Right on, Mr. Lariat. One theory (and one that
makes a good deal of sense to me) is that the
pentameter with four strongly stressed accents
and one weak accent, being the commonest of the
six or eight common pentameter patterns, is the
unlayable ghost of the old Anglo-Saxon line.
Take almost any passage of pentameter at random
and again and again you get four-beat lines (five
accents of course), like
.......Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair
.......And the green freedom of a cockatoo
.......Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame
.......Is lust in action and till action, lust
and so on, ad infinitum.
Larkin says somewhere that if you want to write a
poem that will really stick in people's memories,
write it in tetrameter, the strongest firmest meter
in English, and I think he may be right. Although
of course memorable diction, tone, etc. won't hurt
either---e.g, They fuck you up, your mum and dad /
They may not mean to, but they do &c &c
As for unCONquerABle, yes, it will rhyme well enough
with TROUBle---
......I'd better warn you, I'm unconquerable,
......So back off, bud, I don't want any trouble
though I'd agree that one would more often elide, accent
the last syllable and rhyme on that---
......We are the Romans, we're unconquerable;
......We love to lay waste, sack, enslave, and kill.
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