Here grief forgets to groan´, and love to weep;
Even superstition´ loses every fear,
For God, not man´, absolves our frailties here."
This passage contains the secret of that smoothness which so peculiarly characterises the versification of Pope. In the preceding fourteen lines, the accent and the pause are seated, in all save three instances, at the same or fourth syllable; or rather the seat of the accent is only once altered (at the twelfth line), while the pause, changed there, is also changed in the fourth and thirteenth lines, where it occurs on the fifth and short syllables in the words "echoes" and "superstition," the accent remaining on the fourth in both cases. Now, the versification of Pope is by no means so monotonous at all times, but it is sufficiently marked by the peculiar features exhibited here—that is, the reiterated location of the accent and pause near the middle of each line, with the pause most frequently at long syllables—to render his verses smooth even to a wearisome excess. It is this characteristic of structure, often felt but seldom understood, which distinguishes the poetry of Pope from that of almost every other writer of note in the language. Darwin resembles him most closely, though the latter poet had marked peculiarities of his own. He emphasised more particularly nearly one-half the first syllables of his lines. Verse after verse runs thus:—
"Sighs in the gale, and whispers in the grot."
"Spans the pale nations with colossal stride."
The sweetness here is great, but, most undoubtedly, verse possessed of a much more perfect and uncloying species of melody has been produced by those poets who have admitted greater variety into the composition of their lines. The licence used by Shakspeare, for example, in respect of rhythm, accent, and pause, is unlimited; and beautiful, indeed, are the results:—
"The quality of mercy´ is not strain'd.
It droppeth´ as the gentle dew from heaven
Upon the place beneath´. It is twice bless'd: