Practical Guide to English Versification / With a Compendious Dictionary of Rhymes, an Examination / of Classical Measures, and Comments Upon Burlesque and / Comic Verse, Vers de Société, and Song-writing

by Tom Hood

And lead his Dances with dishevell'd Hair, }

Increase thy Clamours," &c. }

But the sense is not confined to the couplet, for the close of it may fall into the middle of the next verse, that is, the third, and sometimes farther off, provided the last verse of the couplet exceed not the number of ten syllables; for then the sense ought always to conclude with it. Examples of this are so frequent, that it is needless to give any.

3. When they conclude the stanzas of lyric or Pindaric odes; examples of which are often seen in Dryden, and others.

In these verses the pause ought to be at the sixth syllable, as may be seen in the foregoing examples.

We sometimes find it, though very rarely, at the seventh; as,

"That such a cursed Creature—lives so long a Space."

When it is at the fourth, the verse will be rough and hobbling; as,

"And Midwife Time—the ripen'd Plot to Murther brought."

—Dryden.