334 The Future Poetry
of consonants buttressing up the short syllable, it remains short,
unless lengthened by stress. We must consider separately how
far this third or consonantal element is operative, whether its
effect is invariable and absolute as the classicists would have it
or only produces its result according to circumstance.
It is evident to the natural ear that stress confers in its
own right metrical length on the syllable in which it occurs;
even an extreme shortness of the vowel does not take away the
lengthening force given. To the ear it stands out that the feet
in Webster’s line, “my ̆ e
_
yes da|
z|zle” and “she|die_
dyou|
ng,”
are, quantitatively, bacchius^6 and spondee; the one is not and
cannot be a true anapaest, as it would or can be accounted by
convention in accentual scansion, the other is not and cannot be
either iamb or trochee. The stress long naturally combines here
with the intrinsic long to make bacchius or spondee, because it
has itself a true metrical length which is equivalent to that of the
long-vowel syllable, though not identical in nature. This stress
length, in any valid theory of quantity, cannot be ignored; its
ictus weight and the conveyed force of length which the weight
carries with it cannot be whittled down to shortness by any
mental decree. In accentual verse its power is usually absorbed
by coincidence with accentual high pitch and so it is satisfied
and does not need to put in a separate claim; but in quantitative
verse too it insists on its right and, if denied, fatally disturbs
by its presence the rhythm that tries to disown or ignore it. In
true quantitative verse, stress lengths and intrinsic lengths can
and must be equally accepted because they both carry weight
enough to burden the syllable with an enhanced sound-value.
The admission or generalisation of the idea of weight lengths
clears up many cobwebs and, because it corresponds with the
facts, provides us with a rational system of quantitative verse.
What difficulty remains arises from the theory drawn from
(^6) Unless we considermyas long, which is a disputable point; the sound is inherently
a long-vowel one, but depressed by the absence of stress or accentual high pitch. In
quantitative verse this should not matter; it can retain in spite of the depression its
native dignity as a long-vowel syllable.