Loudly the sailors cheered
Svend of the Forked Beard,
As with his fleet he steered
Southward to Vendland;
Where with their courses hauled
All were together called,
Under the Isle of Svald
Near to the mainland.
(Longfellow: Saga of King Olaf, xvii. 1863.)
In the reading of these stanzas from Tennyson and Longfellow there is so marked a stress on the final syllable as to make the second dactyl (except in the opening lines of the Tennyson stanza) more like a Cretic (in the classical terminology); i.e. a foot made up of two heavy syllables with a light syllable between them. But no such foot is generally recognized in English verse.
Two-stress irregular.
On the ground
Sleep sound:
I'll apply
To your eye,
Gentle lover, remedy.
When thou wak'st,
Thou tak'st
True delight
In the sight
Of thy former lady's eye.
(Shakspere: Puck's Song in Midsummer Night's Dream, III. ii. ab. 1595.)
What I hate,
Be consecrate
To celebrate
Thee and Thy state,
No mate
For Thee;
What see
For envy
In poor me?
(Browning: Song in Caliban upon Setebos. 1864.)
In the usual printing of Caliban upon Setebos this song is brought into the form of the five-accent lines. It is evidently intended, however, to be read in two-accent groups. Professor Moulton has remarked interestingly that Browning gives the unique figure of Caliban not only a grammar but a prosody of his own.
Though my rime be ragged,
Tattered and jagged,
Rudely raine-beaten,
Rusty and moth-eaten;
If ye take wel therewith,
It hath in it some pith.