Xli. The Non-Equivalenced Octosyllable Of Keats And Morris

(a) Keats (Eve of St. Mark):

Upon a Sabbath day it fell; Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell, That called the folk to evening-prayer; The city streets were clean and fair From wholesome drench of April rains; And on the western window-panes The chilly sunset faintly told Of unmatured green valleys cold, Of the green thorny bloomless hedge, Of rivers new with spring-tide sedge, Of primroses by sheltered rills, And daisies on the aguish hills. Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell: The silent streets were crowded well With staid and pious companies, Warm from their fire-side orat'ries, And moving, with demurest air, To even-song and vesper prayer. Each archèd porch, and entry low, Was filled with patient folk and slow, With whispers hush, and shuffling feet, While played the organ loud and sweet.

(b) Morris (The Ring given to Venus):

By then his eyes were opened wide. Already up the grey hillside The backs of two were turned to him: One, like a young man tall and slim, Whose heels with rosy wings were dight; One like a woman clad in white, With glittering wings of many a hue, Still changing, and whose shape none knew. In aftertime would Laurence say That though the moonshine, cold and grey, Flooded the lonely earth that night, These creatures in the moon's despite Were coloured clear, as though the sun Shone through the earth to light each one-- And terrible was that to see.

(Here the effect is entirely achieved by dividing the couplets, with full stops or strong pauses at the end of the first line, and running the sense of the second into the first of the next; by considerable variations of internal pause, and by placing emphatic or brightly coloured words at different spots. Equivalence is practically limited to such things as "glittering," "aguish," "many a," etc., where it is at minimum strength.)