“Whose guardian-angels, Muriel, Abdiel,
Starred from Jehovah’s gorgeous armory,
Tow’r, as the deep-domed empyrean
Rings to the roar of an angel onset,”
gives us, perhaps, as good Alcaics as we have any right to look for in English (though “gōrgĕoŭs” is not a very gorgeous dactyl); yet how different from the Horatian cadence:
“Æquam memento rebus in arduis
Servare mentem, non secus in bonis
Ab insolenti temperatam
Lætitia, moriture Delli.”[[78]]
As for Sapphics, whether we take Canning’s Knife Grinder for our model or Mr. Swinburne’s