To the melody, till they flew,
Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces,
Twisted hard in fierce embraces,
Like to Furies, like to Graces,
Dash’d together in blinding dew;
Till, kill’d with some luxurious agony,
The nerve-dissolving melody
Flutter’d headlong from the sky.
Let it not be supposed that any one of the foregoing extracts is to be read in uniformly slow or uniformly fast time; that will change with each variation in the importance of the thought. Without attempting to force any interpretation upon the student, an illustration is appended in which he may note how the relative importance of the ideas affects the rate of movement in the various phrases.
| Med. | Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home? |
| Med. | What tributaries follow him to Rome, |
| Fast. | To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels? |
| Slow. | You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things! |
| Very slow. | O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, |
| Med. and fast. | Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft |
| Fast. | Have you climb’d up to walls and battlements, |
| Fast. | To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, |
| Med. | Your infants in your arms, and there have sat |
| Med. | The livelong day, with patient expectation, |
| Med. | To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome: |
| Med. | And when you saw his chariot but appear, |
| Fast. | Have you not made an universal shout, |
| Fast. | That Tiber trembled underneath her banks, |
| Fast. | To hear the replication of your sounds |
| Fast. | Made in her concave shores? |
| Slow. | And do you now put on your best attire? |
| Med. | And do you now cull out a holiday? |
| Med. | And do you now strew flowers in his way, |
| Fast. | That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood? |
| Begone! | |
| Med. | Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, |
| Slow. | Pray to the gods to intermit the plague |
| Slow. | That needs must light on this ingratitude. |