ON RHYTHM IN ENGLISH VERSE 159 



In verse the section or group of undivided sounds is an ele- 

 ment of no less importance than in prose. In the smooth line 

 used by Pope, the rhythmical section very rarely extends beyond 

 four syllables. Milton often uses sections of five syllables ; but 

 even in his sweeping lines we have met with none longer. 

 Short sections are the first characteristic of verse as compared 

 with prose. In the heroic line we habitually find four pauses, 

 and in the normal arrangement the short and long pauses occur 

 alternately. The two longer pauses are known as the final pause 

 and middle pause or caesure. By some writers the slighter 

 pauses are called semipauses or demicsesures. Thus we find 

 each line split into four sections, of which the shortest may con- 

 tain one syllable, while the longest will contain four, or, by ex- 

 ception, five. If we limit ourselves to sections of four syllables, 

 we may designate each variety of section by that letter of the 

 alphabet which is represented by the same rhythmical group in 

 the Morse code. In verse these sections are not joined at ran- 

 dom. In beating time from beginning to end of each line one 

 stroke will fall on each accented syllable, and even in passing 

 from line to line the beat is very generally continued unbroken. 

 (By accent we mean the primary or strong accent, not that 

 stress which in a word of many syllables is sometimes called the 

 secondary accent.) Not unfrequently a beat falls on the final 

 pause, and occasionally a beat falls on some pause in the middle 

 of a line, or at its close ; but neither in verse nor prose does a 

 beat ever fall on a weak unaccented syllable. In this continuity 

 of pulse or beat we find a second characteristic of verse. In 

 some loose forms the lines have no other characters, but in 

 most verse a third rule prevails. A definite number of sections 

 are so joined as to form lines which can be scanned accord- 

 ing to laws borrowed from the rules of classic metre ; we then 

 have in each line two co-existing rhythms, one due to the 

 grouping of sections, and one to the grouping of feet ; the 

 number of sections never coincides with that of the feet; so 

 that one pause at least must divide a foot, as in the classic 

 ensure. 



An example from Pope will assist to make our meaning clear. 

 An accent is shown where we consider that a beat should fall. 

 A colon marks the csesure and a dot the semi-csesure : 



