English Poems in Hendecasyllabic

The intricacy of Phalaecean or hendesyllabic meter seems to have been particularly attractive to English-speaking poets who found themselves under attack for less-than-skillful use of meter. In a poem simply titled "Hendecasyllabics" Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1810-1890) took aim at "indolent reviewers."  

 

Hendecasyllabics

 

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

O you chorus of indolent reviewers,

Irresponsible, indolent reviewers,

Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem

All composed in a metre of Catullus,

All in quantity, careful of my motion,

Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him,

Lest I fall unawares before the people,

Waking laughter in indolent reviewers.

Should I flounder awhile without a tumble

Thro' this metrification of Catullus,

They should speak to me not without a welcome,

All that chorus of indolent reviewers.

Hard, hard, hard it is, only not to tumble,

So fantastical is the dainty meter.

Wherefore slight me not wholly, nor believe me

Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers.

O blatant Magazines, regard me rather -

Since I blush to belaud myself a moment -

As some rare little rose, a piece of inmost

Horticultural art, or half-coquette-like

Maiden, not to be greeted unbenignly.

 

Robert Frost (1874-1963) did much the same, if more obliquely, in "For Once, Then, Something." Evidently, as Tennyson had, he used both his admiration of Catullus and his facility with the unusual measure to answer his critics.  

 

For Once, Then, Something

 

by Robert Frost

 

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs

Always wrong to the light, so never seeing

Deeper down in the well than where the water

Gives me back in a shining surface picture

Me myself in the summer heaven, godlike

Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.

Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,

I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,

Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,

Something more of the depths-and then I lost it.

Water came to rebuke the too clear water.

One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple

Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,

Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?

Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

 

Back

 

 

 Create your own educational wiki!HelpPublic, not yet premium Privacy Policy RSS