The formation of the ten, eleven, twelve, &c., line stanzas is but an adaptation of those already described. A single fourteen-line stanza of a certain arrangement of rhyme is a sonnet, but as the sonnet is scarcely versifiers' work, I will not occupy space by the lengthy explanation it would require. On the same grounds, I am almost inclined to omit discussion of blank verse, but will give a brief summary of its varieties. The ordinary form of blank verse is the decasyllabic in which Milton's "Paradise Lost" is written—
"Of man's first disobedience and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe."
This consists of ten syllables with an accented following an unaccented syllable. It is preserved from monotony by the varying fall of the cæsura or pause. It occurs but rarely after the first foot or the eighth foot, and not often after the third and seventh. Elisions and the substitution of a trisyllable, equivalent in time for a dissyllable, are met with, and at times the accent is shifted, when by the change the sense of the line gains in vigour of expression, as in—
"Once found, which yet unfound, most would have thought
Impossible."
According to scansion "most wo'uld," but by the throwing back of the accent strengthened and distinguished into "most would have thought." [In addition to this in the blank verse of the stage, we find occasionally additional syllables, as—
"Or to take arms against a sea of troub(les).">[
Other forms of blank verse follow:—