| may amuse,
      May e | -ven our won | -der excite,
    But groves, | hills, and val | -leys, diffuse
      A last | -ing, a sa | -cred delight.” 
        COWPER’S Poems, Vol. ii, p. 232.

Example III.—­“A Pastoral Ballad.”—­Two Stanzas from Twenty-seven.

    (8.)

    “Not a pine | in my grove | is there seen,
      But with ten | -drils of wood | -bine is bound;
    Not a beech | ’s more beau | -tiful green,
      But a sweet | -briar twines | it around,
    Not my fields | in the prime | of the year
      More charms | than my cat | -tle unfold;
    Not a brook | that is lim | -pid and clear,
      But it glit | -ters with fish | -es of gold.

    (9)

    One would think | she might like | to retire
      To the bow’r | I have la | -bour’d to rear;
    Not a shrub | that I heard | her admire,
      But I hast | -ed and plant | -ed it there. 
    O how sud | -den the jes | -samine strove
      With the li | -lac to ren | -der it gay! 
    Alread | -y it calls | for my love,
      To prune | the wild branch | -es away.” 
        SHENSTONE:  British Poets, Vol. vii, p. 139.

Anapestic lines of four feet and of three are sometimes alternated in a stanza, as in the following instance:—­

Example IV.—­“The Rose."

   “The rose | had been wash’d, | just wash’d | in a show’r,
      Which Ma | -ry to An | -na convey’d;
    The plen | -tiful moist | -ure encum | -ber’d the flow’r,
      And weigh’d | down its beau | -tiful head.

    The cup | was all fill’d, | and the leaves | were all wet,
      And it seem’d | to a fan | -ciful view,
    To weep | for the buds | it had left, | with regret,
      On the flour | -ishing bush | where it grew.

    I hast | -ily seized | it, unfit | as it was
      For a nose | -gay, so drip | -ping and drown’d,
    And, swing | -ing it rude | -ly, too rude | -ly, alas! 
      I snapp’d | it,—­it fell | to the ground.

    And such, | I exclaim’d, | is the pit | -iless part
      Some act | by the del | -icate mind,
    Regard | -less of wring | -ing and break | -ing a heart
      Alread | -y to sor | -row resign’d.

    This el | -egant rose, | had I shak | -en it less,
      Might have bloom’d | with its own | -er a while;
    And the tear | that is wip’d | with a lit | -tle address,
      May be fol | -low’d perhaps | by a smile.” 
        COWPER:  Poems, Vol. i, p. 216; English Reader, p. 212.

MEASURE III.—­ANAPESTIC OF TWO FEET, OR DIMETER.

Example I.—­Lines with Hypermeter and Double Rhyme.

“CORONACH,” OR FUNERAL SONG.

    1.