05-09-2014, 12:03 PM
It looks like Frost's poem "Mowing" is saving my arse once more. The final line in the poem has an inversion in it:
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.
The inversion is not an inversion of subject/verb, but is an inversion of verb (an infinitive) and object, and is clearly contrary to normal syntax. Without the inversion, it would read:
My long scythe whispered and left to make the hay.
Milo, are you going to tell me that this inversion is not poetic? That it doesn't add an interesting dimension to the poem?
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.
The inversion is not an inversion of subject/verb, but is an inversion of verb (an infinitive) and object, and is clearly contrary to normal syntax. Without the inversion, it would read:
My long scythe whispered and left to make the hay.
Milo, are you going to tell me that this inversion is not poetic? That it doesn't add an interesting dimension to the poem?