Гальперин И. Р. Стилистика английского языка

Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastern hill

Here the first foot of the second line is rhythmic inversion, and the fourth is a spondee.
Rhythmic inversion and the use of the spondee may be considered deliberate devices to reinforce the semantic significance of the word1 combinations. Here are other examples:
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll.

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain.

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The spondee as a rhythmic modification, unlike the pyrrhic, is always used to give added emphasis. This may be explained by the fact that two successive syllables both under heavy stress produce a kind of clash, as a result of which the juncture between the syllables becomes wider, thus making each of them conspicuous. A pyrrhic smooths and quickens the pace of the rhythm; a spondee slows it down and makes it jerky.
Pyrrhics may appear in almost any foot in a line, though they are rarely found in the last foot. This is natural as the last foot generally has a rhyming word and rhyming words are always stressed. Spondees generally appear in the first or the last foot.
These three modifications of the rhythm are the result of the clash between the requirements of the metrical scheme and the natural tendency of the language material to conform to its own phonetic laws. The more verse seeks to reflect the lively norms of colloquial English, the more frequently are modifications such as those described to be found.
The fourth modification has to do with the number of syllables in the line. There may be either a syllable missing or there may be an extra syllable. Thus, the last syllable of a trochaic octameter is often missing, as in this line from Poe's "The Raven":

This is called a hypometric line. Other lines in the poem have the full sixteen syllables.
In iambic metre there may be an extra syllable at the end of the line.
In the line from the Shakespeare sonnet:
"Then in these thoughts myself almost despising"
there are eleven syllables, whereas there should have been ten, the line being iambic pentameter, as are all the lines of a sonnet. A line with an extra syllable is called hypermetric.
Such departures from the established measure also break to some extent the rhythmical structure of the verse, and are therefore to be considered modifications of the rhythm.
The fifth departure from the norms of classic verse is enjатbment, or the rиn-оп line. This term is used to denote the transfer of a part of a syntagm from one line to the following one, as in the following lines from Byron's "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage":
1. Fair is proud Seville; let her country boast
2. Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days;
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6. While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape
7. The fascination of the magic gaze?
It will be observed that here again is a violation of the requirements of the classical verse according to which the line must be a more or less complete unit in itself. Here we have the overflowing of the sense to the next line due to the break of the syntagm in the first and sixth lines –
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the close predicate-object groups. The lines seem to be torn into two halves, the second half flowing structurally into the first half of the next line. The first impression is that this is some kind of prose, and not verse, but this impression is immediately contradicted by the feeling that there is a definite metrical scheme and pattern of rhyming.
The rhythmic pattern of the verse leads us to anticipate a certain semantic structure; but when the device of enjambment is used, what we anticipate is brought into conflict with what we actually find, that is, what is actually materialized.
This is still more acutely felt in the case of stanza enjambment. Here the sense of a larger rhythmic unit, the stanza, which is generally self-contained and complete, is made to flow over to the next stanza.
Here is an example from Byron's "Childe Harold", Canto 1, stanzas LI and LII.
LI
“. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
8. The holster'd steed beneath the shed of thatch,
9. The ball-piled puramid, the ever-blazing match,
LII
1. Portend the deeds to come: – but he whose nod
2. Has tumbled feebler despots from their sway.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .”
The essence of enjambment is the violation of the concordance between the rhythmical and the syntactical unity in a line of verse. At the end of each rhythmical line in classical verse there must be a pause of an appreciable size between the lines which ensures the relative independence of each. The juncture between the lines is wide. Enjambment throws a part of the syntagm over to the second line, thus causing the pause to grow smaller and the juncture closer. This leads to a break in the rhythmico-syntactical unity of the lines; they lose their relative independence.
Stanza enjambment is the same in nature, but it affects larger rhythmico-syntactical units, the stanzas. Here we seldom witness the break of a syntagm, but the final part of the utterance is thrown over to the next stanza, thus uniting the two stanzas, breaking the self-sufficiency of each and causing the juncture between the stanzas to become closer.
It is important to remind the reader that modifications in English metre, no matter how frequent, remain modifications, for the given metrical scheme is not affected to any appreciable extent. As a matter of fact these irregularities may be said to have become regular. They add much variety and charm to the verse. Indeed, if the metre is perfectly regular without any of the five modifications described above, the verse may sound mechanical and lifeless, artificial and monotonous
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