I. FOUR-STRESS VERSE 151 A.--Non-syllable-counting 151 B.--Syllable-counting (Octosyllabic Couplet) 160 II. FIVE-STRESS VERSE 174 A.---The Decasyllabic Couplet 174 B.--Blank Verse 213 III. SIX-STRESS AND SEVEN-STRESS VERSE 252 A.--The Alexandrine (Iambic Hexameter) 252 B.--The Septenary 259 C.--The "Poulter's Measure" 265 IV. THE SONNET 267 A.--The Regular (Italian) Sonnet 270 B.--The English (Shaksperian) Sonnet 290 V. THE ODE 298 A.--Regular Pindaric 299 B.--Irregular (Cowleyan) 307 C.--Choral 323 VI. IMITATIONS OF CLASSICAL METRES 330 A.--Lyrical Measures 331 B.--Dactylic Hexameter 340 VII. IMITATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL FRENCH LYRICAL FORMS 358 A.--The Ballade 360 B.--The Rondeau and Rondel 368 i. "Rondel" type 369 ii. "Rondeau" type 371 C.--The Villanelle 376 D.--The Triolet 381 E.--The Sestina 383 PART THREE THE TIME-ELEMENT IN ENGLISH VERSE 391 PART FOUR THE PLACE AND FUNCTION OF THE METRICAL ELEMENT IN POETRY 413 Aristotle 413 Sir Philip Sidney 416 Samuel Johnson 417 Wordsworth 417 Coleridge 420 Shelley 422 William Hazlitt 423 Leigh Hunt 425 Theodore Watts 426 Edmund Gurney 427 W. J. Courthope 429 E. C. Stedman 432 F. B. Gummere 433 APPENDIX TABLE ILLUSTRATING THE HISTORY OF THE HEROIC COUPLET 437 PART ONE ENGLISH VERSE I. ACCENT AND TIME A.--KINDS OF ACCENT The accents of English syllables as appearing in verse are commonly classified in two ways: according to degree of intensity, and according to cause or significance.