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142 ORTHOMETRY. |
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with great skill, seldom placing them in the same position in any three or four consecutive lines. They occur with him very frequently after the second and third syllable. Here are two examples from Paradise Losty and one from the Sonnets :
From branch to branch the smaller birds | with song Solaced the woods | and spread their painted wings Till even : | nor then the solemn nightingale Ceased warb | ling, but all night tuned her soft lays: | Others | on silver lakes and rivers | bathed Their snowy breasts.
Now morn | her rosy steps in Eastern clime Advancing | sowed the Earth with orient pearl, | When Adam waked | so customed | for his sleep Was airy light | from pure digestion bred j And temperate vapours bland.
In thy book record their groans | Who were thy sheep, | and in their ancient fold { Slain by the bloody Piedmontese | that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. | Their moans The poles redoubled to the hills | and they To heaven.
With Shakspere the pauses are still more irregularly distributed throughout the lines, the result being a still greater mobility to tl e rhythm. They are to be met with in his work after every syllable of the verse, even immediately before the fifth accent, which is very rare, e.g. :
And so his peers upon Lhis evidence
Have found him g ilty of high treason. | Much
He spoke and learnedly for life.
"Henry VIII." |
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