The secret lies in line 4.

Trimeter?

aBOUT flowers AND the door FRAME

uffa

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited June 14, 2006).]

Secret Service Agent .000 reporting for duty.

Working on Priority Number One: L1's misplaced "up"; common usage is "picked up his pen" unless you are _____________________.

"The floor fell"...This is Priority Number Two.

Research the possibility of this being an historic typing exercise.

Picking up on the statement that this "is fairly regular iambic pentameter," and thinking about what strangeness one could commit to make it so, I hit on this:

Give the syllabic weight to any final consonant that is voiced and can be given extended pronunciation--n, l, or r in the case of these lines. So the second line scans as

the FLOO r FE ll QUI et AS a CHURCH

The only bit of evidence that I can't get to fit this theory is (darn it) the first word.

Are we getting warmer?

Maryann

Sam

If I place a beat on every syllable that has any stress, from my original scan, I can get five beats (I get six on the first):

When Ly-le picked his pen up to write
13/13/24/213
The floor fell quiet as a church,
13/24/12/13
And Ann soon began to explain
13/41/31/23
About flowers and the door frame
12/31/21/42
And men | | who had known the girl’s name.
14/12/31/23

The only way I (currently) can see this as IP, however, is with the liberal use of caesuras - the pause replacing an unstressed syllable.

?????


When Ly-le picked his pen up to write
13/13/^2/42/13
The floor fell quiet as a church,
13/^2/41/^2/13
And Ann soon began to explain
13/^4/13/^1/23
About flowers and the door frame
12/31/^2/14/^2
And men | | who had known the girl’s name.
14/^1/23/^1/23

[This message has been edited by Jerry Glenn Hartwig (edited June 14, 2006).]

I think I get it, Sam. It’s IP if you read it in exaggerated Southern-speak! You’re playing on the regional dragging out of words like FLOOR into two syllables (FLAW-wer). You may call my effort stage Southern-speak, but something along the following lines:

when LAH-yel PICKED his PE-yen UP to WRAHT
the FLAW-wer FE-yl QUIet AS a CHURCH,
And AA-yn SOON beGAA-yn TO exPLAIN
aBOU-yt FLOWers AND the DAW-er FRAME
and ME-yn WHO had KNOWN the GIR-rl’s NAME.

(Steele-type scansion with promotion of an unstressed syllable, like AS in the second line, occurring as the middle one of three)

Henry



[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited June 14, 2006).]

Henry

That works - better than mine, anyway *grin*

Henry that's absolutely true. But my other accents are true too. Unless it's identified as such the other readings are legitimate. And don't we Aussies know all about misread meter on the net ;)
I have long learned to put two syllables where I use one when reading on Erato.
Janet

Leave it to Quince. That must solve it, eh?

Henry, want to post a reading of it, a la La Rose over on the Drills board?

--CS


Editing in: Cross-posted with Janet.

[This message has been edited by Clay Stockton (edited June 14, 2006).]

Crossposted with Maryann and Jerry. Maryann, you were nearly there! Sam will enlighten us, but I think the opening “When” is said faster (one syllable) than “pen” in the same line (two) because the latter takes a stress here and the former doesn’t.

Some Australians make words like GROWN and KNOWN into two distinct syllables: GROW-un, KNOW-un. I don’t know where that comes from in our linguistic heritage, but I’ve heard something similar in broad Irish accents, so that may be it. We also have half the population here calling an aitch a haitch, which is said to be a legacy of Irish nuns.

Editing in: crossposted with Clay. I’m not sure if that was sarcasm, Clay!




[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited June 14, 2006).]

Hmmmmm



[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited June 14, 2006).]