which you can hardly find fault with; for you say (page 65) in your
observations on a_mi_citi_am_ that “its cadence (that of a choriambus
with a preceding short syllable) is of a very pleasing kind.” Also
before the last iambus, as Chamberlayn has it,
His yielding spirits now prepare to meet
Death, clothed in thoughts whīte ăs hĭs wīnding sheet.
I think with regard to these examples that they are both harmonious and
expressive; tho’ in all of them we feel the “_fall_” which you
mention,—in the case of the choriambus following the commencing
trochee,—rather in a tone of regret as far as relates to the general
harmony. To go to another part of the subject, I observe that you only
notice two feet which follow the trochee commencing an English verse:
viz. the iambus _usually_, and the trochee _casually_: whereas it is
sometimes followed by a pyrrhic as in Milton’s—
“Mȳrĭăds, bĕtwēen two brazen mountains lodged”
“Embry̆ŏes and īdiots, eremites and friars—”
and not unfrequently by a spondee with very good effect—
“Bōne ŏf mȳ bōne, thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted.”
“Strāins hĭs yōung nērves and puts himself in posture.”—_Cymbeline._
“Rāpture! bōld mān! who temp’st the wrath divine.”
Page 47. I am glad you have marked “Hīgh _ŏvĕr-ārched_” as a choriambus.
It gives me an opportunity of writing down an anapæstic line of
Stevens’s—