And Mr. Swinburne did the same thing (see above) consciously.

XLVIII. Minor Imitations of Classical Metres

(a) Sapphics (Watts):

When the | fierce North-|wind with his | airy | forces
Bears up | the Bal|tic to a | foaming | fury,
And the | red light|ning with a | storm of | hail comes
Rushing a|main down.

This illustrates—as do the pieces which it, beyond all doubt, patterned, though in succession rather than directly (Cowper's "Hatred and Vengeance," Southey's "Cold was the Night Wind," and Canning's triumphant parody of this latter, the "Needy Knifegrinder")—the unyokeableness of classical metres—when not merely iambic, trochaic, or anapæstic—to English rhythm. The proper run of the Sapphic line is—

tumti-tumtum-tumtity-tumti-tum{-ti;
-tum

but this constantly in English, though not so much in the first line as elsewhere, changes itself into

tumtity-tum { -tum|| tumtiti-titumty.
-ti

Mr. Swinburne has got it right, but only as a tour de force, and, as in line 2, not always quite certainly.