Accentual Verse

[milo]

No prob, he's an old friend.

But no poem should be driven by it's form, ideally the form would be silently supporting it. So why couldn't three beat lines just quietly give a little consistency?

Is the question why can't beats be quiet?

You know those fan things a drummer uses, a swoosh beat.

you shouldn't just dismiss accentual verse as pointless and arbitrary and the cause of uncommonly bad line breaks just because it hasn't been successful for 1000 years and even then only with the aid of other devices, ella! Why don't we experiment. Let's convert some stuff to accentual verse and see if you would notice the difference when you read it aloud:

When in the Course of human events,
it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands which have
connected them with another, and to
assume among the powers of the earth,
the separate and equal station to which
the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God
entitle them, a decent respect
to the opinions of mankind
requires that they should declare the causes
which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
--That to secure these rights, Governments
are instituted among Men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed,
--That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the Right of the People to alter
or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such
principles and organizing its powers in such
form, as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence,
indeed, will dictate that Governments long
established should not be changed for light
and transient causes; and accordingly all
experience hath shewn, that mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by abolishing the forms
to which they are accustomed. But when a long
train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same Object evinces
a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,
it is their right, it is their duty,
to throw off such Government, and
to provide new Guards for their future security.
--Such has been the patient sufferance
of these Colonies; and such is now
the necessity which constrains them to alter
their former Systems of Government. The history
of the present King of Great Britain
is a history of repeated injuries
and usurpations, all having in direct
object the establishment of an absolute
Tyranny over these States.
To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid
world.

*to make it tricky, I included a couple lines that would not read correctly accentually. If accentual verse has merit, these line should sound off so they should stick out like sore thumbs.