The following examples will serve to illustrate the difference between these three species of metrical licence:
_Herknet tó me góde men_. Hav. 1. 7 syll.
_Nórfolk sprúng thee, Lámbeth hólds thee déad._ Surrey, p. 62. 9 "
_A stálw+o+rþí man ín a flok_. Hav. 24. 8 "
_And Rýpheús that mét thee bý m+oo+nlíght._ Surrey, p. 126. 10 "
_Míchel was súch a kíng to préyse_. Hav. 60. 8 "
_Míldly doth flów alóng the frúitful fíelds._ Surrey, p. 145. 10 "
_Shróuding themsélves únder the désert shóre._ Surrey, p. 113. 10 "
Inversion of rhythm may be caused in the interior of a rhythmical series only when a particularly strong emphasis is laid upon a word, e.g. to express an antithesis or for similar reasons:
_That íf_ góld ruste | _whát shal ýren dó?_ Chaucer, Prol. 500.
_And wé'll_ nót fail | _When Dúncan ís asléep._ Shakesp. Macb. I. vii. 61.
We may distinguish between two kinds of inversion of rhythm, viz. (i) _natural_ inversion, and (2) _rhetorical_ inversion. The former is caused by word-accent, the latter by the rhetorical accent, as illustrated by the last examples. The second kind differs very clearly from level stress, as the word in question or the first syllable of it (see the second line of the following quotation) is to be uttered with an unusually strong emphasis, e.g.:
Síck, or _in héalth, | in évil fáme or góod._ Surrey, p. 17.
Lústy _of scháip,_ lýght of _delíveránce_. Dunbar, Thriss. and Rois 95.
In the second example inversion of rhythm occurs (as it often does) twice over, viz. at the beginning of the verse and after the caesura.
Not unfrequently also two inversions of rhythm follow immediately upon one another, e.g.:
Wórldly gládnes | _is mélled wíth affráy_. Lydgate, Min. Poems, xxii, line 11.
Réigned óver | _so mány péoples and réalms._ Surrey, p. 135.
Such verses, however, may also be looked upon as instances of the omission of anacrusis combined with epic caesura.
This would be the only admissible explanation in verses the first accented word of which is a word which usually does not bear an accent or is not accented rhetorically, e.g.:
_Óf the wórdes | that Týdeús had sáid._ Lydgate, St. of Thebes, line 1082.
_Tó have líved | áfter the cíty táken._ Surrey, p. 139.
But in a line with an emphasized first word inversion of rhythm is the more probable explanation: e.g.