(b) Simple three-and four-beat rhythms—
They that have great intrigues of the world
have a yoke upon their necks
and cannot look back.
And he that covets many things greedily
and snatches at high things ambitiously
that despises his neighbor proudly
and bears his crosses peevishly
or his prosperity impotently and passionately
he that is a prodigal of his precious time
and is tenacious and retentive of evil purposes
is not a man disposed to this exercise:
he hath reason to be afraid of his own memory
and to dash his glass in pieces
because it must needs represent to his own eyes
an intolerable deformity.
Jeremy Taylor, Holy Dying, ch. ii, sect. 2.
(c) Mainly two-beat rhythms—
Now since these dead bones
have already outlasted
the living ones of Methuselah
and in a yard under ground
and thin walls of clay
outworn all the strong
and spacious buildings above it,
and quietly rested
under the drums and tramplings
of three conquests;
what Prince can promise
such diuturnity
unto his reliques
or might not gladly say
'Sic ego componi versus in ossa velim.'
Sir Thomas Browne, Urn Burial, ch. v.
(d) Mainly three-beat rhythms—
What song the Syrens sang
or what name Achilles assumed
when he hid himself among women though puzzling questions
are not beyond all conjecture.
What time the persons of these ossuaries
entered the famous nations of the dead
and slept with princes and counsellors
might admit a wide solution.
But who were the proprietaries of these bones
or what bodies these ashes made up
were a question above antiquarism;
not to be resolved by man
nor easily perhaps by spirits
except we consult the provincial
guardians or tutelary Observators.
Ibid.
Metrical Prose. The above passages are daring, but greatly daring. So great is the subtlety, the variety, the art, that they never fail of their intended effect. They are justifiable because they justify themselves—partly by their lofty and dignified content, partly of course by their sheer artistry. But when the same thing is attempted by unskilful hands it fails ingloriously. We say it has "a palpable design upon us," and balk. Gibbon and Burke, as inheritors of the seventeenth-century tradition, sometimes fell into the error; Ruskin, with his 'poetical' style, was sometimes guilty; but the worst and most conspicuous offenders were Dickens and Blackmore. Examples are abundant. Not all are equally unpleasant; the individual taste of some readers will approve passages which others will reject. With Dickens and Blackmore, however, the phenomenon approaches downright deliberate trickiness.
The calculation of profit in all such wars is false. On balancing the account of such wars, ten thousand hogsheads of sugar are purchased at ten thousand times their price. The blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind. The rest is vanity; the rest is crime.
Burke, Letters on a Regicide Peace, I.
When Death strikes down the innocent and young
for every fragile form from which he lets
the panting spirit free
a hundred virtues rise
in shapes of mercy, charity, and love,
to walk the world and bless it.
Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed
on such green graves
some good is born
some gentler nature comes.
Dickens, Old Curiosity Shop, ch. 72
"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost,
"I made it link by link, and yard by yard."
Dickens, Christmas Carol.