A Gasp That Blocks Your Throat

Click on this image for a larger view.One of the many things I love about metrical substitution is that it can guide you to read a poem in a certain way, and when used with harsh, clashing combinations of sound, it can force a poem's impact right down to your bones.

In this example, here and there an iamb has been replaced by a spondee, a foot with two-equally stressed syllables, to produce a hammering that forces the reader to pause:

wrought // not

scarred // acre

old // woe

hot // pain

Each time, the result is like a gasp that blocks your throat.