But Mark, first you argue from accentual meter as based on the stresses of speech, the “how we would say it” principle, but then you switch to saying that because some of the longer lines have feminine endings they all must have, including GREY eyes, DARK turf, STILL house, etc (which to me are definitely how we DON’T say it).
Come on, Mark, step back and look at what you’re saying. If you spoke to me of a STILL house I would hear stillhouse and think you meant a building housing a still. You’re not using the principle of “how we say it” there, but the principle of trying to make it all trimeter, based on a theory about what lines an author would or wouldn’t, or should or shouldn’t, mix. That’s what you did with Cut Grass and you’re doing it again with this.
TELL them I CAME, and no one ANSwered looks like very much a minority reading to me, though not as much so as While his HORSE moved, CROPPing the DARK turf,which seems simply perverse.
I would never describe de la Mare’s variations as “random”. They’re part of the variations in pace which he so notably achieves.
As for the idea that “asymmetrical het-met” is some sort of “cheating” — did Milton and Wordsworth “cheat” with their great odes in asymmetric het-met? Did Arnold cheat with Dover Beach?
Enough!
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