RHYTHM, RHYTHMIC STRESS, THE CAESURAL PAUSE
In English poetry the foot, rather than the syllable, is the unit. The number of feet to a verse is fixed, but the number of syllables varies. In Spanish poetry the number of syllables to a verse is fixed, subject only to the laws of syllable-counting given above. But if in this respect the Spanish poet has less freedom than the English versifier, he has infinitely greater liberty in the arrangement of his rhythms. The sing-song monotony of regularly recurring beats is intolerable to Latin ears. The greater flexibility of Spanish rhythm can best be shown by illustrations:
The Assy'rian came do'wn like the wo'lf on the fo'ld,
And his co'horts were gle'aming in pu'rple and go'ld;
And the she'en of their spe'ars was like sta'rs on the se'a,
When the blu'e wave rolls ni'ghtly on de'ep Galile'e.
Having chosen to write this poem in the anapestic tetrameter, Byron never varies the rhythm except to substitute an occasional iambic at the beginning of a verse:
And the're lay the ste'ed with his no'stril all wi'de.
Notice how much more freely Espronceda handles this meter in Spanish:
Su fo'rma galla'rda dibu'ja en las so'mbras