"Now sweep, sweep the deep.
See Celia, Celia dies,
While true Lovers' eyes
Weeping sleep, Sleeping weep,
Weeping sleep, Bo-peep, bo-peep."
CHAPTER IV.—VERSIFICATION.
Versification is the forming of that species of literary composition which is called verse; that is, poetry, or poetic numbers.
SECTION I.—OF VERSE.
Verse, in opposition to prose, is language arranged into metrical lines of some determinate length and rhythm—language so ordered as to produce harmony, by a due succession of poetic feet, or of syllables differing in quantity or stress.
DEFINITIONS AND PRINCIPLES.
The rhythm of verse is its relation of quantities; the modulation of its numbers; or, the kind of metre, measure, or movement, of which it consists, or by which it is particularly distinguished.
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.