_, are
long, though some syllables which count as long need not be accented,
as in

_All that on earth's leas blooms, what blossoms Thessaly nursing,_

_blossoms_, though only accented on the first syllable, counts for a
spondee, the shortness of the second _o_ being partly helped out by the
two consonants which follow it; partly by the fact that the syllable is
_in thesi_; (2) the laws of position are to be observed, according to
the general rules of classical prosody: (_a_) dactyls terminating in a
consonant like _beautiful_, _bounteous_, or ending in a double vowel or
a diphthong like _all of you, surely may, come to thee_, must be
followed by a word beginning with a vowel or _y_ or _h_; dactyls
terminating in a vowel or _y_, like _slippery_, should be followed,
except in rare cases, by words beginning with a consonant; trochees,
whether composed of one word or more, should, if ending in a consonant,
be followed by a vowel, if ending in the vowel _a_, by a consonant,
thus, _planted around_ not _planted beneath_, _Aurora the sun's_ not
_Aurora a sun's_ (see however, lxiv. 253), but _unto a wood, any again,
sorry at all, you be amused_. (_b_) Syllables made up of a vowel
followed by two or more consonants, each of which is distinctly heard in
pronunciation, as _long_, _sins_, _part_, _band_, _waits_, _souls_,
_ears_, _must_, _heart_, _bright_, _strength_, _end_, _and_, _rapt_,
_hers_, _dealt_, mo_ment_, bo_soms_, _answers_, moun_tains_, bear_est_,
tum_bling_, gi_ving_, com_ing_, harbour_ing_, diffi_cult_, immi_nent_,
strata_gems_, utter_ance_, happi_est_, trem_bling_ly, can never rank as
short, even if unaccented and followed by a vowel, _h_ or _y_. Thus, to
go back to Longfellow's line,

_This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks,_

_for(e)st_, _murmur(i)ng_, _pines (a)nd the_, are all inadmissible. But
where a vowel is followed by two consonants, one of which is unheard or
only heard slightly, as in _acc_use, sh_all_, _ass_emble, _diss_emble,
kind_ness_, com_pass_, _aff_ect, _app_ear, _ann_oy, or when the second
or third consonant is a liquid, as in _betray_, _beslime_, _besmear_,
_depress_, _dethrone_, _agree_, the vowel preceding is so much more
short than long as to be regularly admissible as short, rarely
admissible as long. On this principle I have allowed _dis[o]rd(e)rl(y)_,
_t[e]n(a)ntl(e)ss_, _heav(e)nl(y)_, to rank as dactyls.

These rules are after all only an outline, a