Syllables often sixteen, or more or less, as it happens,
Difficult always to scan, and depending greatly on accent,
Being a close imitation, in English, of Latin hexameters—
Fluent in sound, and avoiding the stiffness of commoner blank verse,
Having the grandeur and flow of America's mountains and rivers,
Such as no bard could achieve in a mean little island like England;
Oft, at the end of a line, the sentence dividing abruptly
Breaks, and in accents mellifluous follows the thoughts of the author.
I.
In the old miracle days, in Rome the abode of the saintly,