Shakesp. Temp. iv. i. 204.
Nórfolk sprúng thee, | Lámbeth hólds thee déad. Surrey, p. 62.
Vor mánies mánnes sóre iswínch | hábbeð ófte unhólde.
Moral Ode, Ms. D. l. 34.
Enhástyng hím, | tíl he wás at lárge.
Lydgate, Story of Thebes, 1075.
The tíme doth páss, | yét shall nót my lóve! Wyatt, p. 130.
While this metrical licence may mostly be attributed to want of technical skill in Middle English poets, it is frequently employed in the Modern English period, as the last example shows, with distinct artistic intention of giving a special emphasis to a particular word. Several Middle English poets, however, make but scant use of this licence, e.g. the author of The Owl and the Nightingale and Gower, while some of them, as Orm, never use it at all.
§ 85. These latter poets, on the other hand, make very frequent use of another kind of rhythmical licence, viz. level stress or hovering accent, as Dr. Gummere calls it; i.e. they subordinate the word-accent or the syntactic accent to the rhythmic accent, and so far violate the principal law of all accentual metre, which demands that those three accents should fall on one and the same syllable.
This licence is found chiefly in metres of a certain length, e.g. in the Septenary or in the iambic five-foot line, but not so frequently in shorter metres, as the resulting interruption of the flow of the rhythm is not so perceptible in long as in short lines.