I don’t like this scansion of Lovelace’s To Althea, From Prison. The lines all have four stressed syllables, I think, rather than alternating four and three. At least, they sound better when I read them that way.
When LOVE | with UN | con FIN | ed WINGS
Hov ERS | with IN | my GATES
doesn’t work. It’s got to be
When LOVE | with UN | con FIN | ed WINGS
HOVers | with IN | MY GATES
. Maybe the stress in 17th century English was on the ERS in Hovers. But today that just sounds ridiculous. And anyway, moving from tetrameter to trimeter sounds terrible and must have four hundred years ago. The lines read so much better with four downbeats each. And it’s not hard to find four downbeats in the line so long as you stop worrying about retaining the iambs and embrace spondees.
The same is true for the rest of the poem.
We recast this reading of the next two lines,
And MY | div INE | Al THE | a BRINGS
To WHIS | per AT | the GRATES
, to get
And MY | div INE | Al THE | a BRINGS
To WHIS | per AT | THE GRATES
. The double downbeat at the end echoes the double downbeat at the end of the first two lines.
The next two lines,
When I | lie TANG | led IN | her HAIR
And FET | tered TO | her EYE
, become:
When I | lie TANG | led IN | her HAIR
And FET | tered TO | HER EYE
And the last,
The BIRDS | that WAN | ton IN | the AIR
Know NO | such LIB | er TY
, becomes:
The BIRDS | that WAN | ton IN | the AIR
KNOW NO | such LIB | er TY.
I find this scansion very satisfying. The alternating of regular and irregular meter while preserving the number of downbeats puts the meter slightly off balance without making it messy, saving us from the monotony of consistent meter without losing the music that meter lends to the poem. Photographers are suppose to frame a subject off center in the picture to drag the eye across the image and avoid cancelling its power through symmetry. This scansion does that.
It works even better in To Lucasta, Going to the Warres:
Tell me | NOT, SWEET, | I AM | un KIND,
THAT FROM | the NUN | ne RY
Of THY | chaste BREAST | and QUI | et MIND
TO WAR | and ARMS | I FLY.TRUE, a | new MIS | tress NOW | I CHASE,
The FIRST | FOE IN | the FIELD;
And WITH | a STRON | ger FAITH | em BRACE,
A SWORD, | a HORSE, | a SHIELD.Yet THIS | in CON | stan CY | is SUCH
AS THOU SHALT | a DORE;
I COULD | not LOVE | thee, DEAR, | so MUCH,
LOV ed I | not HON | or MORE.