Báck to the gátes of Héaven; | the súlphurous háil.
Par. Lost, I. 171.
Quite peculiar, however, to Milton’s blank verse is the extensive use he makes of run-on lines, and in connexion with the great variety in his treatment of the caesura.
Milton has more than 50 per cent. run-on lines; sometimes we have from three to six lines in succession that are not stopt.
As to the caesura, we mostly have masculine and lyric caesura (more seldom epic caesuras) after the second or third foot; besides, we have frequent double caesuras (generally caused by run-on lines), about 12 per cent.[167]
Finally, as the third peculiarity of Milton’s epic blank verse, the almost exclusive use of masculine endings deserves mention. The number of feminine endings in the various books of Paradise Lost and of Paradise Regained is only from 1 to 5 per cent.; in Samson Agonistes, on the other hand, we have about 16 per cent., nearly as many as in the plays of Shakespeare’s second period.[168]
The following example (Paradise Lost, V. 1–25) may illustrate Milton’s blank verse:
Now Mórn, | her rósy stéps | in the éastern clíme
Adváncing, | sówed the éarth with órient péarl,