The natural way of spacing these words, if they were prose, would be: “Rócks, | cáves, | lákes, | féns, | bógs, | déns, and | shádes of | déath.” But the metrical framework compels us to crowd these monosyllables together, and read them twice as rapidly as we should in prose. This hurry and constipation produces an effect of effort and strain, which is just what is required. An extreme case of this power of metre to mould and so give life to a phrase, is the line,
And made him bow to the gods of his wives,
If this be read as a line with four stresses, thus: “And | máde him | bów to the | góds of his | wíves,” it is then not a Miltonic blank verse at all. Yet, since we cannot read it, “And | máde him | bów tó | thé góds | óf his | wíves,” the only thing to be done is to put a kind of level staccato accent on the last six syllables, thus: “And máde him bów tó thé góds óf hís wíves,” which spaces the words out, so that they sound like a blank verse, or at least do the best they can to sound like one. Thus not only is our ear sufficiently reminded of the underlying metrical base, but we are obliged to give to the phrase a kind of fierce indignant or ironic emphasis, which again is, I think, exactly what Milton intended. I could multiply instances; but these should be sufficient to illustrate the way in which verse, if it be well written, adds imaginative expressiveness to words, by forcing us to space them out and emphasise them, till they acquire new values that they would not have had in prose.
Another obvious function of a constant metrical framework is that of heightening the values of words and phrases by mere position, much as the structure of a cathedral may do with sculpture. Any passage of Milton, or of Keats’ mature work, might be used to illustrate this principle.
If then the main function of spoken verse be this of building a framework upon which we may place words in significant and beautiful relations both with each other and with the rhythmical structure itself, and upon which we may also stretch out and contract them, in order to increase their emotional values, it would seem to be necessary that this framework should be definite and constant. And it is this necessity that is, I think, the chief objection to some modern experiments in free verse. Whatever advantages there may be in emancipation from regularity, we should not forget the price that has to be paid for it in the loss or diminution of this power of moulding and vivifying language. It is true that there have been many successful experiments in more or less free verse, from the choruses in Samson Agonistes to, let us say, Mr. Waley’s translations of early Chinese poetry; but I suggest that as a general rule the success is in proportion to the degree in which we are made aware of a fixed metrical base underlying the irregularities. But what are we to think of this kind of thing?
Come, my songs, let us express our baser passions.
Let us express our envy for the man with a steady job and no worry about the future.
Have these words, by being divided into two lines, acquired any kind of value they would not have had if they had been printed as prose, in which case they might be enjoyed as an amusing satirical outburst? But it would almost seem that at times free verse is no more than an excuse for uttering futilities and ineptitudes that we should not have dared to express in honest prose.
There is yet another important aspect of this medium of modern verse which we must not forget. Ancient poetry was in an obvious and literal sense an incantation, at once charming and exciting the mind through the ear. Now modern poetry, though no longer chanted but spoken, still retains, or should retain, something of its primitive nature as an incantation. It is notorious that poets, when reading verse, generally fall into a kind of chanting delivery, which sometimes, owing to their lack of skill, may seem affected, and even absurd. But their instinct is none the less right. Poetry read to sound like prose is intolerable. Thought is not poetic unless it be kindled into emotion; and the natural language of emotion is different from that of prose, the vehicle of reason. Not only is it more rhythmical, but it is more musical; that is to say, though the pitch is not deliberately regulated, as in song, there is a tendency to a level monotonous intonation, and changes of pitch, when they occur, are more conscious and more noticeable. The commonest fault of bad speakers of verse on the stage is to emphasise individual words by raising the pitch, so destroying the music that is proper to verse, and incidentally the rhythm too.
And here I may mention a danger to which both writers and readers of modern verse are very liable. In order to get the full value out of poetry (or indeed out of prose too), we ought, as Flaubert insisted, to read it aloud. But as we cannot always be doing that, we must, when reading silently to ourselves, listen with our unsensual ear to the same sounds and the same rhythms, moving at the same pace, as though we were reading aloud. Otherwise we shall not be reading poetry. It is indeed quite possible that twenty lines of Milton, read silently thus, may actually take up somewhat less time than they would if they were read aloud; but the pace ought not to seem hurried: in so far as it does, the magic of the medium will be impaired or destroyed. Moreover poets themselves, when, as they often do, they write more for the eye and for the mind than for the ear, are not writing literature at all, let alone poetry.