The quantity of a syllable, as commonly explained, is the relative portion of time occupied in uttering it.  In poetry, every syllable is considered to be either long or short.  A long syllable is usually reckoned to be equal to two short ones.

In the construction of English verse, long quantity coincides always with the primary accent, generally also with the secondary, as well as with emphasis; and short quantity, as reckoned by the poets, is found only in unaccented syllables, and unemphatical monosyllabic words.[483]

The quantity of a syllable, whether long or short, does not depend on what is called the long or the short sound of a vowel or diphthong, or on a supposed distinction of accent as affecting vowels in some cases and consonants in others, but principally on the degree of energy or loudness with which the syllable is uttered, whereby a greater or less portion of time is employed.

The open vowel sounds, which are commonly but not very accurately termed long, are those which are the most easily protracted, yet they often occur in the shortest and feeblest syllables; while, on the other hand, no vowel sound, that occurs under the usual stress of accent or of emphasis, is either so short in its own nature, or is so “quickly joined to the succeeding letter,” that the syllable is not one of long quantity.

Most monosyllables, in English, are variable in quantity, and may be made either long or short, as strong or weak sounds suit the sense and rhythm; but words of greater length are, for the most part, fixed, their accented syllables being always long, and a syllable immediately before or after the accent almost always short.

One of the most obvious distinctions in poetry, is that of rhyme and blank verse. Rhyme is a similarity of sound, combined with a difference:  occurring usually between the last syllables of different lines, but sometimes at other intervals; and so ordered that the rhyming syllables begin differently and end alike. Blank verse is verse without rhyme.

The principal rhyming syllables are almost always long.  Double rhyme adds one short syllable; triple rhyme, two.  Such syllables are redundant in iambic and anapestic verses; in lines of any other sort, they are generally, if not always, included in the measure.

A Stanza is a combination of several verses, or lines, which, taken together, make a regular division of a poem.  It is the common practice of good versifiers, to form all stanzas of the same poem after one model.  The possible variety of stanzas is infinite; and the actual variety met with in print is far too great for detail.

OBSERVATIONS.