POPE’S VERSIFICATION.
The mechanical structure of Pope’s verses may be shown by omitting dissyllabic qualifying words, which are comparatively unimportant, and converting a ten-syllable into an eight-syllable metre, as in the following examples. First read the full text as in the original, and then read with the words in brackets omitted:—
Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the [direful] spring
Of woes unnumbered, [Heavenly] Goddess, sing!
That wrath which hurled to Pluto’s [gloomy] reign
The souls of [mighty] chiefs untimely slain;
Whose limbs unburied on the [naked] shore,
Devouring dogs and [hungry] vultures tore—
Now turn from the Iliad to the Rape of the Lock:—
And now [unveiled] the toilet stands displayed,
Each silver vase in [mystic] order laid.
A [heavenly] image in the glass appears,
To that she bends, [to that] her eyes she rears;
The [inferior] priestess at her altar’s side,
[Trembling] begins the sacred rights of pride.
Unnumbered treasures ope [at once], and here
The [varied] offerings of the world appear.
From each she nicely culls with [curious] toil,
And decks the goddess with the [glittering] spoil.