"Criticism" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

cycle of physical nature, to sustain a hope of progression in
happiness. But it is only as a poem that we wish to examine The
Ages. Its commencement is impressive. The four initial lines arrest
the attention at once by a quiet dignity of manner, an air of placid
contemplation, and a versification combining the extremes of melody
and force-

When to the common rest that crowns our days,
Called in the noon of life, the good man goes,
Or full of years, and ripe in wisdom, lays
His silver temples in their last repose-

The five concluding lines of the stanza, however, are not equally
effective-

When, o'er the buds of youth, the death-wind blows,
And brights the fairest; when our bitterest tears
Stream, as the eyes of those that love us close,
We think on what they were, with many fears
Lest goodness die with them, and leave the coming years.

The defects, here, are all of a metrical and of course minor nature,
but are still defects. The line

When o'er the buds of youth the death-wind blows,

is impeded in its flow by the final th in youth, and especially in
death where w follows. The word tears cannot readily be pronounced
after the final st in bitterest; and its own final consonants, rs,
in like manner render an effort necessary in the utterance of stream
which commences the next line. In the verse

We think on what they were, with many fears

the word many is, from its nature, too rapidly pronounced for the
fulfilment of the time necessary to give weight to the foot of two
syllables. All words of two syllables do not necessarily constitute
a foot (we speak now of the Pentameter here employed) even although
the syllables be entirely distinct, as in many, very, often, and the
like. Such as, without effort, cannot employ in their pronunciation
the time demanded by each of the preceding and succeeding feet of
the verse, and occasionally of a preceding verse, will never fail to
offend. It is the perception of this fact which so frequently forces
the versifier of delicate ear to employ feet exceeding what are
unjustly called legitimate dimensions. For example. We have the
following lines-

Lo! to the smiling Arno's classic side,
The emulous nations of the West repair!