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,