Was óften héard to crý,
Oh, whére is súch anóther
So bléss’d by Héaven as Í? &c.
Rhythmical licences, such as suppression of the anacrusis, seldom occur in such short lines. The species of licence that is most frequent appears to be inversion of accent.
CHAPTER XI
THE RHYMED FIVE-FOOT VERSE
§ 151. Among all English metres the five-foot verse may be said to be the metre which has been employed in the greatest number of poems, and in those of highest merit.
Two forms can be distinguished, namely, the rhymed and the rhymeless five-foot verse (the latter being known as blank verse), which are of equal importance, though not of equal antiquity.
The rhymed five-foot verse was known in English poetry as far back as the second half of the thirteenth century, and has been a favourite metre from Chaucer’s first poetic attempts onward to the present, whilst the blank verse was first introduced into English literature about the year 1540 by the Earl of Surrey (1518–47), and has been frequently employed ever since that time. The rhymed five-foot verse was, and has continued to be, mainly preferred for lyrical and epic, the blank verse for dramatic poetry. The latter, however, has been employed e.g. by Milton, and after him by Thomson and many others for the epic and allied species of poetry; while rhymed five-foot verse was used during a certain period for dramatic poetry, e.g. by Davenant and Dryden, but by the latter only for a short time.