems to be no positive reason why it might not have a share of popularity. To commend our versification for its "boundless variety," and at the same time exclude from it forms either unobjectionable or well authorized, as some have done, is plainly inconsistent. Full trochaics have some inconvenience, because all their rhymes must be double; and, as this inconvenience becomes twice as much when any long line of this sort is reduced to two short ones, there may be a reason why a stanza precisely corresponding to the foregoing couplets is seldom seen. If such lines be divided and rhymed at the middle of the fourth foot, where the cæsural pause is apt to fall, the first part of each will be a trochaic line of four feet, single-rhymed and catalectic, while the rest of it will become an iambic line of three feet, with double rhyme and hypermeter. Such are the prosodial characteristics of the following lines; which, if two were written as one, would make exactly our full trochaic of seven feet, the metre exhibited above: "Whisp'ring, \ heard by \ wakeful \ maids,     To whom \ the night \ stars guide \ us,    Stolen \ walk, through \ moonlight \ shades,      With those \ we love \ beside \ us"&mdash;Moore's Melodies, p. 276. But trochaic of seven feet may also terminate with single rhyme, as in the following couplet, which is given anonymously, and, after a false custom, erroneously, in N. Butler's recent Grammar, as "trochaic of six feet, with an additional long syllable:  "Night and \ morning \ were at \ meeting \ over \ Water\-loo; Cocks had \ sung their \ earliest \ greeting; \ faint and \ low they \ crew." In Frazee's Grammar, a separate line or two, similar in metre to these, and rightly reckoned to have seven feet, and many lines, (including those above from Tennyson, which W. C. Fowler erroneously gives for Heptameter,) being a foot longer, are presented as trochaics of eight feet; but Everett, the surest of our prosodists, remaining, like most others, a total stranger to our octometers, and too little acquainted with trochaic heptameters to believe the species genuine, on finding a couple of stanzas in which two such lines are set with shorter ones of different sorts, and with some which are defective in metre, sagely concludes that all lines of more than "six trochees" must necessarily be condemned as prosodial anomalies. It may be worth while to repeat the said stanzas here, adding such corrections and marks as may suggest their proper form and scansion. But since they commence with the shorter metre of six trochees only, and are already placed under that head, I too may take them in the like connexion, by now introducing my third species of trochaics, which is Everett's tenth.

MEASURE III.&mdash;TROCHAIC OF SIX FEET, OR HEXAMETER.
Example.&mdash;Health. "Up the \ dewy \ mountain, \ Health is \ bounding \ lightly;     On her \ brows a \ garland, \ twin'd with \ richest \ posies:    Gay is \ she, e\-late with \ hope, and \ smiling \ sprighthly;      Redder \ is her \ cheek, and \ sweeter \ than the \ rose is." : The Institutes of English Grammar, p. 258. This metre appears to be no less rare than the preceding; though, as in that case, I know no good reason why it may not be brought into vogue. Professor John S. Hart says of it: "This is the longest Trochaic verse that seems to have been cultivated."&mdash;Hart's Eng. Gram., p. 187. The seeming of its cultivation he doubtless found only in sundry modern grammars. Johnson, Bicknell, Burn, Coar, Ward, Adam,&mdash;old grammarians, who vainly profess to have illustrated "every species of English verse,"&mdash;make no mention of it; and, with all the grammarians who notice it, one anonymous couplet, passing from hand to hand, has everywhere served to exemplify it.

Of this, "the line of six Trochees," Everett says: "This measure is languishing, and rarely used. The following example is often cited: