, like the former, according to the feeling
demanded by the occasion:

Whilst listening to the murmuring leaves he stood--
More than a mile immers'd within the wood--
At once the wind was laid.|--The whispering sound
Was dumb.|--A rising earthquake rock'd the ground.
With deeper brown the grove was overspread-- }
A sudden horror seiz'd his giddy head-- }
And his ears tinkled--and his colour fled. }

Nature was in alarm.--Some danger nigh
Seem'd threaten'd--though unseen to mortal eye.
Unus'd to fear--he summon'd all his soul,
And stood collected in himself--and whole:
Not long.--

But for a crowning specimen of variety of pause and accent, apart from
emotion, nothing can surpass the account, in _Paradise Lost_, of the
Devil's search for an accomplice:

There was a place,
Now not--though Sin--not Time--first wrought the change,
Where Tigris--at the foot of Paradise,
Into a gulf--shot under ground--till part
Rose up a fountain by the Tree of Life.
_In_ with the river sunk--and _with_ it _rose_
Satan--involv'd in rising mist--then sought
Where to lie hid.--Sea he had search'd--and land
From Eden over Pontus--and the pool
Maeotis--_up_ beyond the river _Ob_;
Downward as far antarctic;--and in length
West from Orontes--to the ocean barr'd
At Darien--thence to the land where flows
Ganges and Indus.--Thus the orb he roam'd
With narrow search;--and with inspection deep
Consider'd every creature--which of all
Most opportune might serve his wiles--and found
The serpent--subtlest beast of all the field.

If the reader cast his eye again over this passage, he will not find a
verse in it which is not varied and harmonized in the most remarkable
manner. Let him notice in particular that curious balancing of the
lines in the sixth and tenth verses:

_In_ with the river sunk, &c.

and

_Up_ beyond the river _Ob_.

It might, indeed, be objected to the versification of Milton, that it
exhibits too constant a perfection of this kind. It sometimes forces
upon us too great a sense of consciousness on the part of the
composer. We miss the first sprightly runnings of verse,--the ease and
sweetness of spontaneity. Milton, I think, also too often condenses
weight into heaviness.

Thus much concerning the chief of our two most popular measures.