Blòw wìnds and cràck your chèeks! ràge! blòw! You càtărăcts and hurricànoes, spòut, Till you have drènch’d our stèeples, dròwn’d the còcks! You sùlphurous and thoùght-èxecuting fìres, Vaùnt coùriers of òak-clèaving thùnderbòlts, Sìnge my whìte hèad! and thòu, àll-shàking thùnder, Strìke flàt the thìck rotùndity o’ the wòrld! _Lear._ Unexpected locations of the accent double this force, and render it characteristic of passion and abruptness. And here comes into play the reader’s corresponding fineness of ear, and his retardations and accelerations in accordance with those of the poet: Then in the keyhole turns The ìntrĭcăte wards, and every bolt and bar Unfastens.--On ă sŭddĕn òpen fly Wĭth ĭmpètuous recoil and jarring sound The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder. _Paradise Lost_, Book II. Abòmĭnăblĕ--unùttĕrăblĕ--and worse Than fables yet have feigned. _Id._ Wàllŏwĭng ŭnwìĕldy--ĕnòrmous in their gait. _Id._ Of unusual passionate accent, there is an exquisite specimen in the _Faerie Queene_, where Una is lamenting her desertion by the Red-Cross Knight: But he, my lion, and my noble lord, How does he find in cruel heart to hate Her that him lov’d, and ever most ador’d _As the gòd of my lìfe?_[30] Why hath he me abhorr’d? [30] Pray let not the reader consent to read this first half of the line in any manner less marked and peremptory. It is a striking instance of the beauty of that ‘acceleration and retardation of true verse’ which Coleridge speaks of. There is to be a hurry on the words _as the_, and a passionate emphasis and passing stop on the word _god_; and so of the next three words. The abuse of strength is harshness and heaviness; the reverse of it is weakness. There is a noble sentiment--it appears both in Daniel’s and Sir John Beaumont’s works, but is most probably the latter’s,--which is a perfect outrage of strength in the sound of the words: Only the firmest and the _constant’st_ hearts God sets to act the _stout’st_ and hardest parts. _Stout’st_ and _constant’st_ for ‘stoutest’ and ‘most constant’! It is as bad as the intentional crabbedness of the line in _Hudibras_: He that hangs or _beats out’s_ brains, The devil’s in him if _he_ feigns. _Beats out’s brains_, for ‘beats out his brains’. Of heaviness, Davenant’s _Gondibert_ is a formidable specimen, almost throughout: