τῆσδ’ ἄνακτ’ εἶναι χθονός (Phœnissæ, 590 sq.).
If the line falls into two clearly marked halves, why not show this to the eye? There is no unanswerable objection to doing so—the passage above corresponds exactly in rhythmical form to much English verse, e.g.:—
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
The practice in English is to break up the long trochaic “line” into two when the words at the diæresis rhyme (as in the above passage from Longfellow), but not to do so when the only rhymes occur at the catalectic foot. We print the opening of another poem by Longfellow thus:—
In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o’er the town.