In cash or credit-no, it aren't no good;
You 'ave to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die,
Unless you lived your life but one day long,
Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all,

But drew your tucker some'ow from the world,
An' never bothered what you might ha' done.

But, Gawd, what things are they I 'aven't done;
I've turned my 'and to most, an' turned it good,
In various situations round the world-

For 'im that doth not work must surely die;
But that's no reason man should labor all
'Is life on one same shift, life's none so long.

Therefore, from job to job I've moved along,
Pay couldn't 'old me when my time was done,
For something in my 'ead upset me all,
Till I 'ad dropped whatever 'twas for good,
An', out at sea, be'eld the dock-light die,

An' met my mate the wind that tramps the world;

It's like a book, I think, this bloomin' world,
Which you can read and care for just so long,
But presently, you feel that you will die
Unless you get the page you're readin' done,
An' turn another-likely not so good;
But what you're after is to turn 'em all.

Gawd bless this world; whatever she 'ath done-
Excep' when awful long-I've found it good.

So, write, before I die, "'E liked it all:"

A few other of these artificial French forms, the rondelet, the lai, the kyrielle, the virelay, and the pantoum are represented in English by so few examples that it hardly seems worth while to describe them here. The reader who is interested is referred to the article of Mr. Gosse and the collection of Mr. Gleeson White, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.

CHAPTER XVI

TROCHAIC VERSE1

The trochaic movement occurs in sporadic lines throughout all our early verse, but it was not definitely recognized as a special norm until the Elizabethan period. Then it came into use only in short lyrics. Its place in English has always been inferior to that of the iambic movement. The best reason for this is probably to be found in the genius of the language itself.

The great majority of phrases in English-and the phrase is the unit of rhythm in prose-begin with an article, preposition, or conjunction, which in our pronunciation is merged into the word which follows, so that the phrase has a rising movement. It is, of course, true that most dissyllabic words have the accent on the first syllable, so that these words considered individually have a trochaic rhythm, but when they are used as part of a phrase they lose this individual rhythm and become an element in the phrase rhythm. For example, the word shooting has a falling movement when it is pronounced alone, but the phrase a shooting star has a rising movement. The fact that most English phrases begin as this one does, with an unstressed syllable, makes a rising movement the commonest English movement. Trochaic verse is therefore less natural in our language than iambic.

A direct reversal of these conditions obtains in the 1 See also Chapter VI.

2 If, however, a phrase is made up of a number of trochaid words in succession, particularly when they are set off by commas, they maintain a trochaic rhythm which may override the iambic rhythm with which the phrase, or line, started, e. g.

On lion, dragon, wyvern, griffon, swan

Bohemian language. Bohemian has no article, and its proclitic prepositions are so completely merged with the words with which they are associated that they lose their syllabic value. The result is that most phrases in Bohemian have a falling rhythm, and the genius of the language may be said to be trochaic. And Bohemian verse, as a consequence, is as naturally trochaic as English verse is iambic. Whatever may be the reason for the preference, the fact remains that our verse has been, and still is, chiefly iambic. As a result, the possibilities of the trochaic movement have been but slightly developed. We do not find in it the rhythmic subtleties which succeeding generations of poets have imparted to the iambic.

We may study the characteristics of the trochaic movement in the song of Juno and Ceres in the Tempest (IV, 1):

Honor, riches, marriage-blessing,

Long continuance, and increasing,
Hourly joys be still upon you!
Juno sings her blessing on you.

Earth's increase, foison plenty,
Barns and garners never empty;
Vines with clustering bunches growing;
Plants with goodly burthen bowing;
Spring come to you at the farthest
In the very end of harvest!

Scarcity and want shall shun you;
Ceres' blessing so is on you.

There is a lightness and apparent rapidity3 to this passage that verse in the same meter and rhythm but with an

* Tests made in a psychological laboratory have shown that trochaic rhythm is actually more rapid than iambic. The time relation between the unstressed syllable and the stressed in iambic verse is as 1:2; in trochaic verse, as 1:12.

(A. S. Hurst and J. McKay: "Experiments on Time Relations of Poetic Measures," University Toronto Studies, Psychological Series, vol. 1, 1900.)

iambic movement, does not bear. This lightness makes the movement better for short lyrics than for any extended work, where the choppy effect and limited variation produce great monotony. Few readers can enjoy many pages of Longfellow's Hiawatha, or Porter's translation of the Kalevala at one time.

The characteristic trochaic effect is especially marked in the passage just quoted from Shakespeare, because every line has a light ending. Light endings are not so common in rimed trochaic verse as masculine endings-for example, the trochaic parts of Milton's L'Allegro or the following from Fletcher:

Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan,
Sorrow calls no time that's gone:
Violets plucked, the sweetest rain
Makes not fresh nor grow again.
Trim thy locks, look cheerfully;
Fate's hid ends eyes cannot see.
Joys as winged dreams fly fast,
Why should sadness longer last?
Grief is but a mound to woe;

Gentlest fair, mourn, mourn no moe.

Though the direct attack, used throughout, gives these lines an undoubted trochaic movement, the ending on stressed syllables makes the passage approach nearer an iambic effect than the Shakespearian song does. Besides this, the introduction of extra stresses in lines like,

Fate's hidends êyes | cannot | see,

and

| Gentlest | fair, môurn, | mourn no moe

makes them, apart from their context, somewhat ambiguous in movement. Furthermore, compare the phrasing of the See above, p. 21.

two passages. In the Shakespearian song, the two lines,

Honor, riches, marriage-blessing,

and

Barns and garners never empty,

are trochaic throughout in phrasing; and lines that end in phrases like foison plenty, bunches growing, burthen bowing, and end of harvest have strong trochaic support. On the other hand, many lines in the song from Fletcher end with such iambic phrases, as, nor sigh nor groan, no time that's gone, the sweetest rain, nor grow again, a mound to woe-all in conflict with the movement set up at the beginning of each line. A studied agreement of, or conflict of, movement and phrasing is therefore as important in producing effects in trochaic verse as it is in iambic.

All the methods of varying iambic verse can be used also with trochaic, but more sparingly, for this movement is much harder to keep steady. Light stresses are used by poets in about the same proportion as in iambic verse, but they seem to stand out with greater prominence in trochaic verse- as is very evident when the verse is read aloud. This conspicuousness of syllables which are usually slurred in speech gives a much more artificial effect to trochaic verse. In a passage like the following from Hiawatha, this effect is particularly noticeable:

I should answer, I should tell you
"From the forest and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,

From the land of the Ojibways,

From the land of the Dacotahs,

From the mountains, moors, and fenlands.”

It may be, of course, that such passages are better read by obliterating all the light stresses, thus turning the verse See above, p. 78.