(Swinburne: The Birds, from Aristophanes.)
Of this translation Mr. Swinburne says that it was undertaken from a consideration of the fact that the "marvellous metrical invention of the anapestic heptameter was almost exactly reproducible in a language to which all variations and combinations of anapestic, iambic, or trochaic metre are as natural and pliable as all dactylic and spondaic forms of verse are unnatural and abhorrent." ... "I have not attempted," he says further, "the impossible and undesirable task of reproducing the rare exceptional effect of a line overcharged on purpose with a preponderance of heavy-footed spondees.... My main desire ... was to renew as far as possible for English ears the music of this resonant and triumphant metre, which goes ringing at full gallop as of horses who
'dance as 'twere to the music
Their own hoofs make.'"
(Studies in Song, p. 68.)
Seven-stress dactylic.
This form of verse may be said to be wanting. Schipper quotes as possible examples some lines which (as he remarks) seem to be made merely for the metrical purpose:
"Out of the kingdom of Christ shall be gathered, by angels o'er Satan victorious,
All that offendeth, that lieth, that faileth to honor his name ever glorious."
(Englische Metrik, vol. ii. p. 419.)
Eight-stress iambic.
This is almost unknown in English verse, because where conceivably occurring it shows an irresistible tendency to break up into two halves of four stresses each. William Webbe, in his Discourse of English Poetrie (1586), quoted these lines as "the longest verse in length which I have seen used in English":