and vitality.

At the time of the production of _Palamon and Arcite_ Dryden had, by
long practice, become an absolute master of the verse he used. As we
have seen, his early work was impregnated with the peculiarities of the
Marinists; and even after the ascendency of French taste at the
Restoration he still dallied with the stanza, and was not free from
conceits. But his work in the heroic drama and in satire had determined
his verse form and developed his ability in its use. In this poem, as in
the bulk of his work, he employs the unenjambed pentameter distich; that
is, a couplet with five accented syllables in each verse and with the
sense terminating with the couplet. Dryden's mastery of this couplet was
marvelous. He did not attain to the perfect polish of Pope a score of
years later, but he possessed more vitality; and to this strength must
be added a fluent grace and a ready sequence which increased the beauty
of the measure and gave to it a nervous energy of movement. The great
danger that attends the use of the distich is monotony; but Dryden
avoided this. By a constant variation of cadence, he threw the natural
pause now near the start, now near the close, and now in the midst of
his verse, and in this way developed a rhythm that never wearies the ear
with monotonous recurrence. He employed for this same purpose the
hemistich or half-verse, the triplet or three consecutive verses with
the same rhyme, and the Alexandrine with its six accents and its
consequent well-rounded fullness.

So much for _Palamon and Arcite_. First put into English by the best
story-teller in our literature, it was retold at the close of the
seventeenth century by the greatest poet of his generation, one of whose
chief claims to greatness lies in his marvelous ability for adaptation
and paraphrase.