extra unstressed syllable of the feminine ending may appear before it. Shakespeare and John Milton (in his work before Paradise Lost) at times employed feminine endings before a caesura. Here is the first quatrain of a sonnet by John Donne, which demonstrates how he uses a number of metrical variations strategically. This scansion adds numbers to indicate how Donne uses a variety of stress levels to realize his beats and offbeats (1 = lightest stress, 4 = heaviest stress): 4 1 1 4 3 4 1 4 1 2 / × × / × / × / × / Batter my heart three-personed God, for you 1 3 2 4 3 4 1 4 1 4 × / × / × / × / × / As yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend. 1 2 1 4 1 4 2 4 1(1) 4 × / × / × / × / ×(×) / That I may rise and stand o'erthrow me and bend 1 4 1 4 3 4 1 4 1 4 × / × / × / × / × / Your force to break, blow, burn and make me new. Donne uses an inversion (DUM da instead of da DUM) in the first foot of the first line to stress the key verb, "batter", and then sets up a clear iambic pattern with the rest of the line (da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM). In the second and fourth lines he uses strongly-stressed offbeats (which can be interpreted as spondees) in the third foot to slow down the rhythm as he lists monosyllabic verbs. The parallel rhythm and grammar of these lines highlights the comparison Donne sets up between what God does to him "as yet" ("knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend"), and what he asks God to do ("break, blow, burn and make me new"). Donne also uses enjambment between lines three and four to speed up the flow as he builds to his desire to be made new. To further the speed-up effect of the enjambment, Donne puts an extra syllable in the final foot of the line (this can be read as an anapest (dada DUM) or as an elision). Percy Bysshe Shelley also used skilful variation of the metre in his Ode to the West Wind: × / × / | × / × / × /(×)