Come away, come away, Death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O prepare it! My part of death, no one so true Did share it. (SHAKSPERE: _Twelfth Night_, II. iv.) The characteristic irregularity in this stanza is the variation from trochaic to iambic rhythm. In this case the variations are in part due, no doubt, to the fact that the words were written for music. Maud with her exquisite face, And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky, And feet like sunny gems on an English green, Maud in the light of her youth and her grace, Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot die, Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean And myself so languid and base. (TENNYSON: _Maud_, I. v.) In this specimen the characteristic rhythm of lines 1, 4, and 5 is dactylic, that of the remainder anapestic-iambic. The trumpet's loud clangor Excites us to arms With shrill notes of anger And mortal alarms. The double double double beat Of the thundering drum Cries, hark! the foes come; Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat. The soft complaining flute In dying notes discovers The woes of helpless lovers, Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. (DRYDEN: _Song for St. Cecilia's Day_, 1687.) In this famous stanza the rhythm changes for obvious purposes of imitative representation. Children dear, was it yesterday (Call yet once) that she went away? Once she sate with you and me, On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, And the youngest sate on her knee. She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well, When down swung the sound of a far-off bell. She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea; She said, "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray In the little gray church on the shore to-day. 'Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me! And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee." I said, "Go up, dear heart, through the waves; Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!" She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay. Children dear, was it yesterday?