12022-04-06T07:25:50-07:00Stefan David Price-Aguirre330f8cfe04742d14c1a944ecd05c110ee67fe36b105932plain2022-04-06T07:26:03-07:00Stefan David Price-Aguirre330f8cfe04742d14c1a944ecd05c110ee67fe36b“Hail to the Chief”, originally titled “Boat Song”, first appeared as part of Sir Walter Scott’s six-part ballad, The Lady of the Lake. In Virginia Lucas’s scrapbook, “Hail to the Chief” is thirty-three lines long and is comprised of three eleven-line stanzas. Virginia Lucas’s version departs from the original in that the last line of every stanza, “Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! Ieroe!” is repeated, and subsequently made into the refrain. Each stanza follows the rhyme scheme ABABCCDEEFF. The first four lines of every stanza are based on dactylic tetrameter. The ending of every line modifies the established dactylic tetrameter. In the first and third line of every stanza, the final dactyl is replaced by a trochee. In the second and fourth lines, the trochee is further truncated to a monosyllabic stress. Scott ends most lines with a catalexis (a shortened final foot in a line). In the fifth and sixth lines of this first stanza the poem switches to trochaic tetrameter before returning to dactylic tetrameter in the seventh line. In the fifth and sixth lines in the second and third stanzas, the meter switches to dactylic dimeter. In the eighth and ninth line, the poem is in dactylic dimeter. The repeated refrain in the tenth and eleventh line is in dactylic trimeter. Scott is consistent in his use of dactyls and he introduces change through catalexis and by modifying the metrical line length. This poem is in ballad form. It is a ballad within a ballad. The alternation between trimeter and tetrameter as well as the refrain are all techniques found in ballads. Every rhyme in the poem is a true rhyme. The poem incorporates a mixture of feminine rhymes (advances, glances) and masculine rhymes (pine, line). It also features double rhyme (fountain, mountain).