RHYTHM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19061, 4 July 1925, Page 1 (Supplement)

RHYTHM.

ITS APPEAL TO MANKIND.

BY GRAHAM HAY.

Love of rhythm is born in every human being. If first manifests itself when he finds himself in possession of a drum and drum-stick for the first time. He does not beat his drum in ary haphazard or spasmodic manner, but, so far as in him lies, he makes it a plain straight issue, without subtlety, but with plenty of zest, and unvarying rain of rhythmic blows. No half-tones or minor notes for him, he is a hearty son of naturo, to whom rhythm is a regular recurrence of sounds, and his sou! glories in tho tintinabulation he creates. His delight is shared by all young natures. The savage, deep in his forests, is roused to a frenzy by the beating of drums. Tho highest art he knows is tho art of war, tho shedding of blood, and his soul is aroused and quickened by these rhythmic drum-beats; under their influence something latont in him springs to life; he becomes sensitive to new impressions; he feels the joy of the creative artist, oven though his art bo but the creation of death.

Thus tho child and the savage find that rhythm appeals to something deeply rooted in their inmost being. Tho child becomes a boy, and now a new note has crept into the gamut of his beating. The regular one, two; three, four of the child has grown monotonous to him; ho finds his joy in it has become sated, so he introduces some variety. A class of boys awaiting their master while away tho time by stamping their feet, but the tune has now become one, two, three, four, five. The extra note marks an advanco in the boy's intelligence, his first awareness of the complexity of life, his first introduction to its subtlety.

Tho degree of a community's civilisation can bo gauged by its appreciation of the subtleties of rhythm. Only in great cities of old lands do the most intricate works of the great composers find real appreciation.

There is a tendency to consider poetry the prerogative of the boudoir, or of those in whose bosoms Cupid has planted his sharp darts. Yet, because much Q>f the charm of poetry depends on tho beauty of its rhythm, it should hold an appeal to everyone. All children and most grown-ups find pleasure in the jingle of a nursery rhyme. That same appreciation cultivated, would inevitably lead to a love of poetry, because the rhythm of poetry is simply tho jingle of the nursery rhyme given variety and subtlety. Music and Poetry. Dealing with the beat as distinct from the metre, we find that, as in music, tho incidence of tho beat is subject to but few variations, and it is interesting to compare tho bent of music with that of poetry. In music, common time consists of four beats to the bar with the emphasis falling on the first; in poetry, common time may be considered to be two beats to the foot with the emphasis on tho second (iambus). This is the metre of blank verse. Tho quality o£ mercy is not strained and of the great bulk of poetry A song of courage, heart and will. And gladness in a fight Of men who faco a hopeless hill With sparkling and delight. A song of some at holy war, With spoils and ghouls more dread by far Than deadly seas and citizens are Or hordes of quarrellir.g kings. A song of fighters great and small, A song of pretty fighters, all, And high heroic things.

A variation of this is more akin to common time in music—four beats to the foot, but tho main accent falling on the first, and a minor accent on the third syllable of each foot.

Ilavo you seon the lights of Loudon, how they twinkle, twinkle, twinkle: Yellow lights and silver lights and crimson lights and blue? And there among Ihe other lights is Daddy's little lantern light Bending like a, iinger-tip and beckoning to you.

A rarer variation of this time is almost equivalent to one-one time in music, because every word receives full value and emphasis. The result is a very sustained effect. Masefieid achieves this metre in a little poem which is perhaps the finest he has ever written—Roadways. One road leads to London, One road runs to Wales: My road leads mo seawards, To the white dripping sails.

This is actually the iambic metre, of course, except" that tho second syllable so nearly approaches in value to the first that it almost constitutes a distinct variety. The waltz time of music has its exact counterpart in the dactylic metro of poetry, mostly used for bright, happy themes of no great depth or intensity. Tho pleasantest ditch is a Milky Way. So alight with tho stars it is; , And over it breaks, like a palo sea-spray, Tho laughing cataract of tho may. In luminous harmonies.

This t'imo in turn has a variation corresponding with six-eight time in music, wherein the beat falls on the first, seventh and thirteenth notes, with a subsidiary beat on tho fourth, tenth, sixteenth, etc.

If I have dared to surrender, some imitation of splendour. Something 1 knew that was tender, something 1 loved that was brave, If in my singing 1 showed song 3 that I

heard on my road Wero they not debts that I owed rather than gifts that I gave? The Kall-inark of the Great Poet.

To keep tho ear charmed and soothed by a constant and ever-varying ' interchange of the accent between tho syllables of each foot, while maintaining the smoothness of the line, is tho hall-mark of the great poet. Many writers have wisdom, understanding, imagination, senso of beauty, eloquence of expression; tho great poet must have something more, ho must have a perfect senso of rhythm. Among moderns no one has a greater command of rhythm, nor takes greater liberties with the interchange of tho beat, than Rupert Brooke. Who, until ho has tried it, would recognise this line for an iambic hexameter ?

Tenderly, day that I havo loved, I close your eyes— Yet how delightfully it lingers in the memory. "The Great Lover" is full of this mastery of metre. In lesser hands it could so easily havo becomo commonplace or worse, but tho senso is ever sustained by the dignity of tho rhythm. Flecker is another modern who gains from the beauty of his metres. They perhaps lack the classic dignity of Brooke at his best, but they stir tho ear more imaginatively.

Evening on tho olden, tho golden sea of Wales. Where tho first, star ahivera and tho last wave palesO. evening dreams! There's a houso that Britons walked in, long ago. Where now tho springs of Ocean fall and flow, And tho dead robed in red, and sea lilies overhead, Sway when tho song winda blow.

Li dispensing with poetic rhythm, writers of "vers libro" have sacrificed one of tho principal sources of pleasure in reading poetry. It miay be they are right; it may bo possible to write great poetry lacking that which has been regarded hitherto as tho chief essential of poetry. But he who would do this must be. a giant among men. It is not the work of Ezra Pound or any of the strutting pigmies of his school. If these men point tho way, we must hope that they are pointing very crookedly. Our true prophet must bo a dweller on Olympus. The rhythm of prose —most of us become dimly aware of 'it when we (meet it as something fleeting which eludes us when wo reach out to touch it. I cannot bring it to terms, or tell the why or tho when of it. I don't believe there's anyone who can.