Read Ebook: Rhymes and Meters A Practical Manual for Versifiers by Winslow Horatio

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In a piece of verse it is best not to have the same vowel sounds too close to one another in adjacent rhyming words. Lines ending "fain," "made," "pain," "laid" would, of course, be correct, but the similar vowel sounds cause a lack of variety. An arrangement such as "through," "made," "drew," "laid" would be better.

Nothing disgusts the reader of verse more than an imperfect rhyme. If one is anxious to write well he should make it his business to see that every rhyme is absolutely right before a manuscript leaves his hands. Whatever sins may be original with a versifier at least he has no excuse for an unmetrical line or an untrue rhyme.

But above all one must avoid the rhyming dictionary. When the verse maker once gets the habit of referring to its pages there is more hope for the amateur popular song writer than for him. Better to think half an hour and get the right word one's self than to tread the primrose path of the rhyming dictionary. It has one use, nevertheless, which is perhaps allowable. There are certain words, such as "chimney," "scarf," "crimson," "window," "widow," and others which have no rhyme. To ascertain whether a word belongs to this class or not the dictionary is useful, though still a trifle dangerous.

Verse makers will rejoice to hear that "month," once a prominent figure in this non-rhyming company, has fallen from the ranks. A new variety of butterfly has been named the "monolunth."

STANZA FORMS

STANZA FORMS

Roughly speaking, the stanza in verse corresponds to the paragraph in prose. It is a fixed division of the composition containing a certain number of lines arranged in a certain rhyming order. Very often each stanza contains a distinct and rounded thought, such as is found in a paragraph, though this plan of construction is not universally followed by any means. In sharp dramatic verse one must use a simple stanza form built so that each thought ends with the last word of the last line. But when the movement is languid the meter and stanza form may be more intricate and it is sometimes best to let the thought flow from one stanza to another without even the jerk of the period. The effect to be produced is everything and should determine not only the stanza to be used but the details of the treatment as well. The great poet can bend any meter or stanza form to his use, as witness Thomas Hood with his galloping stanzas in the "Bridge of Sighs," but an ordinary mortal must produce his effects more obviously. The greater skill one has the greater liberties one can take in his choice of materials, just as a clever after-dinner speaker may say many things which from a less tactful person would be deemed offensive. Thomas Hood can write his dirges in dactylics with triple rhymes, but we must model ours on Gray's "Elegy" or "In Memoriam."

Still the variety of stanzas is so large that one should be able to fit almost any verse mood without the necessity of inventing a new form or turning an old one out of its beaten track. There are little dimeter couplets like Herrick's:

"There thou shalt be High priest to me."

And there is the three-line stanza in many forms, of which this from Landor is an example:

And the four-line stanza--its name is legion.

The whole question resolves itself into the suitability of the form to the matter. The vehicle which carries the thought best is the one to be selected. The more appropriate the construction of the poem--the rhymes, the meter and the stanza--the better it will carry out the writer's intention. Instead of hampering his thought it will assist it.

As a means of becoming acquainted with the wide resources which wait the verse maker, the student should copy and imitate every stanza form not familiar to him. In this way he will learn for himself why the Spenserian stanza used by Keats in his "Eve of St. Agnes" is good for one sort of narrative and why the ballad stanza used by Coleridge in his "Ancient Mariner" is good for another; why one sort of stanza sings merrily and why another is fitted for funeral hymns. Best of all, he will learn that he does not have to choose among "long meter," "short meter" and "Hallelujah meter," but that an almost indefinite field lies open for him.

Also he will discover that it is not necessary to create a new stanza form in order to write a great poem. The sonnet, at which every poet has thrummed, still waits for a new master, and the "Recessional," perhaps the greatest poem of the last quarter century, was written in one of the simplest and oldest of stanzas.

SUBTLETIES OF VERSIFICATION

SUBTLETIES OF VERSIFICATION

The more one writes the better he becomes acquainted with what might be called "the tricks of the trade." These "tricks," "helps," or "devices" can be explained only in a general way. Most of them each verse maker must learn for himself, but there are some broader strokes which can be more easily traced and pointed out and which are governed by fixed rules.

is a good example.

Through alliteration certain effects are produced which would otherwise be impossible. Instances will occur to every reader. To quote only one example:

In these two lines by William Allen White, the two "th"s, though out of place in most verse, here express the "throbbing" idea perfectly.

Alliteration at the beginning of accented syllables is very useful in humorous verse, helping along the rhythm and binding the lines together.

The use of onomatopoetic words, words whose sound signifies the sense, is so common that we seldom give it a thought. We have the "splash" of water; the "bang" of a gun; the "crackle" of branches and so on indefinitely. In verse this idea is carried a step farther. Lines are constructed not only with the purpose of conveying a given idea, as in prose, but with the additional end of strengthening this idea and impressing it on the mind of the reader through the choice and arrangement of the words.

In this the successive "h" sounds suggest the hard breathing and labor of the ascent.

Browning imitates the sound of galloping in the meter of his ride from Ghent to Aix.

"I sprang to the stirrup and Joris and he, I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three."

