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Amy Holder's avatar

My mother loved this poem, recited it all the time, whispers and all (one of the few she did recite), and it was probably the first poem I memorized too. Thank you.

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XYZ's avatar

Delightful and instructive. Although we say we replace quantity with accent, quantity is undoubtedly a primary factor in metrical composition. For example, no one would think that "handed" and "handshake" are metrically equivalent.

Derek Attridge, the discoverer of the implied offbeat, took this poem as the subject of a substantial article titled "Rhythm in English Poetry," published in New Literary History in Autumn 1990, Vol. 21, No. 4. Available on JSTOR.

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