Blòw wìnds and cràck your chèeks! ràge! blòw!
You càtărăcts and hurricànoes, spòut,
Till you have drènch’d our stèeples, dròwn’d the còcks!
You sùlphurous and thoùght-èxecuting fìres,
Vaùnt coùriers of òak-clèaving thùnderbòlts,
Sìnge my whìte hèad! and thòu, àll-shàking thùnder,
Strìke flàt the thìck rotùndity o’ the wòrld!
Lear.
Unexpected locations of the accent double this force, and render it characteristic of passion and abruptness. And here comes into play the reader’s corresponding fineness of ear, and his retardations and accelerations in accordance with those of the poet:
Then in the keyhole turns
The ìntrĭcăte wards, and every bolt and bar
Unfastens.—On ă sŭddĕn òpen fly
Wĭth ĭmpètuous recoil and jarring sound
The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.
Paradise Lost, Book II.
Abòmĭnăblĕ—unùttĕrăblĕ—and worse
Than fables yet have feigned.
Id.
Wàllŏwĭng ŭnwìĕldy—ĕnòrmous in their gait.
Id.
Of unusual passionate accent, there is an exquisite specimen in the Faerie Queene, where Una is lamenting her desertion by the Red-Cross Knight:
But he, my lion, and my noble lord,
How does he find in cruel heart to hate
Her that him lov’d, and ever most ador’d
As the gòd of my lìfe?[30] Why hath he me abhorr’d?
The abuse of strength is harshness and heaviness; the reverse of it is weakness. There is a noble sentiment—it appears both in Daniel’s and Sir John Beaumont’s works, but is most probably the latter’s,—which is a perfect outrage of strength in the sound of the words:
Only the firmest and the constant’st hearts
God sets to act the stout’st and hardest parts.
Stout’st and constant’st for ‘stoutest’ and ‘most constant’! It is as bad as the intentional crabbedness of the line in Hudibras: