hi, love your work!! have you ever done tolkien’s lament for the rohirrim poem (“where now the horse and the rider…”)? if not, would you be willing to? ❤️
I've never read this poem before! I'd be happy to, and I love its meter!
Scansion:
– ◡ ◡ / – ◡ ◡ / – ◡ / – ◡ ◡ / – ◡ ◡ / – x Where now the / horse and the / rider? / Where is the / horn that was / blowing? – ◡ ◡ / – ◡ ◡ / – – / ◡ ◡ – – – ◡ Where is the / helm and the / hauberk, and the bright hair flowing? – ◡ ◡ / – ◡ ◡ / – – / ◡ ◡ – – – ◡ Where is the / hand on the harpstring, / and the red fire glowing? – ◡ ◡ / – ◡ ◡ / – – / ◡ ◡ – – – ◡ Where is the / spring and the / harvest / and the tall corn growing? ◡ ◡ – ◡ / – ◡ ◡ / – ◡ / ◡ ◡ / – ◡ ◡ / – x They have passed like / rain on the / mountain, / like a / wind in the / meadow; ◡ – ◡ ◡ / – ◡ ◡ / – ◡ / – ◡ / – ◡ ◡ / – x The days have gone / down in the / West be/hind the / hills into / shadow. ◡ ◡ – ◡ ◡ – / ◡ ◡ – – – ◡ Who shall gather the smoke / of the dead wood burning, ◡ ◡ – ◡ – ◡ – / ◡ ◡ – ◡ – ◡ Or behold the flowing years / from the Sea returning?
Metrical form:
Line 1 is dactylic hexameter in the classical style (like Greek and Roman epic poetry), where some of the dactyls can be replaced with spondees and where the final foot must be a spondee.
Lines 2-4 are metrically identical to each other; they each begin with dactyl + dactyl + spondee (like line 1) and then end with ◡ ◡ – – – ◡. This line-end could almost be shoehorned into the end of a hexameter, but it really feels like 2 feet, not 3, and the recurrence of the same meter for 3 lines solidifies the sense that it's its own pattern.
Lines 5-6 are roughly hexametrical again. Line 6 has an extra unstressed syllable at the beginning; line 5 is much looser, with two unstressed syllables at the beginning and what feels like a pyrrhic foot (2 unstressed syllables instead of having a stressed syllable) in like a.
Lines 7-8 have the same second half of the line as lines 2-4 did. The first halves have a different structure, notably with anapests and iambs (feet that start with unstressed syllables) in comparison to the dactylic beginning (with feet that started with stressed syllables).
Rhyme scheme: AAAABBCC
Other notes: The poem is heavily inspired by the Old English poem "the Wanderer" but I haven't looked into that poem's meter enough to say whether it takes aspects of its form from it. The noticeable division into half-lines is typical of OE poetry, though.
