According to cause or significance, accents are commonly classed in three groups: Etymological or Word Accent, Syntactical or Rhetorical Accent, and Metrical Accent. Accents of the first class are due to the original stress of the syllable in English speech; those of the second class are due to the importance of the syllable in the sentence; those of the third class are due to the place of the syllable in the metrical scheme. In the verse "Mary had a little lamb," the first syllable may be said to be stressed primarily for etymological reasons, the seventh primarily for syntactical or rhetorical reasons, and the third (which would not be accented in prose) for metrical reasons. The general law of English verse is that only those syllables which bear the accent of the first class (that is, which are stressed in common speech), together with monosyllables which on occasion are stressed in common speech, shall be placed so as to receive the metrical stress; and that, if the word-stress and the metrical stress apparently conflict, the metrical stress must yield. Less generally, the rhetorical or syntactical accent in the same way takes precedence of the metrical. In both cases exceptions are of course numerous. The following are examples of verses showing a conflict between the normal prose-accent and the normal verse-accent, where--as commonly read--the prose- (word-) accent triumphs. The blessed damozel leaned out _From the gold bar_ of heaven. (ROSSETTI: _The Blessed Damozel._) _Love is_ a smoke _raised with_ the fume of sighs; Being purged, a fire _sparkling_ in lover's eyes; Being vexed, a sea _nourished_ with lover's tears. (SHAKSPERE: _Romeo and Juliet_, I. i. 196 ff.) Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness, And fear'st to die? _famine_ is in thy cheeks, _Need and_ oppression starveth in thine eyes. (SHAKSPERE: _ib._ V. i. 68 ff.) _Till, at_ his second bidding, Darkness fled, _Light_ shone, and order from disorder sprung. _Swift to_ their several quarters hasted then The cumbrous elements--_Earth_, Flood, _Air_, Fire; And this ethereal quintessence of Heaven Flew upward, _spirited_ with various forms, That rolled orbicular, and turned to stars _Numberless_, as thou seest, and how they move. (MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, iii. 712 ff.) _She was_ a gordian shape of dazzling hue, Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue; _Striped like_ a zebra, freckled like a pard, _Eyed like_ a peacock, and all crimson barred. (KEATS: _Lamia_, i. 47 ff.) _"Boys!"_ shriek'd the old king, but vainlier than a hen _To her_ false daughters in the pool; for none Regarded; neither seem'd there more to say. _Back_ rode we to my father's camp, and found He thrice had sent a herald to the gates. (TENNYSON: _The Princess_, v. 318 ff.)