The well-known hexameters of Virgil, descriptive respectively of the galloping of horses over a resounding plain, and of the heavy blows in alternately hammering the metal on the anvil, afford good examples,—the dactylic, of rapidity, the spondaic, of slowness.
Quadrupe- | dante pu- | trem soni- | tu quatit | ungula | campum,
Æneid, viii. 596.
Illi in- | ter se- | se mag- | na vi | brachia | tollunt.—Æneid, viii. 452.
IMITATION OF DIFFICULTY AND EASE.
When Ajax strives some rock’s vast weight to throw,
The line, too, labors, and the words move slow, &c.—Pope: Ess. on Criticism.
He through the thickest of the throng gan threke.—Chaucer: Knight’s Tale.
And strains from hard-bound brains six lines a year.—Pope: Sat. Frag.
Part huge of bulk,