"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense."
"Cut mercy with a sharp knife to the bone."
The strong effect of these lines arises from the accent being thrown on syllables usually short or unaccented in the decasyllabic verse. This is a common stroke of art with Milton, when he would lay force on particular words. Most of our great poets, indeed, knew and practised the same rule.
So much for the effects of the structure of the verse, and the location of the accent and pause. But the simple choice of apt diction is still more important to the art of effective versification, as far as the evolution of special meanings is concerned. Reference is not here made to diction that is apt through signification merely, but such, more particularly, as by its sound enhances the force of the thoughts or images which it conveys. In this shape is the congruity of sound and sense best developed. To the instances given from Pope and Milton others may now be added, with an explanation of the artistic rules employed in the case.
Observe how finely appropriate is the sound to the sense in the line:—
"The surgy murmurs of the lonely sea."
By the use of the rs here it is, that the very sound of the surge seems to be brought to the ear; and even the open vowels at the close give something like the sense of a great and cold waste of waters beyond the surge. Equally apt is the impression made by the lines:—
"The murmurous haunt of flies on summer-eves."
"Couches of rugged stone, and slaty ridge