the history of meter 47
in the marks of Christ’s nature and in the marks that man makes on his poems.
Poets like Hopkins and Bridges mediated between and at times tried to merge
classical and Anglo-Saxon meters, incorporating linguistic and metrical histo-
ries into their attempts at new metrical systems. Their aim was to teach the
reading public something about their national past, even if that past was a
classical one. In the case of Hopkins, these attempts at new systems were meant
to ensure a kind of salvation for the nation’s future; in the case of Bridges, new
metrical systems were intended to preserve and protect the freedom and vari-
ety of English meter in a new century that might not have the education to
understand it.