OBS. 2.—­I incline to read this piece as composed of iambs and anapests; but E. A. Poe, who has commended “the effective harmony of these lines,” and called the example “an excellently well conceived and well managed specimen of versification,” counts many syllables long, which such a reading makes short, and he also divides all but the iambics in a way quite different from mine, thus:  “Let us scan the first stanza.

    ’I s=aw | h~im =once | b~ef=ore
    As h~e | p=ass~ed | b=y th~e | d=oor,
        And a- | g=ain

    Th~e p=ave- | m~ent st=ones | r~es=ound
    As h~e | t=ott~ers | =o’er th~e | gr=ound
        W=ith h~is c=ane.’

This,” says he, “is the general scansion of the poem.  We have first three iambuses.  The second line shifts the rhythm into the trochaic, giving us three trochees, with a caesura equivalent, in this case, to a trochee.  The third line is a trochee and equivalent caesura.”—­POE’S NOTES UPON ENGLISH VERSE:  Pioneer, p. 109.  These quantities are the same as those by which the whole piece is made to consist of iambs and amphimacs.

OBS. 3.—­In its rhythmical effect upon the ear, a supernumerary short syllable at the end of a line, may sometimes, perhaps, compensate for the want of such a syllable at the beginning of the next line, as may be seen in the fourth example above; but still it is unusual, and seems improper, to suppose such syllables to belong to the scansion of the subsequent line; for the division of lines, with their harmonic pauses, is greater than the division of feet, and implies that no foot can ever actually be split by it.  Poe has suggested that the division into lines may be disregarded in scanning, and sometimes must be.  He cites for an example the beginning of Byron’s “Bride of Abydos,”—­a passage which has been admired for its easy flow, and which, he says, has greatly puzzled those who have attempted to scan it.  Regarding it as essentially anapestic tetrameter, yet as having some initial iambs, and the first and fifth lines dactylic, I shall here divide it accordingly, thus:—­

“Kn=ow y~e th~e | l=and wh~ere th~e | c=ypr~ess and | m=yrtle
Ar~e =em | -bl~ems of d=eeds | that are d=one
| in th~eir cl=ime--
Where the rage | of the vul | -ture, the love | of the tur | -tle,
Now melt | into soft | -ness, now mad | -den to crime? 
Know ye the | land of the | cedar and | vine. 
Where the flow’rs | ever blos | -som, the beams | ever shine,
And the light | wings of Zeph | -yr, oppress’d | with perfume,
Wax faint | o’er the gar | -dens of Gul | in her bloom? 
Where the cit | -ron and ol | -ive are fair | -est of fruit,
And the voice | of the night | -ingale nev | -er is mute? 
Where the vir | -gins are soft as the ros | -es they twine,
And all, | save the spir | -it of man, | is divine? 
’Tis the land | of the East- | ’t is the clime | of the Sun—­
Can he smile | on such deeds | as his chil | -dren have done? 
Oh, wild | as the ac | -cents of lov | -ers’ farewell,
Are the hearts | that they bear, | and the tales | that they tell.”