| ^ | ^ | ^ | ^ | ||||
| quarter note | eighth note | quarter note | eighth note | quarter note | eighth note | quarter note | eighth note |
| “Tell | me | not | in | mourn | ful | num | bers |
| ^ | ^ | ^ | ^ | ||||
| quarter note | eighth note | quarter note | eighth note | quarter note | eighth note | quarter note | eighth rest |
| Life | is | but | an | emp | ty | dream.” |
[282] The last foot of a verse of poetry, then, may have more or fewer syllables than the regular number; still the foot takes up the regular time and cannot be deemed unrhythmical.
The first foot of a line, too, may contain an extra syllable; a good example has been given in the lines on page [273], beginning,—
“Ah, the autumn days fade out, and the nights grow chill.”
And the first foot of a line may lack a syllable, as in the first line of “Break, Break, Break,” by Tennyson.
In a line like the following, it is sometimes difficult to tell whether the syllable is omitted from the first or the last foot. If from the first, the verse is iambic, and is scanned like this:—
^ ^ ^ ^ eighth rest quarter note eighth note quarter note eighth note quarter note eighth note eighth note eighth note “Proud and low ly, beg gar and lord.”
| ^ | ^ | ^ | ^ | |||||
| eighth rest | quarter note | eighth note | quarter note | eighth note | quarter note | eighth note | eighth note | eighth note |
| “Proud | and | low | ly, | beg | gar | and | lord.” |
If the last foot is not full, the line is trochaic.