Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton tower,
And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.
I can see that this is a very old thread, but I'll put my two cents in:
Where does Hardy put the stress in "inland"? Could his pronunciation put it on the second (which is metrically more regular)?
"Stonehenge" has hovering stress, but the emphasis is primarily on the first syllable. A true rhyme for it would be something like "bone tinge." I've always thought that Hardy pulled off a marvelous effect here, rhyming a stressed syllable ("-venge") with one that is relatively weaker. This has the effect of weakening the poem's closure, almost like putting a set of ellipses after the final word. In other words, it could go further back than even Stonehenge, this history of violence.
I'm not sure of the geographical location of Stourton Tower. The three places move us progressively further back in time. Are we moving progressively inland too?
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