I had an email from Greg Williamson the other day, in which he wondered what I thought of the meter in this sonnet by Red Warren; and, if a meter even existed, how might it be defined. I told Tim Murphy of the message, and he hauled down Warren's "New and Selected" to read the lines aloud, in a Kentucky accent remembered from the days when he studied with the old man. Tim thinks the key to understanding Warren's peculiar rhythm lies in the Southerner's childhood. It is the chant of the auctioneer, who hits certain syllables hard, and blurs all the rest into a quick spill, blotting out secondary stresses. Listening to these lines with that thought in mind, one can indeed find a five-beat accentual rhythm in most of them, though l.7 is a stretch.
Mortal Limit
I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over Wyoming.
It rose from coniferous darkness, past gray jags
Of mercilessness, past whiteness, into the gloaming
Of dream-spectral light above the last purity of snow-snags.
There--west--were the Tetons. Snow peaks would soon be
In dark profile to break constellations. Beyond what height
Hangs now the black speck? Beyond what range will gold eyes see
New ranges to mark a last scrawl of light?
Or, having tasted that atmosphere's thinness, does it
Hang motionless in dying vision before
It knows it will accept the mortal limit,
And swing into the great circular downwardness that will restore
The breath of earth? Of rock? Of rot? Of other such
Items, and the darkness of whatever dream we clutch.
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