# Pentameter Progression



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

This is a (pretty pointless) game for any English Literature buffs out there.

The idea is that each poster quotes an iambic pentameter. It must be from a source different from the one above - a different author, or the same author but a different poem or verse play.

Thus poster one might write (quoting Milton):

*When I consider how my light is spent -  
*
and poster 2 add (from Shakespeare):

*Full many a glorious morning have I seen - 
*
and poster three (from Wordsworth) -

*Earth has not anything to show more fair -*

and poster 4 (from Dylan Thomas) -

*Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. *

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, you see I was right, it *is* pretty pointless - unless, like me, you take pleasure in the roll of the words and the quirky juxtaposition of ideas, and you just love the sound of English poetry.

(There's also the interest of being able to identify the line - and if not, googling it.  )

Thanks in advance for any replies. :tiphat:


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

*It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul -*


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Brought death into the World, and all our woe -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance -


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow -


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

That strain again! it had a dying fall -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful -


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## TennysonsHarp (Apr 30, 2017)

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall -


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre -


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## Guest (Oct 3, 2017)

What mighty contests rise from trivial things!


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

But I have that within which passeth show


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## Guest (Oct 3, 2017)

Yet I'll not mar that whiter skin of hers than monumental alabaster.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace -


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## Guest (Oct 3, 2017)

He shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> And he shall make the face of heaven so fine
> That all the world will be in love with night
> And pay no worship to the garish sun.


Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines -


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Heav'n has no rage like love to hatred turn'd.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Ingélou said:


> Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines -


My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

A woman that is like a German clock...!


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Her vestal livery is but sick and green -


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## Guest (Oct 3, 2017)

Perdition, catch my soul but I do love thee!!


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## TennysonsHarp (Apr 30, 2017)

Just when we're safest there's a sunset touch


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## Guest (Oct 3, 2017)

But soft, what light from yonder window breaks?


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## TennysonsHarp (Apr 30, 2017)

Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head!


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Never, never, never, never, never —


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

'Tis not so sweet now as it was before -


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## TennysonsHarp (Apr 30, 2017)

And after many a summer dies the swan


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

The Schwann catalogue.
gone; not forgotten.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

TennysonsHarp said:


> And after many a summer dies the swan


Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang -


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Ingélou said:


> Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang -


Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?


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## TennysonsHarp (Apr 30, 2017)

Where are the songs of Spring, ay, where are they?


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

If music be the food of love, play on -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

If music and sweet poetry agree -


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## Guest (Oct 3, 2017)

Think not of them; thou hasn't thy music too.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

It was the nightingale, and not the lark -


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## Guest (Oct 3, 2017)

I can't possibly think of it today; I'll think of it tomorrow.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> I can't possibly think of it today; I'll think of it tomorrow.












Nice - though not a pentameter! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting -


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## Guest (Oct 4, 2017)

Ingélou said:


> Nice - though not a pentameter!
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting -


Correct. I was just trying to be smart because I ran out of ideas!!!


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> Correct. I was just trying to be *smart* because I ran out of ideas!!!


And you were! :tiphat:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

:kiss: Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part -


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Where the hornèd partridge lurks and frolics


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Dr Johnson said:


> Where the hornèd partridge lurks and frolics


_ Never heard that one before!  _ 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

See! from the brake the whirring pheasant* springs -

(might be even better as a whirring peasant...  )


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Like quivers hung, and with preamble sweet


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

The paths of glory lead but to the grave...


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Do not go gentle into that good night


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## TennysonsHarp (Apr 30, 2017)

Beauty is truth, truth beauty--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Mother of science, now I feel thy power


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night—


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note -


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

She would no longer walk her way, but fly.


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## TennysonsHarp (Apr 30, 2017)

A storm was coming, but the winds were still -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold -


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,



(made more sense)


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

That breathes upon a bank of violets -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape -


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

To take into the air my quiet breath -


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchang'd -


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Beyond all date, even to eternity:


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

And so the dawnéd light in pomp receive -


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Believe me, love, it was the nightingale -


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Old age should rage at end of day...


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon...


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2017)

There's a divinity that shapes our ends.


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## TennysonsHarp (Apr 30, 2017)

And God fulfills himself in many ways -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan -


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead -


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2017)

This music mads me: let it sound no more;


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Where there is neither sense of life or joys -


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Each in his narrow cell untimely laid


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Emotion revealed as the ocean maid,


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Dr Johnson said:


> Emotion revealed as the ocean maid,


A tetrameter, surely?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I can call spirits from the vasty deep -


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Scansion was never my strong point.

Although:

emo -| tion rev - | ealed as - | the oc - | ean maid


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2017)

Dr Johnson said:


> Scansion was never my strong point.


I see what you did there, Dr Johnson.


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2017)

Ingélou said:


> A tetrameter, surely?
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Now see who's breaking the rules, Ingelou!


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

^^^^ We both are - but I'm (and was) only doing so temporarily while searching for a pentameter on oceans. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In vast sea-cataracts- ever and anon -


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Likewise, likewise, likewise, likewise, likewise


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Dr Johnson said:


> Scansion was never my strong point.
> 
> Although:
> 
> emo -| tion rev - | ealed as - | the oc - | ean maid


Decasyllabic but still not a pentameter! 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks -


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

While shepherds gathered to wash their socks -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Into the living sea of waking dreams -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?


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## TennysonsHarp (Apr 30, 2017)

To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play -


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Against the stormy gusts of winter's day -


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2017)

Set down, set down your honourable load...


