...art but of dust; be humble and be wise. ( The latter only of the two following is an Alexandrine. ) A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. 200. Seven Iambuses. \ The melancholy days have come, the saddest of the year Of wailing winds and...

...famous passage from An Essay on Criticism quoted earlier, heaps his scorn on such concluding devices: "A needless Alexandrine ends the Song, / That like a wounded Snake, drags its slow length along," brilliantly slowing up his own line with the "slow length." It is interesting to observe that, less...

...streams 'with pleasing murmurs creep': The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with 'sleep.' (Fr. II) 43 ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted over In states unborn and accents yet unknown! (Fr. II) 44 True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd...

...alexandrine, and Pope vividly demonstrated the reasons for its relative unpopularity among English poets: 'A needless Alexandrine ends the song/ That like a wounded snake drags its slow length along'. The monometer (onefoot line) is rare, like the heptameter (seven-foot line), also called a 'fourteener'...

...crystal streams 'with pleasing murmurs creep,' The reader's threatened (not in vain) with 'sleep.' Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some...own dull rhymes, and know What's roundly smooth, or languishing!}- slow; And praise the easy vigour of a line, 360 Where Denham's strength, and Waller's...

...by Pope, in his "discussion" of writing style: The reader's threatened (not in vain) with 'sleep.' Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some...like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. ("An Essay on Criticism") Working with lines in lengths beyond the pentameter, except for the occasional...

...respectively), few versions have followed the example. Pope's well-known comment continues to bite ('A needless Alexandrine ends the song,/ That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along'). The weight and ponderousness of the metre in EngUsh are a substantial disadvantage, evoking as they...

...occasion. 15. Uncomplimentary lines borrowed from Pope's Essay on Criticism, Part 2, lines 356-57. "A needless Alexandrine ends the song, / That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along." Bonner repeats this allusion in Boston column 6. 1 6. Linked with the words "went under," possibly...

...Night a Traveler. Perhaps most famously, Pope's Essay on Criticism partially consists of lines such as "A needless Alexandrine ends the song, / That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along."2 Much self-reference of interest to critics is less transparent. The text has a "surface" reading...

...Essay on Criticism", a poem that is rich in examples of iconic strategies, comes to mind (11. 354-357): Then, at the last, and only Couplet fraught With some...like a wounded Snake, drags its slow length along. The above sequence of iambic pentameters ends in the long (hexametric) alexandrine "That like a wounded...