ABSTRACT
What is the role played in the economy of speech by the verb as opposed to the other parts of speech ? C. Alphonso Smith (Studies in Engl Syntax, 1906, p. 3ff.) says that “verbs denote activity and change: they are bustling and fussy”. In proof of this he adduces canto XI of Tennyson’s In Memoriam, “in which the omission of the verb in the principal clauses adds an element of calm that could not otherwise be secured”:
Calm is the morn without a sound, Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only thro’ the faded leaf The chestnut pattering to the ground :
Calm and deep peace on this high wold, And on these dews that drench the furze, And all the silvery gossamers That twinkle into green and gold :
Calm and still light on yon great plain That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, And crowded farms and lessening towers, To mingle with the bounding main :
Calm and deep peace in this wide air, These leaves that redden to the fall; And in my heart, if calm at all, If any calm, a calm despair :
Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, And waves that sway themselves in rest, And dead calm in that noble breast Which heaves but with the heaving deep.
