Читать книгу English Verse - Raymond Macdonald Alden - Страница 19

O let the solid ground

Not fail beneath my feet

Before my life has found

What some have found so sweet;

Then let come what come may,

What matter if I go mad,

I shall have had my day.

(Tennyson: Song in Maud, xi. 1855.)

(In combination with verse of four, five, and six stresses:)

The Oracles are dumb;

No voice or hideous hum

Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.

Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving:

No nightly trance or breathed spell

Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

(Milton: Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity. 1629.)

Here, in line 5, we have an instance of a verse truncated at the beginning—rare in modern English poetry.

(With feminine ending:)

The mountain sheep are sweeter,

But the valley sheep are fatter;

We therefore deemed it meeter

To carry off the latter.

We made an expedition;

We met an host and quelled it;

We forced a strong position,

And killed the men who held it.

(Thomas Love Peacock: War Song of Dinas Vawr, from The Misfortunes of Elphin. 1829.)

In line 2 is an instance of anacrusis.