On Quantitative Metre 325beat. Such liberty of variation can always be indulged in English
verse and it is sometimes pushed to much greater lengths — as
in the line
Co/
ver|her fa/
ce;|my e/
yes da/
z|zle; she|die/
dyou/
ng|where there is only one iamb in the five feet of the line; the other
four feet are respectively a trochee, a bacchius, a pyrrhic and
a closing spondee. Nevertheless the basic system of the metre
or at least some form of its spirit asserts itself even here by a
predominant beat on the final syllable of most of the feet: all the
variations are different from each other, none predominates so
as to oust and supplant the iamb in its possession of the metric
base. In Webster’s line this forceful irregularity is used with a
remarkable skill and freedom; the two first feet are combined in
a choriamb to bring out a vehemence of swift and abrupt unex-
pressed emotion; in the rest intrinsic quantitative longs combine
with short-vowel stress lengths to embody a surcharged feeling
— still unexpressed — in a strong and burdened movement: all
is divided into three brief and packed word-groups to bring out
by the subtly potent force of the rhythm the overpowering yet
suppressed reactions of the speaker. The language used, however
vivid in itself, could not have done as much as it does, if it were
deprived of this sound-effect; it would have given the idea by
its external indices, but it is the rhythm that brings out the
concealed feeling. Each word-group has a separate rhythm, an
independent life, yet it is by following each other rapidly in a
single whole that the three together achieve a complete force and
beauty. If the three clauses of this line were cut up into successive
lines in modern free-verse fashion, they would lose most of their
beauty; it is the total rhythmic power of these three hammer-
strokes that brings to the surface all that underlies the words.
But without the aid of the unusual arrangements of stress and
quantity it could not have been done.
This shows up the true nature of the accentual system as
distinguished from its formal theory. It becomes clear that the
supposed longs and shorts constituting its feet are not real quan-
tities, they are not composed of long and short syllables, — on