vangeline:

Or by the | owl, as he | greeted the | moon
with de|moniac | laughter;

and the first and second of the following verses from Ovid (Met. I. 148,
149),

Filius | ante di|em patri|os in|quirit in | annos.
Victa ja|cet Pie|tas; et | Virgo | caede ma-|dentes
Ultima coelestum terras Astraea reliquit,

are read in the same way as the following from Evangeline:

And as she | gazed from the | window she |
saw se|renely the | moon pass
Forth from the | folds of a | cloud, and | one
star | follow her | footsteps.

Ovid's Met. I. 22,

Nam coe|lo ter|ras et | terris | abscidit | undas,

is read in the same way as Colossians iii. 19:

Husbands, | love your | wives, and | be not |
bitter a|gainst them;

and Ovid's Met. I. 36,

Tum freta | diffun | di, rapi|disque tum | escere |
ventis,

is read in the same way as Psalm ii. 1:

Why do the | heathen | rage, and the | people
im|agine a | vain thing.

_Rebus sic stantibus_, what's the use of talking about quantitative and
accentual verse, as if they were really two kinds of verse? They are, to
be sure, but they are not made so, in reading.

There is, in fact, no such thing as a spondee in ordinary speech. A true
spondee must be made by voicing two syllables in equal time, and each
without stress.

After having been trained in the 'scanning' of the schools (counting
verses on the fingers), I threw aside and tried, and successfully tried,
to forget all the scholarship of Latin verse, and began reading Vergil
aloud and in time. I felt, at first, the movement of the verse backward,
the ultimate and the penultimate foot came out first to my feelings; and
in time, the movement of the entire verse became distinct.

Chaucer's verse must be read more in time than modern verse. (Note 3.)
But all true verse must be read more in time than prose. And even
impassioned prose, like some of De Quincey's, for example, must be read,
more or less, in time. Perhaps it may be said that both prose and verse
should be read in time according as the thought is spiritualized.

The choruses in Milton's Samson Agonistes can be properly appreciated
only when read in time. The verse has been condemned by some critics, as
if Milton, whose ear, as De Quincey says, was angelic, could not compose
good verse when he dictated, in his blindness (to which the merit of the
verse of the Paradise Lost and the Paradis