Sprung Rhythm

Hopkins based his sprung rhythm on the metrical systems of Anglo-Saxon and traditional Welsh poetry, and he used this rhythm for much of his poetry. Sprung rhythm is based on the number of stressed syllables in a line and permits any number of unstressed syllables. Each foot consists of a first strongly stressed syllable, which either stands alone or is followed by unstressed syllables. Generally there are between one and four syllables per foot. An example from “Pied Beauty” is line 1, which can be scanned thus: “Glory | be to | God for | dappled | things,” with four strong stresses falling on “Glo-” in the first foot, “God” in the third foot, “da-” in the fourth foot, and “things” in the fifth foot. The strong stresses in all feet except the second fall on the first syllable of...