This is the metre Columbian. The soft-flowing trochees and dactyls, Blended with fragments spondaic, and here and there an iambus, Syllables often sixteen, or more or less, as it happens, Difficult always to scan, and depending greatly on accent, Being a close imitation, in English, of Latin hexameters — Fluent in sound and avoiding the stiffness of blank verse, Having the grandeur and flow of America's mountains and rivers, Such as no bard could achieve in a mean little island like England; Oft, at the end of a line, the sentence dividing abruptly Breaks, and in accents mellifluous, follows the thoughts of the author. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AN EXPATIATION ON THE COMBINING OF WEATHERS AT THIRTY .... by HAYDEN CARRUTH TWILIGHT COMES by HAYDEN CARRUTH PLACE FOR A THIRD by ROBERT FROST IN A SWEDISH GRAVEYARD by EMMA LAZARUS CHARLOTTE CORDAY (REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL, JULY 17, 1793) by EDGAR LEE MASTERS DOMESDAY BOOK: THE VERDICT by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |