And if,
persisting, we add anything about their equality, we are merely
floundering in the idea of an identical equation, where, x being equal
to x, nothing is shown to be equal to zero. In a word, we can form
no conception of a pyrrhic as of an independent foot. It is a mere
chimera bred in the mad fancy of a pedant.
From what I have said about the equalization of the several feet
of a line, it must not be deduced that any necessity for equality in
time exists between the rhythm of several lines. A poem, or even a
stanza, may begin with iambuses in the first line, and proceed with
anapaests in the second, or even with the less accordant dactyls, as
in the opening of quite a pretty specimen of verse by Miss Mary A.
S. Aldrich:
The wa / ter li / ly sleeps / in pride /
Down in the / depths of the / Azure / [lake.] /
Here azure is a spondee, equivalent to a dactyl; lake a caesura.
I shall now best proceed in quoting the initial lines of Byron's
"Bride of Abydos":
Know ye the land where, the cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime,
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle
Now melt into softness, now madden to crime?
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine,
And the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume.
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