And looks commercing with the skies."
It will be observed how finely the dancing effect of the seven-syllabled verse is brought out, in accordance with the sense, in the first quoted passage, and with what skill it is repressed in the second, principally by the use of the graver octosyllabic line. John Keats employed the measure now under consideration very beautifully in his "Ode to Fancy," and gave it variety chiefly by changing the ordinary rhythm. Thus—
"Sit thou by the ingle, when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night."
The second line, from the position of "sear faggot," is rendered so far harsh, and tends to prevent the "linked sweetness" from being too long drawn out, and cloying the ear. Shakspeare—what under the sun escaped his eye?—had noticed the sing-song proclivities of the seven-syllabled measure, since he makes Touchstone say, on hearing a sample, "I'll rhyme you so eight years together; dinners, and suppers, and sleeping hours excepted; it is the right butter-woman's rank (trot) to market. For a taste." And he gives a taste:—
"If a hart do lack a hind,
Let him seek out Rosalind,
If the cat will after kind,
So, be sure, will Rosalind.