_  U  | _  U  | _    U | _    U|
Double, double, toil and trouble.

—­Shakespeare.

_  U | _   U |_  U  |_  U |
Let us then be up and doing,
_   U| _    U | U |   |
With a heart for any fate,
_    U |_  U  | _     U|_   U |
Still achieving, still pursuing,
_    U | _ U |_   U | _  |
Learn to labor and to wait.

—­Longfellow.

A dactyl is a foot consisting of three syllables with the accent on the first.

_   U  U | _    U   U  |
Cannon to right of them,
_   U  U | _   U   U  |
Cannon to left of them,
_   U  U | _    U   U  |
Cannon in front of them,
_   U    U  |_    U   |
Volleyed and thundered.

—­Tennyson.

It will be convenient to remember that two of these, the iambus and the anapest, have the accent on the last syllable, and that two, the trochee and the dactyl, have the accent on the first syllable.

A spondee is a foot consisting of two syllables, both of which are accented about equally.  It is an unusual foot in English poetry.

U   _  | _    _   |  U    _|  U  _  |
Come now, blow, Wind, and waft us o’er.

A pyrrhic is a foot consisting of two syllables both of which are unaccented.  It is frequently found at the end of a line.

U _ | U _ | U _|U U
Life is so full of misery.

An amphibrach is a foot consisting of three syllables, with the accent on the second.

U _  U    U  _   U|  U  _  U| U    _  |
Creator, Preserver, Redeemer and friend.

+110.  Names of Verse.+—­A single line of poetry is called a verse.  A stanza is composed of several verses.  When a verse consists of one foot, it is called a monometer; of two feet, a dimeter; of three feet, a trimeter; of four feet, a tetrameter; of five feet, a pentameter; and of six feet, a hexameter.

_ U Monometer.  Slowly.

_   U   U| _  U  U |
Dimeter.   Emblem of happiness.

_   U| U|    U |
Trimeter.   Like a poet hidden.

_    U| _   U|  _  U  | _  U  |
Tetrameter.   Tell me not in mournful numbers.

U   _  |U  _ |U   _| U    _ | U     _  |
Pentameter.   O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath.

_ U U | _ U U | _ U U | _ U U | _ U
Hexameter.  This is the forest primeval; the murmuring pines and
U | _ U |
the hemlocks.

When we say that a verse is of any particular kind, we do not mean that every foot in that line is necessarily of the same kind.  Verse is named by stating first the prevailing foot which composes it, and second the number of feet in a line.  A verse having four iambic feet is called iambic tetrameter.  So we have dactylic hexameter, trochaic pentameter, iambic trimeter, anapestic dimeter, etc.

EXERCISES

A. Mark the accented and unaccented syllables in the following selections, and name the kind of verse:—­