Béarded with móss, and in gárments gréen, indistínct in the twílight,
Stánd like Drúids of éld, with vóices sád and prophétic,
Stánd like hárpers hóar, with béards that rést on their bósoms.
Lóud from its rócky cáverns, the déep-voiced néighbouring ócean
Spéaks, and in áccents discónsolate ánswers the wáil of the fórest.
§ 211. Besides these repeated attempts to naturalize the hexameter in English, many other kinds of classical verses and stanzas have been imitated in English literature from the middle of the sixteenth and afterwards during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Among these the Elegiac verse of the ancients (hexameter alternating with pentameter) was attempted by Sidney in his Arcadia. Of more modern experiments in accordance with the accentual principle, Coleridge’s translation of Schiller’s well-known distich may be quoted:
Ín the hexámeter ríses the fóuntains sílvery cólumn,
Ín the pentámeter áye fálling in mélody báck.
Swinburne, among others, has written his Hesperia (Poems and Ballads, i, 1868, p. 200) in rhymed verses of this kind: