Unless, for example, we shall come to have an influx of
spondees in our English tongue, it will always be impossible to
construct an English hexameter. Our spondees, or, we should say, our
spondiac words, are rare. In the Swedish they are nearly as abundant
as in the Latin and Greek. We have only "compound," "context,"
"footfall," and a few other similar ones. This is the difficulty;
and that it is so will become evident upon reading "The Children of
the Lord's Supper," where the sole readable verses are those in
which we meet with the rare spondaic dissyllables. We mean to say
readable as Hexameters; for many of them will read very well as mere
English Dactylics, with certain irregularities.
But within the narrow compass now left us we must not indulge in
anything like critical comment. Our readers will be better satisfied
perhaps with a few brief extracts from the original poems of the
volume- which we give for their rare excellence, without pausing now
to say in what particulars this excellence exists.
And, like the water's flow
Under December's snow
Came a dull voice of woe,
From the heart's chamber.
So the loud laugh of scorn,
Out of those lips unshorn
From the deep drinking-horn
Blew the foam lightly.
As with his wings aslant
Sails the fierce cormorant
Seeking some rocky haunt,
With his prey laden,
So toward the open main,
Beating to sea again,
Through the wild hurricane,
Bore I the maiden.
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