It ate the food it had ne’er had eat.
I chose this line because it shortened never to ne’er.I think the poet done this because in the previous stanza on the first line it has eight syllables,so if the poet had used never the whole line would add up to nine syllables so the author wanted to balance the poem out .
February 2, 2015 at 5:38 pm
I like that you have begun to explore the metre of the poem, counting syllables is a good way to explore this BUT
You must now develop your answers that explores why the metre has been kept quite strict. For instance – how does this create/change the rhythm? How does this make an impact on the sound (or the events) of the poem? Why?