Chapter XIII we saw an analogous situation arising in the case

of the discrimination of colours. The obvious comparison with the difference between what even musical notation can record in music and the player’s interpretation can usefully be made here.

A more serious omission is the neglect by the majority of metrists of the pitch relations of syllables. The reading of poetry is of course not a monotonous and subdued form of singing. There is no question of definite pitches at which the syllables must be taken, nor perhaps of definite harmonic relations between different sounds. But that a rise and fall of pitch is involved in metre and is as much part of the poet’s technique as any other feature of verse, as much under his control also, is indisputable. Anyone who is not clear upon this point may compare as a striking instance Milton’s _Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity_ with Collins’ _Ode to Simplicity_ and both with the second Chorus of _Hellas_ discussed in Chapter XXVIII. Due allowances made for the natural peculiarities of different readers, the scheme of pitch relations, in their contexts, of

That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss;

and of

But com’st a decent maid, In Attic robe array’ɖ,

are clearly different. There is nothing arbitrary or out of the poet’s control in this, as there is nothing arbitrary or out of his control in the way in which an adequate reader will stress particular syllables. He brings both about by the same means, the modification of the reader’s impulses by what has gone before. It is true that some words resist emphasis far more than perhaps any resist change of pitch, yet this difference is merely one of degree. It is as natural to lower the pitch in reading the word ‘loss’ as it is to emphasise it as compared with ‘our’ in the same context.

Here again we see how impossible it is to consider rhythm or metre as though it were purely an affair of the sensory aspect of syllables and could be dissociated from their sense and from the emotional effects which come about through their sense. One principle may, however, be hazarded. As in the case of painting the more direct means are preferable to the less direct (see Chapter XVIII), so in poetry. What can be done by sound should not be done otherwise or in violation of the natural effects of sound. Violations of the natural emphases and tones of speech brought about for the sake of the further effects due to thought and feeling are perilous, though, on occasion, they may be valuable devices. The use of italics in _Cain_ to straighten out the blank verse is as glaring an instance as any. But more liberties are justified in dramatic writing than elsewhere, and poetry is full of exceptions to such principles.[50] We must not forget that Milton did not disdain to use special spelling, ‘mee’, for example, in place of ‘me’, in order to suggest additional emphasis when he feared that the reader might be careless.

So far we have been concerned with metre only as a specialised form of rhythm, giving an increased interconnection between words through an increased control of anticipation. But it has other, in some cases even more important powers. Its use as an hypnotic agent is probably very ancient. Coleridge once again drops his incidental remark, just beside yet extremely close to the point. “It tends to increase the vivacity and susceptibility both of the general feelings and of the attention. This effect it produces by the continued excitement of surprise, and by the quick reciprocations of curiosity still gratified and still re-excited, which are too slight indeed to be at any moment objects of distinct consciousness, yet become considerable in their aggregate influence. As a medicated atmosphere, or as wine during animated conversation, they act powerfully, though themselves unnoticed.” (_Biographia Literaria_, Chap. XVIII.) Mr Yeats, when he speaks of the function of metre being to “lull the mind into a waking trance” is describing the same effect, however strange his conception of this trance may be.

That certain metres, or rather that a certain handling of metre should produce in a slight degree a hypnoidal state is not surprising. But it does so not as Coleridge suggests, through the surprise element in metrical effects, but through the absence of surprise, through the lulling effects more than through the awakening. Many of the most characteristic symptoms of incipient hypnosis are present in a slight degree. Among these susceptibility and vivacity of emotion, suggestibility, limitations of the field of attention, marked differences in the incidence of belief-feelings closely analogous to those which alcohol and nitrous oxide can induce, and some degree of hyperæsthesia (increased power of discriminating sensations) may be noted. We need not boggle at the word ‘hypnosis’. It is sufficient to say, borrowing a phrase from M. Jules Romains, that there is a change in the regime of consciousness, which is directly due to the metre, and that to this regime the above-mentioned characteristics attach. As regards the hyperæsthesia, there may be several ways of interpreting what can be observed. All that matters here is that syllables, which in prose or in _vers libres_ sound thin, tinny and flat, often gain an astonishing sonority and fullness even in verse which seems to possess no very subtle metrical structure.

Metre has another mode of action not hitherto mentioned. There can be little doubt that historically it has been closely associated with dancing, and that the connections of the two still hold. This is true at least of some ‘measures’. Either motor images, images of the sensations of dancing, or, more probably, imaginal and incipient movements follow the syllables and make up their ‘movement’. A place for these accompaniments should be found in the diagram in Chapter XVI. Once the metre has begun to ‘catch on’ they are almost as closely bound up with the sequence of the words as the tied ‘verbal’ images themselves.

The extension of this ‘movement’ of the verse from dance forms to more general movements is natural and inevitable. That there is a very close connection between the sense and the metrical movement of

And now the numerous tramplings quiver lightly Along a huge cloud’s ridge; and now with sprightly Wheel downward come they into fresher skies,

cannot be doubted whatever we may think of the rime.

It is not less clear in

Where beyond the extreme sea wall, and between the remote sea gates, Waste water washes, and tall ships founder, and deep death waits,

or in

Ran on embattell’d Armies clad in Iron,

than it is in

We sweetly curtsied each to each And deftly danced a saraband.

Nor is it always the case that the movement takes its cue from the sense. It is often a commentary on the sense and sometimes may qualify it, as when the resistless strength of Coriolanus in battle is given an appearance of dreadful ease by the leisureliness of the description,

Death, that dark spirit, in’s nervy arm doth lie Which being advanc’d declines, and then men die.

Movement in poetry deserves at least as much study as onomatopœia.

This account, of course, by no means covers all the ways by which metre takes effect in poetry. The fact that we appropriately use such words as ‘lulling’, ‘stirring’, ‘solemn’, ‘pensive’, ‘gay’ in describing metres is an indication of their power more directly to control emotion. But the more general effects are more important. Through its very appearance of artificiality metre produces in the highest degree the ‘frame’ effect, isolating the poetic experience from the accidents and irrelevancies of everyday existence. We have seen in Chapter X how necessary this isolation is and how easily it may be mistaken for a difference in kind. Much which in prose would be too personal or too insistent, which might awaken irrelevant conjectures or might ‘overstep itself’ is managed without disaster in verse. There are, it is true, equivalent resources in prose—irony, for example, very frequently has this effect—but their scope is far more limited. Metre for the most difficult and most delicate utterances is the all but inevitable means.

[49] _Works_, II, 171.

[50] It is worth remarking that any application of critical principles must be indirect. They are not any the less useful because this is so. Misunderstanding on this point has often led artists to accuse critics of wishing to make art a matter of rules, and their objection to any such attempt is entirely justified.