The Unknown Eros

The Unknown Eros, by Coventry Patmore
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Title: The Unknown Eros Author: Coventry Patmore Release Date: October 7, 2004 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) [eBook #13672]
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNKNOWN EROS***
This eBook was produced by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset.
THE UNKNOWN EROS by Coventry Patmore.
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.
To this edition of “The Unknown Eros” are added all the other poems I have written, in what I venture—because it has no other name—to call “catalectic verse.” Nearly all English metres owe their existence as metres to “catalexis,” or pause, for the time of one or more feet, and, as a rule, the position and amount of catalexis are fixed. But the verse in which this volume is written is catalectic par excellence , employing the pause (as it does the rhyme) with freedom only limited by the exigencies of poetic passion. From the time of Drummond of Hawthornden to our own, some of the noblest flights of English poetry have been taken on the wings of this verse; but with ordinary readers it
has been more or less discredited by the far greater number of abortive efforts, on the part sometimes ...