PINDARIC MEASURES. These hold an intermediate position between stanzas and continuous verse. They are divided into strophes, which seldom contain more than twenty-eight or fewer than fourteen lines. Irregularity may be said to be their law; the lines, as well as the strophes, are of different lengths, and the rhymes are arranged in half-a-dozen different ways. For an example, see p. 327. As a general rule they are in iambic measure; but trochaic lines are sometimes introduced with striking effect. Thus in Gray's Bard, which consists of nine strophes, six containing fourteen, and three twenty lines, each shorter strophe opens with a trochaic line, so as to produce the sense of abruptness which the poet was aiming at: Ruin seize thee, | ruthless | king, | Confusion on thy banners wait. I |