Composition-Rhetoric eBook

Stratton D. Brooks
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 464 pages of information about Composition-Rhetoric.

Composition-Rhetoric eBook

Stratton D. Brooks
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 464 pages of information about Composition-Rhetoric.

1.

Build me straight, O worthy Master! 
  Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel
That shall laugh at all disaster
  And with wave and whirlwind wrestle.

—­Longfellow.

2.

I know not where His islands lift
  Their fronded palms in air,
I only know I cannot drift
  Beyond His love and care.

—­Whittier.

3.

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
  The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
  When I have crossed the bar.

—­Tennyson.

4.

Chanting of labor and craft, and of Wealth in the pot and the
  garner;
Chanting of valor and fame, and the man who can, fall with the
  foremost,
Fighting for children and wife, and the field which his father
  bequeathed him,
Sweetly and solemnly sang she, and planned new lessons for
  mortals.

—­Kingsley.

5.

Have you read in the Talmud of old,
In the Legends the Rabbins have told,
  Of the limitless realms of the air,
Have you read it,—­the marvelous story
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,
  Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?

—­Longfellow.

B. 1.  Find three poems written in iambic verse, and three written in trochaic verse.

2.  Write at least one stanza, using iambic verse.

3.  Write at least one stanza, using the same kind of verse that you find in Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade.”

4.  Write two anapestic lines.

+111.  Variation in Rhythm.+—­The name given to a verse is determined by the foot which prevails, but not every foot in the line needs to be of the same kind.  Just as in music we may substitute a quarter for two eighth notes, so may we in poetry substitute one foot for another, provided it is given the same amount of time.

Notice in the following that the rhythm is perfect and the beat regular, although a three-syllable anapest has been substituted in the second line for a two-syllable iambus:—­

U _  |   U   _  | U _  |   U    _ |  U     _   |
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree’s shade,
U    _   |  U   _  | U _| U U _ |  U    _  |
Where heaves the turf in many a moldring heap,
_   U | U   _ | U  _  | U  _ |U  _ |
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
U  _  |  U   _ | U  _ | U  _  | U  _ |
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The following from Evangeline illustrates the substitution of trochees for dactyls:—­

_     U    U  |  _  U  |  _     U   U | _  U   U | _ U U | _ U |
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed.

_ U U | _ U | _ U U | _ U | _ U U|_ U Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October

_     U    U | _     U   U |_    U |   _  U   U  | _  U     U |_  U |
Seize them and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o’er the ocean.

_ U U | _ U U | _ U U | _ U U | _ U U | _ U Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre.

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Composition-Rhetoric from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.