ents

EDITORIAL

Preface to Notes
Notes

OUR generation already is overpast,
And thy lov'd legacy, Gerard, hath lain
Coy in my home; as once thy heart was fain
Of shelter, when God's terror held thee fast
In life's wild wood at Beauty and Sorrow aghast;
Thy sainted sense tramme'd in ghostly pain,
Thy rare ill-broker'd talent in disdain:
Yet love of Christ will win man's love at last.

Hell wars without; but, dear, the while my hands
Gather'd thy book, I heard, this wintry day,
Thy spirit thank me, in his young delight
Stepping again upon the yellow sands.
Go forth: amidst our chaffinch flock display
Thy plumage of far wonder and heavenward flight!

Chilswell, Jan. 1918.

(1) AUTHOR'S PREFACE

THE poems in this book* (*That is, the MS.
described in Editor's preface as B. This
preface does not apply to the early poems.)
are written some in Running Rhythm, the common
rhythm in English use, some in Sprung Rhythm,
and some in a mixture of the two. And those in
the common rhythm are some counterpointed,
some not.

Common English rhythm, called Running Rhythm
above, is measured by feet of either two or three
syllables and (putting aside the imperfect feet at the
beginning and end of lines and also some unusual
measures, in which feet seem to be paired together and
double or composite feet to arise) never more or less.

Every foot has one principal stress or accent, and
this or the syllable it falls on may be called the Stress
of the foot and the other part, the one or two unaccented
syllables, the Slack. Feet (and the rhythms made out
of them) in which the stress comes first are called
Falling Feet and Falling Rhythms, feet and rhythm
in which the slack comes first are called Rising Feet
and Rhythms, and if the stress is between two slacks
there will be Rocking Feet and Rhythms. These
distinctions are real and true to nature; but for purposes
of scanning it is a great convenience to follow the
(2) example of music and take the stress always first, as
the accent or the chief accent always comes first in
a musical bar. If this is done there will be in common
English verse only two possible feet--the so-called
accentual Trochee and Dactyl, and correspondingly
only two possible uniform rhythms, the so-called
Trochaic and Dactylic. But they may be mixed and then
what the Greeks called a Logaoedic Rhythm arises.
These are the facts and according to these the scanning
of ordinary regularly-written En