A nice little metrical trick in the first half of stanza 3 heightens the comedy.
The whole stanza:
May my dreams be granted never?
Must I aye endure affliction
Rarely realised, if ever,
In our wildest works of fiction?
Madly Romeo loved his Juliet;
Copperfield began to pine
When he hadn’t been to school yet —
But their loves were cold to mine.
All the poem's lines are headless tetrameters (or have "hard onset", to use Sally's phrase, opening on the beat), and in the rest of the poem the odd lines are tailed (or have "feminine endings": an extra offbeat at line's end) - and the tails compensate the missing opening offbeat of the following line:
Madly Romeo loved his Juliet;
Copperfield began to pine
When he hadn’t been to school yet —
But their loves were cold to mine.
There's an automatic pause at the end of "pine" where there is no offbeat (no tail, aka "feminine ending") to fill in the gap between the two beats - on "pine", and "When" in the following line.
In the first half of the stanza, however (and uniquely in the poem), *all* lines are tailed - all the gaps filled -, unlocking a breathless pace, sans pause, expressive of his desperate passion! At least until he affords Copperfield breath to pine!
Thanks for this! Here’s my own Valentine’s Day poem:
https://idleandblessed.substack.com/p/such-love-poem
I couldn't help thinking that this sounds like something that ought to be in a novel by Francis Burney, from one of her droll anti-heroes.
A delicious gift on such a day, with tropes displayed in many an array. What though, was the
final gaze, that dear Sarah, had from judgement day?
A nice little metrical trick in the first half of stanza 3 heightens the comedy.
The whole stanza:
May my dreams be granted never?
Must I aye endure affliction
Rarely realised, if ever,
In our wildest works of fiction?
Madly Romeo loved his Juliet;
Copperfield began to pine
When he hadn’t been to school yet —
But their loves were cold to mine.
All the poem's lines are headless tetrameters (or have "hard onset", to use Sally's phrase, opening on the beat), and in the rest of the poem the odd lines are tailed (or have "feminine endings": an extra offbeat at line's end) - and the tails compensate the missing opening offbeat of the following line:
Madly Romeo loved his Juliet;
Copperfield began to pine
When he hadn’t been to school yet —
But their loves were cold to mine.
There's an automatic pause at the end of "pine" where there is no offbeat (no tail, aka "feminine ending") to fill in the gap between the two beats - on "pine", and "When" in the following line.
In the first half of the stanza, however (and uniquely in the poem), *all* lines are tailed - all the gaps filled -, unlocking a breathless pace, sans pause, expressive of his desperate passion! At least until he affords Copperfield breath to pine!
The Billy Collins of his time!
Alas, far less popular.