What Bob calls the ionic and Tim Steele calls the double iamb, and I call the pyrrhic/spondee, is a metrical flourish I just adore. I do it well: "We grieve for the twelve trees we lost last night," is the first line of "Track of the Storm," which Sam Gwynn used in the Penguin Pocket Anthology of English Poetry. Employing such a variation in line one is a way of saying I know what I'm doing, which Frost does all the time. Yeats uses it to spectacular effect. Among contemporary metrists Wilbur is an absolute master of the ionic. Let me add that Mezey is no slouch either. From "Teadance at the Nautilus Hotel": "In the curled bluish haze of panatellas," and "Of the old-fangled dance tunes."
Why do I love the ionic? Because IT ROCKS!, imparting a forceful swing to the verse when it is employed expressively and effortlessly.
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