Do not lift him from the bracken; leave him lying where he fell
gives an idea of the rhythm.
The elegiac distich consists of an hexameter followed by a so-called pentameter, that is, a line made up of six dactyls or spondees, with the omission of the last half of the third and of the sixth feet. This is illustrated and described by Coleridge in the lines,
In the hexameter rises the fountain’s silvery column.
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.
In the iambic and trochaic metres other feet are often substituted for the iambus and the trochee, but without change of rhythm.
Some of the other metres will be explained or illustrated as they occur.
[13] iv, Frg. 8, Müller.
[14] v, Frg. 33, Müller.
[15] vi, Frg. 16, Müller.