modern pastoral, by Wordsworth, has sixty-eight lines,
all probably meant for Alexandrines; most of which have twelve syllables,
though some have thirteen, and others, fourteen. But it were a great pity,
that versification so faulty and unsuitable should ever be imitated. About
half of the said lines, as they appear in the poet's royal octave, or "the
First Complete American, from the Last London Edition," are as sheer prose
as can be written, it being quite impossible to read them into any proper
rhythm. The poem being designed for children, the measure should have been
reduced to iambic trimeter, and made exact at that. The story commences
thus:--

"The dew | was fall | -ing fast, | the stars | began | to blink;
I heard | a voice; | it said, | 'Drink, pret | -ty crea
| -ture, drink!'
And, look | -ing o'er | the hedge, | before | me I | espied
A snow | -white moun | -tain Lamb | w=ith =a M=aid | -en at
| its side."

All this is regular, with the exception of one foot; but who can make any
thing but _prose_ of the following?

"Thy limbs will shortly be twice as stout as they are now,
Then I'll yoke thee to my cart like a pony in the plough."
"Here thou needest not dread the raven in the sky;
Night and day thou art safe,--our cottage is hard by."
WORDSWORTH'S _Poems_, New-Haven Ed., 1836, p. 4.

In some very ancient English poetry, we find lines of twelve syllables
combined in couplets with others of fourteen; that is, six iambic feet are
alternated with seven, in lines that rhyme. The following is an example,
taken from a piece of fifty lines, which Dr. Johnson ascribes to the _Earl
of Surry_, one of the wits that flourished in the reign of Henry VIII:--

"Such way | -ward wayes | hath Love, | that most | part in | discord,
Our willes | do stand, | whereby | our hartes | but sel | -dom do
| accord;
Decyte | is hys | delighte, | and to | begyle | and mocke,
The sim | ple hartes | which he | doth strike | with fro | -ward di
| -vers stroke.
He caus | -eth th' one | to rage | with gold | -en burn | -ing darte,
And doth | allay | with lead | -en cold, | again | the oth
| -er