For a further variety take, from the same author’s Theodore and Honoria, a passage in which the couplets are run one into the other, and all of it modulated, like the former, according to the feeling demanded by the occasion:
Whilst listening to the murmuring leaves he stood—
More than a mile immers’d within the wood—
At once the wind was laid.|—The whispering sound
Was dumb.|—A rising earthquake rock’d the ground.
With deeper brown the grove was overspread—
A sudden horror seiz’d his giddy head—
And his ears tinkled—and his colour fled.
Nature was in alarm.—Some danger nigh
Seem’d threaten’d—though unseen to mortal eye.
Unus’d to fear—he summon’d all his soul,
And stood collected in himself—and whole:
Not long.—
But for a crowning specimen of variety of pause and accent, apart from emotion, nothing can surpass the account, in Paradise Lost, of the Devil’s search for an accomplice:
There was a plàce,
Nòw nòt—though Sìn—not Tìme—fìrst wroùght the chànge,
Where Tìgris—at the foot of Pàradise,
Into a gùlf—shòt under ground—till pàrt
Ròse up a foùntain by the Trèe of Lìfe.
In with the river sunk—and wìth it ròse
Sàtan—invòlv’d in rìsing mìst—then soùght
Whère to lie hìd.—Sèa he had search’d—and lànd
From Eden over Pòntus—and the pòol
Maeòtis—ùp beyond the river Ob;
Dòwnward as fàr antàrctic;—and in lèngth
Wèst from Oròntes—to the òcean bàrr’d
At Dàriën—thènce to the lànd whère flòws
Gànges and Indus.—Thùs the òrb he ròam’d
With nàrrow sèarch;—and with inspèction dèep
Consìder’d èvery crèature—whìch of àll
Mòst opportùne mìght sèrve his wìles—and foùnd
The sèrpent—sùbtlest bèast of all the fièld.
If the reader cast his eye again over this passage, he will not find a verse in it which is not varied and harmonized in the most remarkable manner. Let him notice in particular that curious balancing of the lines in the sixth and tenth verses:
In with the river sunk, &c.
and
Up beyond the river Ob.
It might, indeed, be objected to the versification of Milton, that it exhibits too constant a perfection of this kind. It sometimes forces upon us too great a sense of consciousness on the part of the composer. We miss the first sprightly runnings of verse,—the ease and sweetness of spontaneity. Milton, I think, also too often condenses weight into heaviness.