In ft kind of verse introduced by Coleridge, and used occasionally by Byron and others, the unaccented syllables are altogether left out of account, and the versification is saade to depend upon having a regular number of accents in the line: There l's not wi'nd enou'gh t6 twitrI The o'ne red le'af, the la'st of its cla'n, That da'nces as o'ften as da'nce it ca'n On the to'pmost twi'g that looks u'p at the sky'.
Here there are four accents in each line, but the number of syllables varies from eight to eleven.
To scan a line or group of lines, is to divide it into the measures of which it is com posed.
The variety of combinations of meters and rhymes that may be formed is endless; but a few of the more usual forms of English versification have received special names, and these we may briefly notice.
Octosyllabics are verses made up each of four measures of the second kind of meter, and therefore containing eight (octo) syllables: With fru'itiless laThor, Clalra bou'nd And stro've to sta'nch I the gu'shling wo'und.
Scott's poems are mostly in octosyllabics, and so is Hudibras, and many other pieces.
Ilerow is a term applied to verses containing five meters of the second kind, or ten syllables. Heroics either rhyme in couplets, or are without rhymes, constituting blank verse. Many of the chief narrative and didactic poems in the English language are in rhyming heroics; as those of Chaucer, Dryden, Pope, Cowper, etc. Milton's two great poems, Young's ,LYight Thoughts, Thonison's Seasons, Cowper's Task, Wordsworth's Excursion, and many others, are written in blank heroics. Metrical dramas are almost always in blank verse; in which case there is frequently a supernumerary syllable, or even two, at the end of the line: To be, I or not I to be, I that is I the quesition: Whether I 'tis nolbler in I the mind I to suflfer.
In E7egiacs, the lines are of the same length and the same measure as in heroics; but the rhymes are alternate, and divide the poem into quatrains or stanzas of four lines, as in Gray's Elegy. The Spenscrian stanza, popularized by Spenser in the Fairy Queen, and much used by Byron, differs from common heroics only in the arrangement of the rhymes, and in concludino. with an Alexandrine (q.v.) Serrke meter, also called common meter, is the form of versification adopted in the metrical Psalms, in many hymns, and other lyrical pieces. From being frequently employed in ballads, this meter is also called ballad meter. The first and third lines often rhyme, as well as the second and fourth.
Such are some of the more usual and definite forms of versification. In many poems, especially the more recent ones, so much license is assumed, that it is difficult to trace any regular recurrence or other law determining the changes of meter, or the lengths of the, lines; the poet seeks to suit the modulation at every turn to the varying sentiments. But it may be questioned whether much of this refinement of art is not thrown away, upon ordinary readers at least, who, failing to perceive any special suitableness, are inclined to look upon those violent departures from accustomed regularity as the results of caprice.
The kind of verse called hexameter is described under its own name.