The Dactyl, a foot of three syllables, the first long and the two last short, is used principally in the first place in the line.
"Fūrĭoŭs he spoke, the angry chief replied."
"Mūrmŭrĭng, and with him fled the shades of night."
The Anapæst, a foot consisting of three syllables, the two first short and the last long, is admissible into every place of the line.
"Căn ă bōsŏm sŏ gēntlĕ rĕmāin,
Unmoved when her Corydon sighs?
Will a nymph that is fond of the plains,
These plains and these valleys despise?
Dear regions of silence and shade,
Soft scenes of contentment and ease,
Where I could have pleasingly stay'd,
If ought in her absence could please."
The trissyllabic feet have suffered most by the general ignorance of critics; most of them have been mutilated by apostrophes, in order to reduce them to the Iambic measure.
Thus in the line before repeated,
"Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night,"
we find the word in the copy reduced to two syllables, murm'ring, and the beauty of the Dactyl is destroyed.