Say I'm growing old, but add—
Jenny kiss'd me!"
Elision must be used with a sparing hand. Generally speaking, a vowel that is so slightly pronounced that it can be elided, as in "temperance"—"temp'rance," may just as well be left in, and accounted for by managing to get the "quantity" to cover it. Where it is too strongly pronounced, to cut it out is to disfigure and injure the line, as in the substitution of "wall'wing" for "wallowing." That elision is often used unnecessarily may be seen in the frequency with which, in reading verse, we—according to most authorities—elide the "y" of "many"—
"Full many a flower is doom'd to blush unseen."
—Gray.
Here we are told we elide the "y" of "many," and some would replace "flower" by "flow'r." Yet to the most sensitive ear these may receive, in reading, their share of pronunciation, without damage to the flow of the line, if the reader understands quantity. "To" is often similarly "elided," as in—
"Can he to a friend—to a son so bloody grow?"
—Cowley.
On the other hand, it is as well not to make too frequent use of the accented "ed," as in "amazéd." In "belovéd" and a few more words it is commonly used, and does not, therefore, sound strange. In others it gives a forced and botched air to the verse.
In verse some latitude is allowed in arranging the order of words in a sentence, but it must not be indulged in too freely. A study of the style of our best poets is the only means of learning what is allowable and what is not; it is impossible to explain it within the limits of this treatise. It may, however, be laid down, as a first principle, that no change in the order of words is admissible, if it gives rise to any doubt as to their real meaning:—for example, if you wish to say, "the dog bit the cat," although such an inversion of construction as putting the objective before, and the nominative after, the verb, is allowed in verse, it is scarcely advisable to adopt it, and say, "the cat bit the dog."