And quench the Guards of the ever-fixèd Pole.
I never did like mollestation view
On the enchafèd Flood....
Faintly shimmering, too, in the northern heavens is that other numerous starry cluster, known the world over as Seven—to us as the Seven Sisters or the Pleiades. A strange seven; for only six stars are now clearly visible to the naked eye, one having vanished, it would seem, within human memory. When? where?—none can tell. They play in light as close together as dewdrops in a cobweb hung from thorn to thorn. Nearby, on winter's cold breast burns the most marvellous of the constellations—the huntsman Orion, with his Rigel and Bellatrix and Betelgeuse; his dog Sirius at his heels. "Seek him that maketh the Seven Stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night...."
[9]. "Like a Child, Half in Tenderness and Mirth."
At a first reading, perhaps, this line will not appear to flow so smoothly as the rest. But linger an instant on the word child, and you will have revealed to yourself one of Shelley's, and indeed one of every poet's loveliest devices with words—to let the music of his verse accord with its meaning, and at the same time to please and charm the ear with a slight variation from the regular beat and accent of the metre. So, too, in the middle lines of the next stanza. This variation, which is called rhythm, is the very proof of its writer's sincerity. For if the sound of his verse (or of his voice) rings false, he cannot have completely realised what he was writing or saying. When a man says what he means, he says it as if he meant it. The tune of what he says sounds right. When a man does not mean what he says, he finds it all but impossible to say it as if he did. The tune goes wrong.
Just so with reading. So from a gay and tiny Compendious English Grammar of 1780 I have borrowed these four brief wholesome rules for reading:
(1) ... Observe well the pauses, accents and emphases; and never stop but where the sense will admit of it.
(2) Humour your voice a little, according to the subject....
(3) Do not read too fast, lest [in lip or mind] you get a habit of stammering; adding or omitting words; and be sure that your understanding keep pace with your tongue.