The heroic or epic measure of English verse consists of ten-syllabled lines, each of which, in its ordinary rhythmical form, presents a short and long syllable alternately. The length of the line enables us distinctly to trace in it both accent and pause; and it is upon frequent changes in the seats of these that the varied harmony of the heroic measure depends. The general accentuation falls on the long syllables, the sense, however, always directing the reader to accent some single syllable specially in each line. The pause uniformly follows the syllable or word so accented specially, unless that syllable be the first part of a long word, or be followed by short monosyllables. Thus, in the following lines the accent is severed from the pause.[26] Both are marked:—
"As bu´sy—as intentive emmets are." "So fresh the wou´nd is—and the grief so vast." "Those seats of lu´xury—debate and pride."
The pause is usually marked by a comma or period, but this, as before said, is not necessarily the case. In reading the decasyllabic line, a pause must somewhere be made, whether or not the sense be divided by points of any kind. The writings of Pope exemplify strikingly the formal or normal rhythm, accent, and pause of the heroic line, and a quotation may be made to exhibit these fully. The pause is marked in each line, and the same mark shows the seat of the accent:—
"Here as I watch'd´ the dying lamps around, From yonder shrine´ I heard a hollow sound. Come, sister, come´! (it said, or seem'd to say) Thy place is here´; sad sister, come away; Once like thyself´, I trembled, wept, and pray'd, Love's victim then´, though now a sainted maid: But all is calm´ in this eternal sleep; Here grief forgets to groan´, and love to weep; Even superstition´ loses every fear, For God, not man´, absolves our frailties here."
This passage contains the secret of that smoothness which so peculiarly characterises the versification of Pope. In the preceding fourteen lines, the accent and the pause are seated, in all save three instances, at the same or fourth syllable; or rather the seat of the accent is only once altered (at the twelfth line), while the pause, changed there, is also changed in the fourth and thirteenth lines, where it occurs on the fifth and short syllables in the words "echoes" and "superstition," the accent remaining on the fourth in both cases. Now, the versification of Pope is by no means so monotonous at all times, but it is sufficiently marked by the peculiar features exhibited here—that is, the reiterated location of the accent and pause near the middle of each line, with the pause most frequently at long syllables—to render his verses smooth even to a wearisome excess. It is this characteristic of structure, often felt but seldom understood, which distinguishes the poetry of Pope from that of almost every other writer of note in the language. Darwin resembles him most closely, though the latter poet had marked peculiarities of his own. He emphasised more particularly nearly one-half the first syllables of his lines. Verse after verse runs thus:—