Poetry Hacks

Here the poet evokes a Golden Age in which man lived alongside animals without feeling the need to kill them for meat or fur. 'The state of Nature was the reign of God' he says, and the lines have a suitably balanced, calm, rational quality enhanced by each pentameter being neatly halved using a caesura.

Another example … ‘Sonnet 73’ by William Shakespeare:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold

In comparing his ageing self to a tree in winter, the speaker uses two caesuras in quick succession after an enjambed line containing none. This places emphasis on the shaking leaves and makes them seem sparse and somehow pitiful.

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