For the purpose of the experiment you must, of course, know the sounds
denoted by the letters, and you must be able to make out the rhythmical
scheme. But the experiment will be vitiated if you get some one who
understands the language to read or recite to you poems written in it,
for he will certainly so read or recite as to convey to you something of
the meaning through the sound (I do not refer of course to the logical
meaning).
Hence it is clear that, if by 'versification taken by itself' one means
the versification of a _poem_, it is impossible under the requisite
conditions to get at this versification by itself. The versification of
a poem is always, to speak loosely, influenced by the sense. The bare
metrical scheme, to go no further, is practically never followed by the
poet. Suppose yourself to know no English, and to perceive merely that
in its general scheme