§ 193. The five-foot iambic-anapaestic verse likewise does not occur till recent times, and is chiefly used by the poets just mentioned. Rhymed in couplets it occurs in Mrs. Browning’s The Daughters of Pandarus, Version II (vol. iv, p. 200):
So the stórms bore the dáughters of Pándarus | óut into thráll—
The góds slew their párents; | the órphans were léft in the háll.
And there cáme, to féed their young líves, Aphrodíte divíne,
With the íncense, the swéet-tasting hóney, the swéet-smelling wíne.
The rhythm is here almost entirely anapaestic; the caesura occurs in the most diverse places and may be either masculine or feminine. The ending of the line is masculine throughout, as well as in Robert Browning’s Saul (iii. 146–96), but with many run-on lines.
In Swinburne’s A Word from the Psalmist (A Mids. Holiday, p. 176) we have another treatment of this metre. As a rule the line begins with an anapaest, and continues in pure iambic rhythm:
But a lóuder | thán the Chúrch’s écho | thúnders
In the éars of mén | who máy not chóose but héar;