This is an interesting and enlightening discussion . . . and I'd like to put in my two-cents worth as a newbie, if nobody minds.
When Carol said that Frost "...discovered the three consecutive unstressed syllables, which everybody knows are just not done." and asked "But are they ever done?", I remembered another line by Frost, himself, wherein he used three consecutive unstressed syllables, viz:
and THAT/was my LONG/SCYTHE WHIS/-per-ing to/the GROUND
And, despite Mr. Frost going on record to say that he eventually realized he had an extra foot in that "Mary sat musing" line, I find myself agreeing with Carol when she says that "...perhaps he actually heard five beats in his head when he wrote it,..."
As I hear that "Mary" line--and see the image of that lamp-flame (perhaps with my own burnt-out lightbulb!)--I imagine that flame flickering, flaring up, dying down, and flaring up again in much the same way that the line does; and I still think that first line is pentameter, reading it as follows: trochee, spondee, tribrach [OR amphibrach], spondee, anapest [with hypermetrical syllable]:
MAR-y/SAT MUS/-ing on the/LAMP-FLAME/at the TA(-ble)
All best,
Patricia
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