"Rhythm is the recurrence of stress at intervals; metre is the
regular, or measured, recurrence of stress."

M. H. SHACKFORD, A First Book of Poetics

"Metres being manifestly sections of rhythm."
ARISTOTLE, Poetics, 4. (Butcher's translation)

"Thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers."

MILTON

AND why must the words begin to dance?
The answer is to be perceived in the very
nature of Rhythm, that old name for the
ceaseless pulsing or "flowing" of all living
things. So deep indeed lies the instinct for
rhythm in our consciousness that we impute
it even to inanimate objects. We hear the
ticking of the clock as tick-tock, tick-tock,
or else tick-tóck, tick-tóck, although psychol-
ogists assure us that the clock's wheels are
moving with indifferent, mechanical pre-
cision, and that it is simply our own focusing
of attention upon alternate beats which cre-
ates the impression of rhythm. We hear a

-143-