in scanning a line of poetry is to
drop into its rhythm,--to let it sing itself. When the regular accent
is felt, the lines can easily be separated into their metrical feet.
Read these lines from "Marmion," and mark only the accented syllables.

^ ^ ^ ^
"And there she stood so calm and pale,
^ ^ ^ ^
That but her breathing did not fail,
And motion slight of eyes and head,
And of her bosom, warranted
That neither sense nor pulse she lacks,
You might have thought a form of wax
Wrought to the very life was there;
So still she was, so pale, so fair."

The marked verses have an accented syllable preceded by an unaccented
syllable. Such a foot is iambic. There are four feet in each verse; so
the poem is written in iambic tetrameter. In the same way, one decides
that "The Song of Hiawatha" is written in trochaic tetrameter.

Variations in Metres.

In music the bar or measure is not always filled with exactly the same
kind of notes arranged in the same order. If the signature reads 3/8,
the measure may be filled by any notes that added together equal three
eighth notes. It may be a quarter and an eighth, an eighth and a
quarter, a dotted quarter, or three eighth notes. So, in poetry the
verses are not always as regular as in "Marmion" and "Hiawatha,"
although poetry is more regular than music and there are usually few
variations of metre in any one poem. A knowledge of the most common
forms of variation is necessary to correct scansion.

The commonest variation in verse is the substitution of three eighths
for the quarter and the eighth, or the eighth and the quarter. And the
very opposite of this often occurs; that is, the substitution of the
two-syllable foot for the three-syllable foot. The following, from
"The Burial of Sir John Moore," illustrates what is done. Notice,
however, that the beat is quite regular, and the lines lilt along as
if there were no change.

| ^ | ^ | ^ | ^
| e e e | e q | e e e |e e e |
"Not a drum was heard, not a fun eral note,
| ^ | ^ | ^ |
| e e e | e e e | e e e [e] |
As his corse to the ram part we hur[ried];
| ^ | ^ | ^ | ^ |
| e e e | e e e | e q | e q |
Not a sol dier discharged his fare well sho