Its favorite measure, the decasyllabic couplet, moulded by Jonson, Sandys, Waller, Denham, and Dryden, it accepted reverently, as an heirloom not to be essentially altered but to be polished until it shone more brightly than ever.

[Footnote 1: This poem is made up of alternate decasyllabic anapests and dodecasyllabic amphibrachs, thus: / | / | /