1919.] New Zealand Institute Science Congress. 325 
Again, what is this but prose ? We do not recognize a rose altogether 
by the number of its petals, nor a stanza by the number of its lines. The 
underflowing rhythm is absent : it does not cause the matter to fall into 
balanced sentences like Blackmore’s lines, and these, beautiful as they are, 
are not strictly regarded as poetry. 
Since the absence of the underflowing rhythm denies the name of 
poetry to poetical prose, it is evident that when we say that poetry is 
metrical it is this underflowing temporal rhythm that is measured, and 
that its units of measurement will be the units of measurement of poetry. 
The smallest unit of the temporal rhythm is a single pulsation ; and, 
whilst this has no audible or visible existence of its own, it is made evident 
by the words or inarticulate sound floating upon it. Since the verbal accent 
usually coincides with the pulsation-crest of the temporal rhythm, the 
verbal accent when so coinciding has been taken as a convenient index of 
measurement, to be called, as before noted, a stress ; and the pulsation, 
or unit of which the stress is an index, will be called a stress-unit. The 
name hitherto given to the stress-unit is a foot,” the name given by 
Creek and Latin prosodists; but, as the basis of modern poetry is quite 
different from that of classic poetry, it has been thought advisable to 
discard the classic term‘in favour of one that more clearly characterizes 
the nature of modern poetry. The value of the classic foot was a musical 
value. The individual parts of the foot bore a definite relation to each other. 
For instance, the iambic foot consisted of two syllables, the first short, the 
second long ; and the long was always twice the time-value of the short. 
The dactylic foot consisted of one long followed by two short ; and again 
the long was twice the time-value of each of the short. In the classic foot, 
therefore, the time-value of the individual syllables composing the foot 
g;ave the total value to the foot. In modern poetry, on the other hand, 
it is the total time-value of the foot, now called stress-unit, that determines 
the value of the individual syllables composing the unit. For instance, in 
Moore’s lines, 
Oh, there’s nothing half so sweet in life 
As Love’s young dream, 
the opening unit, 44 Oh, there’s no ” contains three syllables, and the fol¬ 
lowing units two syllables, until the last two, 44 young ” and 44 dream,” 
which contain each one syllable only ; and yet in reading aloud the same 
time-value is given to all the units however many syllables they may 
•contain. In Greek prosody there were upwards of thirty different kinds of 
feet, each with its particular name and each with its particular combination 
of time-value. In modern poetry the different kinds of units are few in 
number, but the varying time-values of the individual parts of these units 
are of infinite number, the same syllable constantly changing in value 
according to the position it occupies or according to the nature of its 
•companion syllables. For instance, in the line 
As Love’s young dream 
the words 44 young ” and 44 dream ” are each of the full value of the whole 
unit. But supposing the line were 
As lovers young will dream, 
now the second and third units each contain, like the first, two syllables, 
but their time-value is unaltered : the words 44 young ” and ’ 4 dream,” 
however, each take up a little less time than they did before. Again, 
supposing the line were 
As lovers the youngest will dream, 
