The Star in the West

THE LOOKING -GLASS 39 The fourth , to draw her kisses and to keep ; The fifth , for love ; the sixth , in sweet despair ; The seventh , to destroy us unaware ; The eighth , to dive within the infernal deep .' would scan better ; but by replacing it by “ within ” we can feel the dark waters close over us as we are borne down their unfathomable depths . Similarly in the following : Aching with all the pangs of night My shuddering body swoons ; my eyes Absorb her eyelids ' lazy light , And read her bosom 2 The extra half - step in “ shuddering ” in place of dis cordantly jarring on the metre produces a keener sense of agony in the reader's mind than a word which scanned correctly would do . In the next passage , taken from “ Tannhäuser , ” we find the introduction of a spondee carrying with it a curious sensation of slowness : Chaos , a speck ; and space , a span ; Ruinous cycles fallen in, And Darkness on the Deep of Time . Murmurous voices call and climb ; Faces , half - formed , arise ; and He Looked from the shadow of His throne , The curtain of Eternity ;: whilst in the last verse of “ The Palace of the World " the sudden dropping of a whole foot produces with it a sudden sense of finality : | The Temple of the Holy Ghost , vol . i, p . 183 . 2 Jezebel , vol . i, p . 131 . 3 Tannhäuser , vol . I, p . 251. ( The italics are mine .)