Béauty and wéalth had the órphan.
Stanzas of a similar kind consisting of trochaic verses are used by Longfellow; one of the form a3 b c4 d ~2 in To an old Danish Song Book, and another which corresponds to the formula a b5 c2 d5 in The Golden Mile-Stone.
Iambic-anapaestic verses of two stresses and feminine ending are found in Longfellow’s poem The Men of Nidaros (p. 579); the arrangement into stanzas of six lines being marked only by the syntactical order, in the same way as in Southey’s poem The Soldier’s Wife (ii. 140), in which, too, four-foot dactylic verses are combined in stanzas of three lines. Two-foot dactylic and dactylic-trochaic verses of a similar structure to those mentioned in Book I, § [73], are joined to rhymeless stanzas of five lines (the first four have feminine endings, the last a masculine one) by Matthew Arnold in his poem Consolation (p. 50). Stanzas of five iambic verses of three and five measures, corresponding to the formula a3 b5 c3 d5 e3 occur in his poem Growing Old (p. 527). In Charles Lamb’s well-known poem, The Old Familiar Faces, written in stanzas of three lines, consisting of five-foot verses with feminine endings, the division into stanzas is marked by a refrain at the end of each stanza. For examples of these different kinds of verses the reader is referred to the author’s Metrik, ii, §§ 255–8.
In conclusion it may be mentioned that many of the irregular, so-called Pindaric Odes (cf. Book II, chap. [viii]) are likewise written in rhymeless anisometrical stanzas.
BOOK II. THE STRUCTURE OF STANZAS
PART I
CHAPTER I. DEFINITIONS
STANZA, RHYME, VARIETIES OF RHYME
§ 214. The strophe in ancient poetry, and the stanza in mediaeval and modern analogues and derivatives of that poetic form, are combinations of single lines into a unity of which the lines are the parts. The word strophe[180] in its literal sense means a turning, and originally denoted the return of the song to the melody with which it began. The melody, which is a series of musical sounds arranged in accordance with the laws of rhythm and modulation, has in poetry its counterpart in a parallel series of significant sounds or words arranged according to the laws of rhythm; and the melodic termination of the musical series has its analogue in the logical completion of the thought. But within the stanza itself again there are well-marked resting places, divisions closely connected with the periods or sentences of which the stanza is made up. The periods are built up of rhythmical sequences which are combinations of single feet, dominated by a rhythmical main accent. In shorter lines the end of the rhythmical sequence as a rule coincides with the end of the verse; but if the line is of some length it generally contains two or even more rhythmical sequences.[181] The essential constituents of the stanza are the lines; and the structure of the stanzas connected together to make up a poem is in classical as well as in mediaeval and modern poetry subject to the rule that the lines of each stanza of the poem must resemble those of the other stanzas in number, length (i.e. the number of feet or measures), rhythmical structure, and arrangement. (This rule, however, is not without exceptions in modern poetry.) In the versification of the ancients it was sufficient for the construction of a strophic poem that its verses should be combined in a certain number of groups which resembled each other in these respects. In modern poetry, also, such an arrangement of the verses may be sufficient for the construction of stanzas; but this is only exceptionally the case, and, as a rule, only in imitation of the classic metrical forms (cf. §§ [212–13]). The stanza, as it is found in the mediaeval and modern poetry of the nations of western Europe, exhibits an additional structural element of the greatest importance, viz. the connexion of the single lines of the stanza by end-rhyme; and with regard to this a rule analogous to the previously mentioned law regarding the equality in number and nature of verses forming a stanza holds good, viz. that the arrangement of the rhymes which link the verses together to form stanzas, must be the same in all the stanzas of a poem.