...These equal syllable« alone require, Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire, While expletive» (heir feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line *}. But this manner, which, it must be owned, hath a very goc effect in enlivening the expression,...

...sleep ;-' Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags it's slow length along. Leave such to tune their own dull rhimes, and know What's roundly smooth, or...

...constant repetition for effect is self-defeating, as witness Alexander Pope in his Essay On Criticism: 'While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.' Authors would do well to bear this in mind before committing themselves to paper. After all, that most...

...famous passage from An Essay on Criticism quoted earlier, heaps his scorn on such concluding devices: "A needless Alexandrine ends the Song, / That like a wounded Snake, drags its slow length along," brilliantly slowing up his own line with the "slow length." It is interesting to observe that, less...

...streams 'with pleasing murmurs creep': The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with 'sleep.' (Fr. II) 43 ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted over In states unborn and accents yet unknown! (Fr. II) 44 True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd...

...alexandrine, and Pope vividly demonstrated the reasons for its relative unpopularity among English poets: 'A needless Alexandrine ends the song/ That like a wounded snake drags its slow length along'. The monometer (onefoot line) is rare, like the heptameter (seven-foot line), also called a 'fourteener'...

...but the music there. These equal syllables alone require, Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire; 345 While expletives their feeble aid do join; And ten low words oft creep in one dull line; While they ring round the same unvary'd chimes i - r TT With sure returns of still expected rhymes....

...to church repair, Not for the doctrine but the music there. Though oft the ear the open vowels tire, While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line, While they ring round the same unvaried chimes, With sure returns of still expected rhymes. Where'er...

...to advantage dressed, What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed. 8888 An Essay on Criticism jug, tereu, 8889 An Essay on Man Awake, my St John! leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of kings....

...but the music there. J These equal syllables alone require, Though oft the ear the open vowels tire; While expletives their feeble aid do join; And ten low words oft creep in one dull line; While they ring round the same unvaried chimes, With sure returns of still expected rhymes. Where-e'er...