A clever overview, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, of last week’s poetry lesson . These amusingly mimetic lines are from ” Metrical Feet, a Lesson for a Boy “:
Trochee trips from long to short;
/ v / v / v /
From long to long in solemn sort.
v / v / v / v /
Slow Spondee stalks, strong foot!, yet ill able
/ / / / / / / / / v
Ever to come up with Dactyl’s trisyllable.
/ v v / v v / v v / v v
Iambics march from short to long.
v / v / v / v /
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.
v v / v v / v v / v v /
And from Alexander Pope , on why prosody matters—having a little fun as he illustrates how meter makes a difference:
But most by Numbers judge a Poet’s Song,
And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong;
In the bright Muse tho’ thousand Charms conspire,
Her Voice is all these tuneful Fools admire.
. . .
True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance,
As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance,
‘Tis not enough no Harshness gives Offence,
The Sound must seem an Eccho to the Sense.
Soft is the Strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth Stream in smoother Numbers flows;
But when loud Surges lash the sounding Shore,
The hoarse, rough Verse shou’d like the Torrent roar.
When Ajax strives, some Rocks’ vast Weight to throw,
The Line too labours, and the Words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the Plain,
Flies o’er th’unbending Corn, and skims along the Main.
