ib. 173.
Sórry am Í | to héar what Í have héard.
Shakesp. 2 Henry VI, II. i. 193.
In cases like these it cannot be supposed that there is actual elision of a syllable, by which many a, busy a, carie a, glorie and, happy are, country I, sorry am, would be reduced to regular disyllabic feet. In several of the instances such an assumption is forbidden not only by the indistinctness of pronunciation which it would involve, but also by the caesura.
Further, we find both in Middle and in Modern English poetry many examples of similar sequences in which there is neither elision nor slurring, the syllable ending with a vowel forming the thesis, and the following syllable beginning with a vowel forming the arsis. Hiatus of this kind has always been perfectly admissible in English verse.
And yít he wás but ésy óf dispénse. Chaucer, Prol. 441.
Mówbray’s síns so héavy ín his bósom.
Shakesp. Rich. II, I. ii. 50
§ 109. The second possibility, viz. complete amalgamation of two syllables, may occur if a word with an initial vowel or h is preceded by a monosyllabic word, standing in thesis, e.g. th’estat, th’array Chauc. Prol. 716; th’ascendent ib. 117; t’allege (to allege) Kn. T. 2142; nys (ne ys) ib. 43. Even in Modern English poetry such contractions occur rather frequently: Th’altar Sur. 118; t’assay Wyatt 157; N’other ib. 21; often also the words are written in full, although the first vowel is metrically slurred or elided: the͡ ónly darling Shakesp. All’s Well, II. i. 110. Yet in all such cases the entire loss of the syllable must not be assumed unless the distinctness of the pronunciation—which must be the only guide in such matters, not the silent reading with the eyes—be sufficiently preserved.[137]