The Elements of English VersificationGinn, 1910 - 166 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
abab Alcaic stanza Alexandrine Áll alliteration Anacrusis anapestic antistrophe ARNOLD arsis assonance ballade BROWNING called catalectic catalexis cesura consonants continuous couplet dactylic dactylic hexameter dissyllabic doth dreams earth effect end-words English poetry envoy example eyes Faerie Queene feet flowers foot frequently grouping half-line hath heart Heaven heptameter hexameter iambic pentameter ictus imitation imperfect rime initial rime KEATS King of wind light lines lyrical melody meter MILTON morn night o'er octameter Paradise Lost pause poets POPE prose quatrain rhyme rhythm rhythmical rime-scheme Ring Rose ROSSETTI roundel scansion Scholar Gipsy secondary accent secondary word-accent septenary SHAKESPEARE SHELLEY sing song sonnet soul sound SPENSER stanzaic stichic verse stress structure sweet SWINBURNE tail-rime TENNYSON terza rima tetrameter thee thou thought tone-color trimeter trochaic tumbling verse unaccented unrimed unstressed syllable verse-stresses versification vowel W. E. HENLEY WILLIAM MORRIS wings words WORDSWORTH
Popular passages
Page 122 - I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams ; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun.
Page 122 - My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.
Page 120 - What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? ? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Page 125 - Oft, in the stilly night, Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me : The smiles, the tears, Of boyhood's years, The words of love then spoken ; The eyes that shone, Now dimmed and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken ! Thus, in the stilly night, Ere slumber's chain hath bound me, Sad Memory brings the light Of other days around me.
Page 119 - She was a Phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely Apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair; Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful Dawn; A dancing Shape, an Image gay, To haunt, to startle, and waylay.
Page 122 - Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young birds are chirping in the nest, The young fawns are playing with the shadows, The young flowers are blowing towards the west — But the young, young children, O my brothers, They are weeping bitterly! They are weeping in the playtime of the others, in the country of the free.
Page 116 - Soft hour ! which wakes the wish and melts the heart Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn apart ; Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way, As the far bell of vesper makes him start, Seeming to weep the dying day's decay.
Page 108 - On Linden, when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow ; And dark as winter was the flow Of Iser, rolling rapidly. But Linden saw another sight, When the drum beat at dead of night, Commanding fires of death to light The darkness of her scenery.
Page 11 - O, young Lochinvar is come out of the west, Through all the wide Border his steed was the best ; And save his good broad-sword he weapon had none, He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.
Page 134 - THE poetry of earth is never dead : When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead ; That is the Grasshopper's...