Fletcher, Mad Lover, iii. 255.
Nó, Sir, | I dáre not leave her | tó that sólitariness.
id. Rule a Wife, iv. 479.
What yóung thing’s thís?— | Good mórrow, béauteous géntlewoman.
id. Loy. Subj. v. ii. 402.
The two last quotations are noteworthy because the number of extra syllables after the last accented one is two, three, or even four, a peculiarity which is one of the characteristics of Fletcher’s versification. Other poets, e.g. Shakespeare, preferred feminine endings in some periods of their literary career, so that it is possible to use the proportion of masculine and feminine endings occurring in a play, compared with others of the same poet, as a means of ascertaining the date of its origin.
It is also to be observed that in certain epochs or kinds of poetry feminine endings are more in favour than in others. In the eighteenth century they are very scarce, whereas they become more frequent again in the nineteenth century. Byron and Moore especially use them copiously in their satirical and humorous poems to produce burlesque effects.
§ 92. Another metrical licence also connected with the end of the line is what is known as the enjambement or run-on line—that is to say, the carrying over of the end of a sentence into the following line.
The rule that the end of a line must coincide with the end of a sentence, is, from the nature of the case, more difficult to observe strictly—and, consequently, the run-on line is more readily admitted—in verse composed of short lines (which often do not afford room for a complete sentence) than where the lines are longer. In blank verse, also, the run-on line is more freely allowed than in rhymed verse, where the pause at the end of the line is more strongly marked.
Generally speaking, enjambement is not allowed to separate two short words that stand in close syntactical connexion and isolated from the rest of the sentence, though examples of this do occur (especially in the older poets) in which an adjective is separated from its substantive: