That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss; and of But com’st a decent maid, In Attic robe array’ɖ, are clearly different. There is nothing arbitrary or out of the poet’s control in this, as there is nothing arbitrary or out of his control in the way in which an adequate reader will stress particular syllables. He brings both about by the same means, the modification of the reader’s impulses by what has gone before. It is true that some words resist emphasis far more than perhaps any resist change of pitch, yet this difference is merely one of degree. It is as natural to lower the pitch in reading the word ‘loss’ as it is to emphasise it as compared with ‘our’ in the same context. Here again we see how impossible it is to consider rhythm or metre as though it were purely an affair of the sensory aspect of syllables and could be dissociated from their sense and from the emotional effects which come about through their sense. One principle may, however, be hazarded. As in the case of painting the more direct means are preferable to the less direct (see Chapter XVIII), so in poetry. What can be done by sound should not be done otherwise or in violation of the natural effects of sound. Violations of the natural emphases and tones of speech brought about for the sake of the further effects due to thought and feeling are perilous, though, on occasion, they may be valuable devices. The use of italics in _Cain_ to straighten out the blank verse is as glaring an instance as any. But more liberties are justified in dramatic writing than elsewhere, and poetry is full of exceptions to such principles.[50] We must not forget that Milton did not disdain to use special spelling, ‘mee’, for example, in place of ‘me’, in order to suggest additional emphasis when he feared that the reader might be careless. So far we have been concerned with metre only as a specialised form of rhythm, giving an increased interconnection between words through an increased control of anticipation. But it has other, in some cases even more important powers. Its use as an hypnotic agent is probably very ancient. Coleridge once again drops his incidental remark, just beside yet extremely close to the point. “It tends to increase the vivacity and susceptibility both of the general feelings and of the attention. This effect it produces by the continued excitement of surprise, and by the quick reciprocations of curiosity still gratified and still re-excited, which are too slight indeed to be at any moment objects of distinct consciousness, yet become considerable in their aggregate influence. As a medicated atmosphere, or as wine during animated conversation, they act powerfully, though themselves unnoticed.” (_Biographia Literaria_, Chap. XVIII.) Mr Yeats, when he speaks of the function of metre being to “lull the mind into a waking trance” is describing the same effect, however strange his conception of this trance may be.