p |-ers came,
Some for that | stirring sound,
A warr |-ior's name:

Some for the | stormy play,
And joy | of strife,
And some to | fling away
A wea |-ry life.

But thou, pale | sleeper, thou,
With the | slight frame,
And the rich | locks, whose glow
Death can |-not tame;

Only one | thought, one pow'r,
_Thee_ could | have led,
So through the | tempest's hour
To lift | thy head!

Only the | true, the strong,
The love | whose trust
Woman's deep | soul too long
Pours on | the dust."

HEMANS: _Poetical Works_, Vol. ii, p. 157.

Here are fourteen stanzas of composite dimeter, each having two sorts of
lines; the first sort consisting, with a few exceptions, of a dactyl and an
amphimac; the second, mostly, of two iambs; but, in some instances, of a
trochee and an iamb;--the latter being, in such a connexion, much the more
harmonious and agreeable combination of quantities.

_Example IV.--Airs from a "Serenata."_

Air 1.

"Love sounds | the alarm,
And fear | is a-fly~ing;
When beau |-ty's the prize,
What mor |-tal fears dy |-~ing?
In defence | of my treas |-~ure,
I'd bleed | at each vein;
Without | her no pleas |-ure;
For life | is a pain."

Air 2.

"Consid |-er, fond shep |-h~erd,
How fleet |-ing's the pleas |-~ure,
That flat |-ters our hopes
In pursuit | of the fair:
The joys | that attend | ~it,
By mo |-ments we meas |-~ure;
But life | is too lit |-tle
To meas |-ure our care."

GAY'S POEMS: _Johnson's Works of the Poets_, VoL vii, p. 378.

These verses are essentially either anapestic or amphibrachic. The anapest
divides two of them in the middle; the amphibrach will so divide eight. But
either division will give many iambs. By the present scansion, the _first
foot_ is an iamb in all of them but the two anapestics.

_Example V.--"The Last Leaf."_

1.
"I saw | him once | before
As he pass |-~ed by | the door,
And again
The pave |-ment stones | resound
As he tot |-ters o'er | the ground
With his cane.

2.
They say | that in | his prime,
Ere the prun |-ing knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a bet |-ter man | was found
By the cri |-er on | his round
Through the town.

3.
But now | he walks | the streets,
And he looks |