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Poems for study » Inversnaid » Structure and versification in Inversnaid

Songlike form

The verse form here is not a sonnet, but a simpler quatrain form, with mainly iambic tetrameter (four stressed syllables to a line). This is more songlike and creates a faster pace to the poem. Hopkins himself marked some of the stresses, many of which are more obvious because of the striking alliteration, for example the many ‘b’s’ and ‘f’s’ of the first stanza.

The rhyme scheme is also quite simple. What gives the poem rhythmic strength is the use of clear rhymes in tension with equally obvious enjambement or carried - over lines. So in stanza one, the verse rushes on to ‘flutes’ in line 4, then pauses as the water tips over the final drop into the lake. Although each stanza has two rhymes, they are very similar to each other, thus emphasising line endings, although the enjambement demands we read through them. Once again, Hopkins shows his technical dexterity to create a dramatic counterpointing.

Investigating Inversnaid
  • What effect do you think the ‘b’ and ‘f’ alliteration has?
  • Try reading the poem twice:
    • once stopping at the end of each line;
    • the other, following the punctuation only.
      • Which gives the better reading?
A sonnet is a poem with a special structure. It has fourteen lines, which are organised in a particular manner, usually characterised by the pattern of rhyming, which changes as the ideas in the poem evolve.
A 4-line stanza, usually rhyming.
A term used of speech rhythms in blank verse; an iambic rhythm is an unstressed, or weak, beat followed by a stressed, or strong, beat. It is a rising metre.
A line of verse consisting of four metrical feet (in modern verse) or eight feet (in classical verse).
In all languages, some syllables are pronounced with more of an emphasis than others. In poetry of many languages, this becomes a significant means of patterning. The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables within a line of verse is called its
Alliteration is a device frequently used in poetry or rhetoric (speech-making) whereby words starting with the same consonant are used in close proximity- e.g. 'fast in fires', 'stars, start'.
The device, frequently used at the ends of lines in poetry, where words with the same sound are paired, sometimes for contrast ' for example, 'breath' and 'death'.
The musical effect of the repetition of stresses or beats, and the speed or tempo at which these may be read.
The technique used in blank verse and other verse forms in which the sense of a line runs on without a pause to the next one; this often gives a sense of greater fluency to the lines.
In music, the playing of two tunes at the same time, allowing them to interweave. In poetry, the use of two rhythms at the same time, for example, one being based on the metre, and one on the grammatical structure of the sentence.

This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fáawn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.