Grass becomes flesh, one knows. He grows like a bull of Bashan. I am the grace he grows; I startle his congregation. He grows like a bull of Bashan, One day he'll be Bishop or Dean. I startle his congregation; One day I shall preach to the Queen. One day he'll be Bishop or Dean, One of those science-haters; One day I shall preach to the Queen. To think of my going in gaiters! One of those science-haters, Blind as a mole or bat; To think of my going in gaiters, And wearing a shovel hat! Blind as a mole or bat, No faintest glimmer of light, And wearing a shovel hat, Morning and noon and night. FOOTNOTES: [47] On the early history of these forms in France, see Stengel's article in Gröber's _Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie_. vol. ii. pp. 87-96. [48] On these ballades of Graunson, a "knight of Savoy," see the articles by A. Piaget, in _Romania_, vol. xix., and Lounsbury's _Studies in Chaucer_, vol. iii. p. 450. PART THREE THE TIME-ELEMENT IN ENGLISH VERSE[49] Nearly all modern writers on the theory of verse have admitted that English words have no fixed syllabic quantities such as are postulated for the classical languages, but that English quantities, so far as they exist, are variable and (in part at least) subjective in character. To this it is true there are exceptions, chiefly among the poets, like some of those considered in the preceding section on Imitations of Classical Metres. Writers who have agreed that English words have no fixed quantities, are still at variance as to the relation of the element of syllabic time to the element of accent in English verse. Two extremes may at once be distinguished: that represented by the familiar statement that our rhythms differ from those of classical poetry in being based wholly on accent, and that represented most notably by the late Sidney Lanier, who held that syllabic time-values in English verse are as exact and regular (hence as accurately measurable) as the notes of music. Lanier applied his theory with admirable consistency, and represented all sorts of English verse, even that of the Anglo-Saxon period, in musical notation. He is almost universally regarded, however, as having been led by the analogy between music and poetry to carry his method to quite impossible lengths. The most characteristic example of this is his representation of the familiar "blank verse" measure in "three-four" time, each accented syllable being given a time-value twice as long as that of the adjacent unaccented syllable--a method of reading which can easily be shown to be contrary to all common practice. It should not be forgotten, however, that a debt of gratitude is owed Mr. Lanier for having been one of the first to emphasize adequately the fact that verse, like music, is _rhythmical sound_.