A History of English Versification

by J. Schipper

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It is certainly not an easy task to write in this form of stanza, as it is rather difficult in English to imitate feet of three or even two long syllables (Molossus and Spondee). Yet it has been used by several poets, as by Sidney and his contemporary, the metrist William Webbe; in the eighteenth century by Dr. Watts, Cowper, and Southey (cf. Metrik, ii, § 253); and in later times by Swinburne, from whose Poems and Ballads a specimen may be quoted:

Áll the nī́ght slēep cā́me not upṓn my ḗyelids,

Shēd not dḗw, nōr shṓok nor unclōsed a fḗather,

Yḗt with lī́ps shūt clṓse and with ḗyes of ī́ron

Stṓod and behḗld me.

Of other kinds of classical verses and stanzas the Alcaic metre has occasionally been imitated, e.g. by Tennyson. The scheme of the Latin original is as follows: