The trochaic inversion

[milo]

The delightful effect of the metrical variation is still the same but - short answer - it does not work as well in IT and the reason is that ip has 5 feet to play with and one gets replaced making it still overwhelmingly IP while IT only has 4 so it is a little less.  If smoothly executed I don't think it would be an issue, though.

Thanks for your patience, I’m sure “smoothly executed” is the key.

So does it work smoothly in these lines?

a tiny sprout safe in his arms, alert

now cousins descend anxious to take their turn

I see 2 inversions

aTIN ySPROUT SAFEin hisARMS - 1 here on SAFEin hisARMS - reads perfectly to me and it is a pleasant metrical deviation

nowCOU sinsde SCEND  (caesura) ANXious toTAKE theirTURN - what you have here is very interesting and if couched in a strong predominant ip meter would work very well (imo) .  You have split the line in 2 with a caesura (it is the pause you are making between SCEND and ANX)  and you have 2 inversions in the line.  The tension in the line is fantastic - i just don't know if the prosaic cousins descending is matching the energy but that is a discussion for another day.

Metrically, both work in very different ways.  The second is more interesting but also probably more dangerous.