The line of twelve syllables is the most important and widely used of all and is known as the Alexandrine, from a poem of the twelfth century celebrating the exploits of Alexander the Great, which is one of the earliest examples of its use. It is almost without exception the measure of serious and dignified dramatic and narrative poetry, and even in lyric verse it is used more frequently than any other. From MALHERBE to VICTOR HUGO the accepted rule demanded a caesura after the sixth syllable and a pause at the end of the line; this divided the line into two equal portions and separated each line from its neighbors, preventing the overflow (_enjambement_) of one line into the next. The line thus constructed had two fixed stresses, one on the sixth syllable, before the caesura, which therefore had to be the final syllable of a word and could not have mute _e_ for its vowel, and another on the final (twelfth) syllable. There are indeed in the poets of that period examples of lines in which, when naturally read, the most considerable pause falls in some other position; but the line always offers in the sixth place a syllable capable of a principal stress. There was also regularly one other stressed syllable in each half-line; it might be any one of the first five syllables, but is most frequently the third, second, or fourth, rarely the first or fifth; but the secondary stress might be wanting altogether; a third stressed syllable in the half-line sometimes occurs. The Romanticists introduced a somewhat greater flexibility into the Alexandrine line by permitting the displacement or suppression of the caesura and the overflow of one line into the next; the displacement of the caesura sometimes goes so far as to put in the sixth place in the line a syllable quite incapable of receiving a stress. In the following stanza of Lamartine (see p. 60), which consists of Alexandrine lines of the classical type, the stressed syllables are indicated by italics and the caesura by a dash: Sal_u_t, bois couronn_é_s--d'un r_e_ste de verd_u_re! Feuill_a_ges jauniss_a_nts--sur les gaz_o_ns ép_a_is! Sal_u_t, derniers beaux j_ou_rs!--Le d_eu_il de la nat_u_re Conv_ie_nt à la doul_eu_r--et pl_aî_t à mes reg_a_rds. Cf. for examples of displaced caesura, Hugo's lines-- Je marcher_ai_--les yeux fix_é_s sur mes pens_é_es (p. 121,l. 25.) Seul, inconn_u_,--le dos courb_é_,--les mains crois_é_es (p. 121, l. 27.) For examples of enjambement, cf. Leconte de Lisle's Lines-- L'ecclési_a_ste a d_i_t:--Un chien viv_a_nt vaut mi_eu_x Qu'un lion m_o_rt (p. 201, l. 21). O boucher_i_e!--ô soif du m_eu_rtre!--acharnem_e_nt Horr_i_ble! (p. 210, l. 21). Unrhymed lines (blank verse) and lines of which only the alternate ones rhyme have been tried but discarded.