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The N.Z. Journal of Science and Technology. 
[July 
prose. The chief difference is, Blackmore’s are not consistently metrical ; 
so that it is evident that the difference between poetry and prose is not so 
much in spirit as in mechanism. 
A sentence is metrical, then, when the words of the sentence are marked 
off, are measured off, by the accents. The accents mark off certain pulsa¬ 
tions that are regular as the beating of the heart. Between the accents 
lie periods of time, each period comparatively equal to the periods 
immediately preceding and succeeding, and in these periods are contained 
a greater or less number of syllables ; or the period may be altogether 
silent. In poetry, therefore, a second rhythm makes its appearance—a 
rhythm so powerful that, as has been observed, a foreign language is able 
to give pleasure when floating on its pulsations ; so powerful that it 
modifies the flow of ordinary speech, compelling regularity where there 
was previously little or none. Underlying the audible rhythm of poetical 
speech there is an inaudible rhythm of time, and it is with this temporal 
measured rhythm that the speech has been brought into unison. The 
accents of the words now form regular pulsation, and such pulsation 
coincides with the pulsations of the underlying temporal rhythm. The 
accents come, as it were, on the wave-crests of the temporal rhythm; and 
the union of the two is so powerful, creating what will be called a stress, 
that an ordinary verbal accent may come between two metrical stresses 
without destroying the regularity created by them ; further, the verbal 
accent which .should coincide with the temporal wave-crest may be 
altogether absent and still the regularity persists. When the underlying 
rhythm is disregarded, prose results. The following is an example of 
modern Imagist poetry :—- 
Where is Jehovah, the God of Israel, with his Ark and his Tabernackle and his 
Pillar of Fite ? 
He ought to be here—this place would suit him. 
Here is a people pouring through a wilderness— 
Here are armies camped in a desert—- 
Their little tents are like sheep flocking over the prairie— 
It is all in the style of the God of Israel. 
Why has this been printed in lines, irregular lines though they are, as 
though it were poetry ? The underlying rhythm is altogether absent : it 
is sheer prose. The following, also a modern example of a partial revolt 
against poetic form, is a little more poetic in thought:— 
O you 
Who bow down and worship 
Before the great god Form, 
Has it ever chanced 
Upon a sultry summer’s afternoon 
You wandered 
Down a country lane 
And lighted 
On a six-petailed dog-rose ? 
And was its scent less sweet, 
Or shape less perfect, 
Than those 
That bloomed 
Correctly 
In the hedge ? 
Or did you pluck it 
From the rest 
And throw it 
Impatiently 
Upon the road 
And say 
Its creator 
Should have given it but five ? 
