A. Various kinds of verse:

,.

Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff bitch; From her kennel beneath the rock She maketh answer to the clock … (S.T. Coleridge)

Adieu, farewell, earth’s bliss; This world uncertain is; Fond are life’s lustful joys; Death proves them all but toys; None from his darts can fly; I am sick, I must die. Lord, have mercy on us! (Thomas Nashe)

Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long love’s day. (Andrew Marvell)

rom S. T. Coleridge: Metrical Feet

Trochee trips from long to short.
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! yet ill able
Ever to come up with Dactyl trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long;—
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.

B. Identify the kind of verse used in the following poems. Start by marking the stresses in the lines.

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; (Byron)Two more

Sing a song of sixpence, A pocket full of rye, Four and twenty blackbirds Baked in a pie.

The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top. (Coleridge)

Two more examples of metrical feet.

1. How, how, how, how? Chopped logic! What is this?
“Proud,” and “I thank you,” and “I thank you not,” (Shakespeare).

2. Yet it creates, transcending these,

Far other worlds, and other seas;

Annihilating all that’s made

To a green thought in a green shade. (Andrew Marvell)

C. And how about this verse?

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.

For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.

For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.

For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer… (Christopher Smart)

D. verse and stanza forms. Identify the metre and rhyme pattern.

1. That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands. (Robert Browning)

And now the same stanza but with an important difference.

2. I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold. (Wilfred Owen)

3.To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep…

4. Here with a sigh, as if her heart would break,
She throws forth Tarquin's name; 'He, he,' she says,
But more than 'he' her poor tongue could not speak;
Till after many accents and delays,
Untimely breathings, sick and short assays,
She utters this, 'He, he, fair lords, 'tis he,
That guides this hand to give this wound to me.' (Shakespeare)

5. But Juan! had he quite forgotten Julia?
     And should he have forgotten her so soon?
I can't but say it seems to me most truly a
     Perplexing question; but, no doubt, the moon
Does these things for us, and whenever newly a*
     Strong palpitation rises, 't is her boon,
Else how the devil is it that fresh features
Have such a charm for us poor human creatures?

Sonnet 19 John Milton When I consider how my light is spent, E're half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one Talent which is death to hide, Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent To serve there with my Maker, and present My true account, least he returning chide, Doth God exact day labour, light deny'd, I fondly ask; But patience to prevent That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts, who best Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed And post o're Land and Ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and waite.

William Shakespeare Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.