How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!
There may be some justification for the falling inflection on “roofs”; there can be no doubt that the same inflection would be incorrect on “out.” And yet, the very structure of the verse would be likely to cause the careless reader to read it with that very inflection. This is a typical case, and, if this point has been made clear, one that should be very helpful to the teacher. The following passage, from the same poem, affords another exercise in succession of ideas:
In the country, on every side,
Where far and wide,
Like a leopard’s tawny and spotted hide,
Stretches the plain,
To the dry grass and the drier grain
How welcome is the rain!
Let us observe that the plain does not stretch to the dry grass. There will be a falling inflection on “plain,” and a rising on “grain.”