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Demand me nothing. What you know, you know.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Then of thy beauty do I question make -


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2017)

But Brutus was an honourable man!


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## TennysonsHarp (Apr 30, 2017)

So are they all, all honorable men -


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## Guest (Oct 8, 2017)

Ingélou said:


> Decasyllabic but still not a pentameter!


[I started a post yesterday to ask how strictly we are adhering to IP? Given the Bard's constant playing with, subverting of it, a ten-syllable line is surely a permissible pentameter? It's not necessarily an iamb though, is it? I'm afraid that great as Mr Jenkins was who taught me such things, he couldn't guarantee that all his wise words would still be with me 40 years after school!]


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> [I started a post yesterday to ask how strictly we are adhering to IP? Given the Bard's constant playing with, subverting of it, a ten-syllable line is surely a permissible pentameter? It's not necessarily an iamb though, is it? I'm afraid that great as Mr Jenkins was who taught me such things, he couldn't guarantee that all his wise words would still be with me 40 years after school!]


As the OP and the title of the thread indicates, I was aiming at 'pentameters'. The iambic pentameter is the staple line of English poetry, and I was hoping to see posters' favourite lines, and to enjoy seeing if I could identify them, or using google if I didn't.

I didn't talk about 'iambic' pentameters because there is wide variation in individual lines, but if they have five stresses, they are still pentameters.

Sometimes people have posted pentameters that they've made up, or lines by famous poets that are not pentameters. Sometimes they've posted more than one line and not observed the line ending. Sometimes somebody, even, doesn't seem to get the point of the thread and posts a joke.

When any of that happens, I'm disappointed, and I sometimes feel constrained to point out that the post doesn't fit the thread title. Mostly I ignore it and carry on. I don't feel called upon to be a policewoman of prosody in a fun game for adults.

The problem with Dr Johnson's line, quoted from a lyric not a poem, was that it doesn't have five 'stresses', even though it has ten syllables. It only has four 'beats'. Many pentameters have more than ten syllables, but that doesn't matter if they have five beats. The ear accepts them. Shakespeare includes prose speeches and shorter couplets in his plays, lines with feminine endings, half lines, lots of enjambments, but when he is writing blank verse, his lines usually do have five stresses.

But I don't really see this as a game with strict rules - more a pentameter-fest - so I think anyone who wants to should just carry on posting pentameters, regardless of interruptions. And if everybody gets fed up and the thread ceases, that's the way of the world - I've been surprised, actually, by the inventive and enthusiastic posts. I'm glad that other people love the roll of these lines as much as I do.

In my years of teaching poetry at A-level, I found that scansion was a subject that caused some students difficulty. It caused difficulty for me, when I was required to scan Vergil's lines in my Latin O-level. I survived my exam by following the decoding rules that Miss James taught me. But she knew how a Latin hexameter worked by saying it aloud, or aloud in her head. And I can hear how a line of English poetry should be scanned and where the stresses fall, by doing the same. That's why I love these pentameters - I love reciting them and seeing how the pattern and the sense of the words coalesce.

And that's why I've enjoyed most of these contributions, and I thank posters for responding. :tiphat:

And now back to the 'game'. :tiphat:


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

TennysonsHarp said:


> So are they all, all honorable men -


A glooming peace this morning with it brings.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

When Ajax strives some rock’s vast weight to throw -


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## Guest (Oct 8, 2017)

Ingélou said:


> I didn't talk about 'iambic' pentameters because there is wide variation in individual lines, but if they have five stresses, they are still pentameters.


[You mean you didn't talk about 'iambic' pentameters when rejecting Dr Johnson's line? (You did talk about iambic pentameters in the OP)]

Meanwhile, back at the game...

This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> [You mean you didn't talk about 'iambic' pentameters when rejecting Dr Johnson's line? (You did talk about iambic pentameters in the OP)]


I did talk about 'iambic pentameters' in the OP because that's the basic line, despite the 'allowed' variations. However, I purposely chose to call the thread Pentameter Progression, and I made it clear that it was a 'pretty pointless' bit of fun for those who loved the sound of English poetry. I would think the inference from that was that I wouldn't be stepping in to police the metre every time it wasn't *strictly* iambic. Any screed of blank verse that adheres strictly to the rules is usually stiff and lifeless, as I expect you know.

I think it's also pretty clear from the OP that I wasn't inviting people to make up their own pentameters. And you may have seen that I didn't talk about 'iambic' pentameters when commenting on Dr Johnson's tetrameter.

May I suggest that if you want a full-blown legalistic discussion of prosody, you start your own thread, MacLeod? All these asides are holding up the game.) 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy -

In fair round belly with good capon lined -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too -


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

I cannot say what loves have come and gone -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing -


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

For ever panting, and for ever young;


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## TennysonsHarp (Apr 30, 2017)

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

The iamb's not an easy prey to hunt!


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy -


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

But wherefore do not you a mightier way -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

- From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move -


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly? -


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

That strain again! It had a dying fall-


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Totenfeier said:


> That strain again! It had a dying fall-


That strain again! I did it as I fell...


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Totenfeier said:


> That strain again! It had a dying fall-


Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not -


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

The quality of mercy is not strained.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Now is the winter of our discontent =


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Sermons and soda-water the day after.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Let me have men about me that are fat -


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

O that this too too solid flesh would melt -


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look


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## TennysonsHarp (Apr 30, 2017)

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O you are men of stones!


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