I am mon|arch of all | I survey,
My right | there is none | to dispute:
From the cen|tre all round | to the sea
I am lord | of the fowl | and the brute;
and in "Catherina"—
She came— | she is gone— | we have met,
And meet | perhaps nev|er again:
The sun | of that mo|ment is set
And seems | to have ris|en in vain.
Now, though these lines are pretty, they are exposed to the charge of being pretty sing-song, and monotonous jingle. But this had, long before Cowper, been to a great extent remedied, though for comic purposes only or mainly, in such things as Gay's "Molly Mog," quoted above, and Chesterfield-Pulteney's
Had I Hanover, Bremen, and Ver|den,
And likewise the Duchy of Zell,
I would part with them all for a far|thing,
To have my dear Molly Lepell!
(Pronounce "Verden" with the proper English value of er, and give "farthing" its then correct form of "farden," and the rhyme will be spotless.)
What it was that made Byron take this up for a serious purpose in the lines to Haidee (before Don Juan) is not, I believe, known:
I en|ter thy gar|den of ro|ses,
Belov|ed and fair | Haidee,
Each morn|ing where Flo|ra repo|ses,
For sure|ly I see | her in thee.
The gain here, from the redundant syllable and double rhyme in the odd lines, and from a rather more frequent use of dissyllabic feet to prevent monotony, is immense. Praed adopted the measure, and improved it still further, in his admirable "Letter of Advice":