I Shall Not Last Until the Spring

[Erthona]

"the TIME/ beTWIXT/ the HERE/ and THERE -- which makes it perfectly iambic."

That's what worked for me. even when writing accentual verse, I often like to treat it like iambic free verse, with the option of trochee of course. There are too many instances where you can get those long strings of non-stressed syllables at the start of the line, and everyone reads them differently it seems. So I like this as it brings it all into iambs for a line.

Dale

Dale, to my reading either betwixt or between -- coupled with the strong stress I would place on "here" given that "here" and "there" are the important words in that line -- are too light stresses or, if I were going to go nuts on the scansion, I'd maybe even call it a pyrrhic (but I'm not going to!)

The TIME/ betwixt HERE/ and THERE
is a TIME/ too LONG/ i FEAR,
i NE/ver aGAIN/ will HEAR/ her SING,
for I SHALL/ not LAST/ unTIL/ the SPRING.

If I pronounce it with a stress on the second syllable, I get:

the TIME/ beTWIXT/ here and THERE -- as it's very unnatural for me to put a stronger stress on HERE in this case. So either way I'm getting three feet.

I thought of sticking "the" in as well -- and it wouldn't be out of place as then it does allow the second syllable of "betwixt" to have a slightly stronger stress.

the TIME/ beTWIXT/ the HERE/ and THERE -- which makes it perfectly iambic.

There's no really strong stress on the "is" in the next line, when I read it I just trip over the two reasonably unimportant words -- call it an exercise in accentual rather than metric Although even if the next line did start on a trochee instead, it wouldn't be out of place since a line break gives enough of a pause anyway.