Metre — Chambers's Encyclopaedia

Metre is that regulated succession of certain groups of syllables in which Poetry (q.v.) is usually written. A greater or less number of groups forms a line or verse, and in modern languages the verses usually rhyme with one another; but this is not at all essential to the notion of metre. In the classic languages metre depended upon the way in which long and short syllables were made to succeed one another. English metre depends, not upon the distinction of long and short, but upon that of accented and unaccented syllables. Thus, in the lines,

The cur' | few tolls' | the knell' | of part'ing day'—
War'riors and | chiefs', should the | shaft' or the | sword'— the accents occur at regular intervals; and the groups of syllables thus formed constitute each a metre or measure. The groups of long and short syllables composing the metres of classic verse were called feet, each foot having a distinctive name. The same names are sometimes applied to English measures, an accented syllable in English being held to be equivalent to a long syllable in Latin or Greek, and an unaccented syllable to a short. Every metre in English contains one accented syllable and either one or two unaccented syllables. As the accent may be on the first, second, or third syllable of the group, there thus arrive five distinct measures, two dissyllabic and three trisyllabic, as seen in the words—1, comfort (corresponding to the classic Trochee); 2, agree' (Iambus); 3, murmuring (Dactyl); 4, confusion (Amphibrach); 5, colonnade' (Anapæst). These measures are arranged in lines or verses, varying in length in different pieces, and often in the same piece. The ending measure of a line is frequently incomplete, or has a supernumerary syllable; and sometimes one measure is substituted for another. All that is necessary is that some one measure be so predominant as to give a character to the verse. Constant recurrence of the same measure produces monotony. The following lines exemplify the five measures:

(1) Rich' the | treas'ure.
Bet'ter | six'ty | years'of | Eu'rope | than'a | cy'cle | of' Ca'thay'.
(2) Aloft' | in aw'ful state'.
The prop' | er stud' | y of' | mankind' | is man'.
(3) Bird' of the | wil'derness.
Bright'est and | best' of the | sons' of the | morning.
(4) The dew' of | the morn'ing.
O young' Loch | invar' has | come out' of | the west'.
(5) As they roar' | on the shore'.
The Assy' | an came down' | like a wolf' | on the fold'.

It is instinctively felt that some of these measures are better suited for particular subjects than others.

Thus, the first has a brisk, abrupt, energetic character, agreeing well with lively and gay subjects, and also with the intensity of such pieces as Scots'cha ha'e. The second is by far the most usual metre in English poetry; it occurs, in fact, most frequently in the ordinary prose-movement of the language. It is smooth, graceful, and stately; readily adapting itself to easy narrative, and the expression of the gentler feelings, or to the treatment of severe and sublime subjects. The trisyllabic metres, owing to the number of unaccented syllables in them, are rapid in their movement, with a tripping lightness that suggests the analogy of music in triple time. They are all less regular and monotonous than the dissyllabic metres. One of them is frequently substituted for another, as in the opening of Byron's Bride of Abydos:

Know' ye the | land' where the | ey'press and | myr'tle
Are em'blems | of deeds' that | are done' in | their clime';
Where the rage' | of the vul'ture, the love' | of the tur'tle— where each of the three lines is in a different metre, the first dactylic, the second amphibrachic, the third anapæstic. In addition to this irregularity, one of the unaccented syllables is often wanting; as in Mrs Hemans' poem, The Voice of Spring:

In a kind of verse introduced by Coleridge, and used occasionally by Byron and others, the unaccented syllables are altogether left out of account, and the versification is made to depend upon having a regular number of accents in the line:

There is' not wind' enough' to twirl'
The one' cl' leaf', the last' of its clan',
That dan'ces as off'en as dance' it can'
On the top'most twig' that looks up' at the sky'.

Here there are four accents in each line, but the number of syllables varies from eight to eleven.

The variety of combinations of metres and rhymes that may be formed is endless; but a few of the more usual forms of English versification have received special names, and these we may briefly notice.

Octosyllabics are verses made up each of four measures of the second kind of metre, and therefore containing eight syllables:

With fruit' less la' bour, Cla' ra bound'
And strove' | to stanch' | the gush'ing wound'.

Scott's and Byron's romantic poems (save Lara and the Corsair) are mostly in octosyllabics, and so are Hudibras, Lalla Rookh, and many other pieces.

Heroic is a term applied to verses containing five metres of the second kind, or ten syllables. Heroics either rhyme in couplets, or are without rhymes, constituting blank verse. Many of the chief narrative and didactic poems in the English language are in rhyming heroics; as those of Dryden, Pope, Cowper, &c. Milton's two great poems, Young's Night Thoughts, Thomson's Seasons, Cowper's Task, Wordsworth's Excursion, and many others are written in blank heroics. Metrical dramas are almost always in blank verse; in which case there is frequently a supernumerary syllable, or even two, at the end of the line:

Two trochaic measures are in use in English, the fifteen-syllable and the seven-syllable. Of the former the best example is Tennyson's Locksley Hall; the latter was a favourite form with Keats, as in the Ode on the Poets and Mermaid Tavern, and of Shelley, as in the Lines Written in the Euganean Hills.

In Elegiacs the lines are of the same length and the same measure as in heroics, but the rhymes are alternate, and divide the poem into quatrains or stanzas of four lines, as in Gray's Elegy. The Spenserian stanza, popularised by Spenser in the Faerie Queene, and much used by Byron, differs from common heroics only in the arrangement of the rhymes, and in concluding with an Alexandrine which gives it a sonorous cadence particularly pleasing to the ear. The Chaucerian heptastich is a seven-line decasyllabic stanza called also rime royal, having three rhymes, one connecting the first and third; another, the second, fourth, and fifth; and the third, the sixth and seventh.

The octosyllabic quatrain, the quatrain in eights and sixes, and the quatrain in sixes, with the third line octosyllabic, are commonly called long measure, common measure, and short measure. The second has been also called service metre, being the form of versification adopted in the metrical Psalms, in many hymns, and other lyrical pieces. From being frequently employed in old romances and ballads, this metre is also called ballad metre. A familiar example is Chaucer's Rime of Sir Thopas. The first and third lines often rhyme, as well as the second and fourth.

In triple measures the most important are the quatrain, the six-line and the eight-line stanzas. Each may be dactylic, anapaestic, or amphimetric, but the last is the most common; of the first an example is Byron's Song of Saul before his last Battle; of the second, Wolfe's Burial of Sir John Moore; of the third, in many ballads and songs, as in the line:

I saw' from | the beach' when | the morn'ing | was shin'ing.

The unrhymed metres are hexameters, blank verse, and choral metres, sometimes, as in Queen Mab, iambic; in the Strayed Reveller, trochaic.

Such are some of the more usual and definite forms of versification. In many poems, especially the more recent ones, so much licence is assumed that it is difficult to trace any regular recurrence or other law determining the changes of metre, or the lengths of the lines; the poet seeks to suit the modulation at every turn to the varying sentiments. But it may be questioned whether much of this refinement of art is not thrown away, upon ordinary readers at least, who, failing to perceive any special suitableness, are inclined to look upon those violent departures from accustomed regularity as the results of caprice.

See also the special articles in this work on ACCENT, ALLITERATION, BLANK VERSE, HEXAMETER, LYRIC, ODE, POETRY, RHYME, SONG, and SONNET; Guest's History of English Rhythms (2d ed. revised by Prof. Skeat, 1882); Prof. J. B. Mayor's Chapters on English Metre (1886); Dr Gummere's Handbook of Poetics (Boston); and Prof. Schipper's Englische Metrik (Bonn, 1881-89).