Tennyson is full of such turns as this:

The two words certainly give a most wonderful impression of the shriek of the cold sea-wind.

Instances of this sort might be added indefinitely but these are enough to give the general idea. As a rule the best use of any device of this purpose is served when it is not too apparent; when it produces the effect without calling attention to the means.

In a certain sort of languishing verse of the mystical type an effect of quaintness and dreaminess is produced by emphasizing the last syllables of words whose accent by right falls on a previous syllable. This is done by pairing them with pronounced rhymes. For instance, "tears" rhymes with "barriers," "her" with "well-water" and so on. It must be understood that, as an attempt to rhyme, this sort of thing is not to be countenanced, but it is perfectly allowable when it is used to obtain a certain effect.

Take this stanza from Whitman's "Song of the Broad-Axe," one of the few specimens we have of his attempts at rhyme and meter. It is a true barbaric chant whose full-mouthed syllables reproduce in little the blows of the axe.

"Weapon shapely, naked, wan, Head from the mother's bowels drawn, Wooded flesh and metal bone, limb only one and lip only one, Gray blue leaf by red-heat grown, helve produced from a little seed sown, Resting the grass amid and upon, To be leaned and to lean on."

Though our English verse largely disregards the quantity or length of a syllable, in some lines this must be considered as well as accent. A light meter and stanza may very easily be spoiled by the introduction of a too-strong word. For instance, "gnarled," "strength," "thrust," and so on are very much longer than "may," "well," "the," "for," and many other of the one-syllabled words. When a line scans correctly but "somehow sounds wrong," in nine cases out of ten the fault can be traced to a long syllable that should have been short or a short syllable that should have been long.

THE QUATRAIN AND SONNET

THE QUATRAIN AND SONNET

In the seventeenth century the quatrain was a favorite tool of the old English writers who wished to embody a stinging epigram or epitaph in verse. The works of Robert Herrick contain several, most of them, unfortunately, not fit for print. Nor was he the only unblushing exponent of the questionable quatrain.

But times have changed and like everything else the quatrain has grown respectable. From the disuse and misuse into which it had fallen the modern magazine editor rescued it and by creating a market revived the art of quatrain making. To-day sometimes the four lines are descriptive; again they contain a kindly or clever epigram, or perhaps an unexpected twist at the end that makes for a joke.

The average quatrain is in iambic pentameter with alternate lines rhyming. Sometimes the first and fourth lines rhyme and the second and third, and occasionally one sees a detached Omaric stanza. It all depends upon the thought and the way it is to be expressed. One thing is certain, that the quatrain because of its very brevity demands more care and polishing than a longer piece of verse. The thought must not only be concise and clearly expressed but the four lines must contain nothing else.

The following example by Frank Dempster Sherman not only describes this form of verse but is an excellent quatrain in itself:

"Hark at the lips of this pink whorl of shell And you shall hear the ocean's surge and roar: So in the quatrain's measure, written well A thousand lines shall all be sung in four."

It is the ambition of many a versifier to be known as a maker of sonnets. Doubtless this love for the form is prompted not only by its possibilities but even more by its traditions. Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth and Rossetti, to mention only a few of the celebrated names, were masters of the sonnet, though it must be said that the version used by the earlier English writers was not the one we know to-day. Shakespeare's seventy-third sonnet may serve as a fair example of the arrangement of the lines in the early Elizabethan period, though even in his day the present rhyming order was passing gradually into use.

"That time of year thou may'st in me behold When yellow leaves or few or none do hang Upon the boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self that seals up all in rest. In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death bed whereon it must expire, Consumed with that which it was nourished by. This thou perceivest which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long."

This fourteen lines, as an examination will discover, might be written in three four-line stanzas with an additional two lines as an epigrammatic envoy. In fact it can scarcely be called a sonnet at all, and the last two lines come out with such force as to offend the ear accustomed to the more modern form.

The sonnet by Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," is an excellent illustration of the change in the rhyming system and emphasis.

"Much have I travelled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-browed 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 stared at the Pacific--and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise-- Silent, upon a peak in Darien."

The first eight lines rhyme: a, b, b, a, a, b, b, a; the last six: c, d, c, d, c, d. Thus the sonnet halts only at one place, the interval between the eighth and the sixth lines, where the rest is welcome, while the emphasis, instead of coming out so brazenly at the end, reaches its climax in the next to the last line, dying away gradually. The order of the eight lines in the modern sonnet is almost invariably unchanged, but the sestet is varied as the movement of the thought dictates.

As to sonnet construction little can be said here or, if one wished to go into detail, so much could be said that it would fill this volume a dozen times. Keats, Wordsworth and Rossetti, to say nothing of a dozen or more modern sonneteers, are safe models to follow. One trifling suggestion seems in order. There are so many really good sonnets now that a second-rate production is a drug on the market. Except as an exercise it is altogether superfluous. A first-class sonnet must be grounded first on an idea and then rewritten and worked over until the idea has found a fit setting. Commonplaceness either in the idea or its expression is alike fatal.

THE BALLADE AND OTHER FRENCH FORMS

THE BALLADE AND OTHER FRENCH FORMS

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