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Read Ebook: The Trinity Archive Vol. I No. 8 June 1888 by Trinity College Randolph County N C
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Ebook has 23 lines and 1950 words, and 1 pages
Author's Preface Early Poems Poems 1876-1889 Unfinished Poems & Fragments
EDITORIAL
Preface to Notes Notes
OUR generation already is overpast, And thy lov'd legacy, Gerard, hath lain Coy in my home; as once thy heart was fain Of shelter, when God's terror held thee fast In life's wild wood at Beauty and Sorrow aghast; Thy sainted sense tramme'd in ghostly pain, Thy rare ill-broker'd talent in disdain: Yet love of Christ will win man's love at last.
Hell wars without; but, dear, the while my hands Gather'd thy book, I heard, this wintry day, Thy spirit thank me, in his young delight Stepping again upon the yellow sands. Go forth: amidst our chaffinch flock display Thy plumage of far wonder and heavenward flight!
Chilswell, Jan. 1918.
Common English rhythm, called Running Rhythm above, is measured by feet of either two or three syllables and never more or less.
Every foot has one principal stress or accent, and this or the syllable it falls on may be called the Stress of the foot and the other part, the one or two unaccented syllables, the Slack. Feet in which the stress comes first are called Falling Feet and Falling Rhythms, feet and rhythm in which the slack comes first are called Rising Feet and Rhythms, and if the stress is between two slacks there will be Rocking Feet and Rhythms. These distinctions are real and true to nature; but for purposes of scanning it is a great convenience to follow the example of music and take the stress always first, as the accent or the chief accent always comes first in a musical bar. If this is done there will be in common English verse only two possible feet--the so-called accentual Trochee and Dactyl, and correspondingly only two possible uniform rhythms, the so-called Trochaic and Dactylic. But they may be mixed and then what the Greeks called a Logaoedic Rhythm arises. These are the facts and according to these the scanning of ordinary regularly-written English verse is very simple indeed and to bring in other principles is here unnecessary.
Sprung Rhythm, as used in this book, is measured by feet of from one to four syllables, regularly, and for particular effects any number of weak or slack syllables may be used. It has one stress, which falls on the only syllable, if there is only one, or, if there are more, then scanning as above, on the first, and so gives rise to four sorts of feet, a monosyllable and the so-called accentual Trochee, Dactyl, and the First Paeon. And there will be four corresponding natural rhythms; but nominally the feet are mixed and any one may follow any other. And hence Sprung Rhythm differs from Running Rhythm in having or being only one nominal rhythm, a mixed or 'logaoedic' one, instead of three, but on the other hand in having twice the flexibility of foot, so that any two stresses may either follow one another running or be divided by one, two, or three slack syllables. But strict Sprung Rhythm cannot be counterpointed. In Sprung Rhythm, as in logaoedic rhythm generally, the feet are assumed to be equally long or strong and their seeming inequality is made up by pause or stressing.
Note on the nature and history of Sprung Rhythm-- Sprung Rhythm is the most natural of things. For it is the rhythm of common speech and of written prose, when rhythm is perceived in them. It is the rhythm of all but the most monotonously regular music, so that in the words of choruses and refrains and in songs written closely to music it arises. It is found in nursery rhymes, weather saws, and so on; because, however these may have been once made in running rhythm, the terminations having dropped off by the change of language, the stresses come together and so the rhythm is sprung. It arises in common verse when reversed or counterpointed, for the same reason.
Nos. 13 and 22 are Curtal-Sonnets, that is they are constructed in proportions resembling those of the sonnet proper, namely 6 + 4 instead of 8 + 6, with however a halfline tailpiece .
I BEAR a basket lined with grass; I am so light, I am so fair, That men must wonder as I pass And at the basket that I bear, Where in a newly-drawn green litter Sweet flowers I carry,--sweets for bitter.
Lilies I shew you, lilies none, None in Caesar's gardens blow,-- And a quince in hand,--not one Is set upon your boughs below; Not set, because their buds not spring; Spring not, 'cause world is wintering.
But these were found in the East and South Where Winter is the clime forgot.-- The dewdrop on the larkspur's mouth O should it then be quench?d not? In starry water-meads they drew These drops: which be they? stars or dew?
Had she a quince in hand? Yet gaze: Rather it is the sizing moon. Lo, linked heavens with milky ways! That was her larkspur row.--So soon? Sphered so fast, sweet soul?--We see Nor fruit, nor flowers, nor Dorothy.
I HAVE desired to go Where springs not fail, To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be Where no storms come, Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea.
ELECTED Silence, sing to me And beat upon my whorl?d ear, Pipe me to pastures still and be The music that I care to hear.
Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb: It is the shut, the curfew sent From there where all surrenders come Which only makes you eloquent.
Be shell?d, eyes, with double dark And find the uncreated light: This ruck and reel which you remark Coils, keeps, and teases simple sight.
Palate, the hutch of tasty lust, Desire not to be rinsed with wine: The can must be so sweet, the crust So fresh that come in fasts divine!
Nostrils, your careless breath that spend Upon the stir and keep of pride, What relish shall the censers send Along the sanctuary side!
O feel-of-primrose hands, O feet That want the yield of p
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