Looking at dimeter
 

The Pine Planters (Marty South's Reverie)
by Thomas Hardy

I
We work here together
  In blast and breeze;
He fills the earth in,
  I hold the trees.

He does not notice
  That what I do
Keeps me from moving
  And chills me through.

He has seen one fairer
  I feel by his eye,
Which skims me as though
  I were not by.

And since she passed here
  He scarce has known
But that the woodland
  Holds him alone.

I have worked here with him
  Since morning shine,
He busy with his thoughts
  And I with mine.

I have helped him so many,
  So many days,
But never win any
  Small word of praise!

Shall I not sigh to him
  That I work on
Glad to be nigh to him
  Though hope is gone?

Nay, though he never
  Knew love like mine,
I'll bear it ever
  And make no sign!

II
From the bundle at hand here
  I take each tree,
And set it to stand, here
  Always to be;
When, in a second,
  As if from fear
Of life unreckoned
  Beginning here,
It starts a sighing
  Through day and night,
Though while there lying
  'Twas voiceless quite.

It will sigh in the morning,
  Will sigh at noon,
At the winter's warning,
  In wafts of June;
Grieving that never
  Kind Fate decreed
It should for ever
  Remain a seed,
And shun the welter
  Of things without,
Unneeding shelter
  From storm and drought.

Thus, all unknowing
  For whom or what
We set it growing
  In this bleak spot,
It still will grieve here
  Throughout its time,
Unable to leave here,
  Or change its clime;
Or tell the story
  Of us to-day
When, halt and hoary,
  We pass away.

-----------------------------------
When I read this poem, I hear this:
dactyl trochee
trochee iamb

We• work here to•gether•
  In blast• and breeze•;
He fills the• earth in•,
  I hold• the trees•.

I feel the falling dactyls give a sense of wistfulness while the rhyme on the iambic foot speaks of determination and strength in the first part of the poem. The steady rhymes in the second part add to the sense of fate and inevitability.

How do others scan this poem? What are your favorite poems that play with dimeter?

Thanks for this, Barb. An interesting idea for a thread - and a good poem to start with. The poems Hardy wrote for characters from his novels are often intriguing - especially as they usually appeared decades after the novels. There are a few he wrote for Tess, for example. I'm already drawn to this poem because The Woodlanders is perhaps my favourite Hardy novel.

I'll be interested to see what other people make of the scansion. I think he uses vary variable feet, maintaining just the regularity of the two feet per line.

In the first line you scan - "We work here together" - one could describe it as two amphibrachs, if it weren't for the fact that it's very unusual to write whole lines of amphibrachs (Coleridge does it for instructive purposes, but it's pretty eccentric).

Anyway, here's Frost great dimeter poem "Dust of Snow", which is in a fairly characteristic mixture of anapaests and iambs:

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Hardy wrote some wonderful poetry, I have read a lot but not this one. This I find very difficult to read, I wrote a comment last night then scrapped it, in it I picked the same line as Gregory eg
'We work here together'
as a major stumbling block. But even before that I find it a contrived experience. Hardy as you probably know wrote tons of poetry, he really considered himself a poet, like Graves, he wrote novels to make a living.
I feel this is an interesting experiment but for me the result is not attractive it is too difficult to find the rhythm and stick to it. By the time I've finished S1 I've had enough.
I mostly like Hardy when he uses a longer line, I couldn't find my fav poem but this one is I think worth reading and innovative in it's use of meter.

A Broken Appointment

You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb,—
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.

You love not me,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
–I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
You love not me?

cheers
Ross

Barb, I would call it accentual dimeter. In that, you count only the beats per line, but the number of syllables is variable. A lot of nursery rhymes are accentual.

Susan

Gregory, I have not yet read The Woodlanders, though it is on my list. I will check out the Tess poems (I found a list here). Thanks for mentioning 'amphibrachs'. I am still feeling my way through these metrical feet. I very much enjoyed the Frost poem. I can immediately see/hear how differently dimeter can be employed.

Ross, a friend had recently shared this very poem ("The Broken Appointment") with me! Actually, it's why I am reading Hardy's poems these days. I find myself struggling with many of his poems. Just gives me more to consider. Thanks for the opportunity to reread a poem of his that I love.

Susan, I caught a sort of sing-songiness to this poem, but didn't recognize the accentual dimeter or its connection to nursery rhymes. I must say that I am not certain I have an ear for accentual meters yet. I trust that will come with more study.

By the way, as I was browsing around Eratosphere, I found these two threads that relate to the topic at hand:

Dimeter
Reading Accentual Poems

Barb,

As Susan has pointed out, "The Pine Planters" is accentual dimeter. Other, more famous examples include Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Moriturus" and Elizabeth Bishop's "Sonnet (1979)".

Gregory is correct about the paucity of amphibrachs ("de DUM de") in poetry but modern song has provided two conspicuous examples: Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" (amphibrachs throughout) and Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat" (which begins and ends in amphibrachs).

HTH,

Colin

Barb
You're right you really have to wade through Hardy to find the good ones. He was interested in folk music and local history and I think many of his poems are really songs. Also he didn't edit his poems, I had a 'selected poems' book. Even so it's weird, you can read 5 or 10 disappointing, almost trivial poems and then suddenly there's a masterpiece, some are really extrordinary. He was Dylan Thomas' favourite poet.
Worth the wade!!

Here's what Larkin wrote about Hardy:
I agree with Larkin.

Thanks, Barb, for the links to the old threads. It seems there's nothing we haven't already discussed on this website! But it's always good to have a fresh look at things.

Colin, thanks so much for the links! I enjoyed both songs. I've added to my list of things to study how melody, rhythm, and poetry fit together. I also am busy comparing "Sonnet (1979)" and "Moriturus" to "The Pine Planters".

Ross and Gregory, I will stay well away from the debate regarding the quality of Hardy's poetry. I did read Larkin's essay which I enjoyed. I will say that when I struggle with a poem, I feel that it is a kind of training that can only expand my understanding of poetry.

Speaking of amphibrachs, you can frequently find them in limericks.

For instance: [there WAS a] [young MAN from] [nan-TUCK-et]