English poem
I. Old English Period
by George Saintsbury (1845–1933)
_Scansion only dimly visible._
No better examples can be taken for this than two already used by Dr. Sievers--the close of the _Phœnix_ with its illuminative Latin admixture, and a bit of _Beowulf_ (205 _ff._)(dotted foot division added in first case):
Háfað ¦ us alýfed ¦ _lucis_ | _auctor_ Þœt we mó¦tun hér ¦ _meru_ |_eri_ ȝóddædum be¦ȝiétan ¦ _gaudia in_ | _coelo_ Pǽr we ¦ mótun ¦ _maxima_ | _regna_.
Hǽfde se ȝoda || Géata téoda cémpan ȝecórene || þara þe ne cénóste findan míhte || fíftener súm súndwudu sóhte || sécȝ wísade láȝucræftig món || lándȝemýrcu.
In these the general trochaic run and the corresponding tendency to dactylic substitution, which are so evident in the Latin, as it were _muffle_ themselves in the English; and the contrast, so strikingly brought out in the mixed passage, is not really less evident in the pure Anglo-Saxon one. The muffling is the result, partly of the imperfect substitution, or rather the actual presence of syllables not digested into the metre; partly of the overbearing middle pause, which, suggesting another in each section, chops the whole up into disconnected grunts or spasmodic phrases.