"Break, Break, Break" has lines with varying numbers of syllables. The metrical feet also vary. For instance, the first line has only three stressed (long) syllables and this is called a molossus. There are two anapests in the third line but they are followed by an amphibrach. The two anapests, (two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed), are "And I would" and "that my tongue" but "could utter" is an amphibrach (unstressed, stressed, unstressed).
The second and fourth lines of the second stanza are strictly anapestic, having three anapests:
That he shouts with his sister at play!
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
The last line of the third stanza is also strictly anapestic:
And the sound of a voice that is still!
The third line of the final stanza is almost strictly anapestic. It is an anapest followed by an iamb and then followed...
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by two anapests.
Notably, the three strictly anapestic lines describe people's voices: a fisherman's son, a sailor, and the "sound of a voice that is still" which refers to an absent ("still") voice, the death of a friend. Most critics note that Tennyson wrote this, and other poems, about his friend Arthur Hallam. The waves continue to break but the speaker (Tennyson, considering the poem as biographical) cannot relive the past, the time when his friend was alive.
How many lines in "Break, Break, Break" follow a strict anapestic pattern?
Rhythmically, an anapest is a foot which consists of two short, unstressed syllables followed by a final stressed syllable. A good way of remembering this is to say the word "anapest" out loud, as it mimics the rhythm of an anapest itself with its two short syllables of "ana" followed by the stressed syllable of "pest." Reading this poem reveals therefore that the metre of the poem does vary, but extensive use of anapestic rhythm is made in order to enact the relentless sound of the crashing of waves that is referred to in the first line of the poem and also expresses the tumult of emotions that the speaker is experiencing. Strict anapestic patterns can be found in the following lines:
That he shouts with his sister at play
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the sound of a voice that is still!
This is an excellent poem to analyse and to think about the way that a poem's rhythm can be so powerful in terms of its impact, and also to demonstrate how poetry is meant to be read out loud and listened to rather than just read on a page.