End-stopped lines are those that conclude with a definite pause, at least a with comma, in poems where the effect of the meter depends on maintaining the integrity of the individual line. The expectation of end-stopped lines was most pronounced in the eighteenth century. Samuel Johnson could scarcely allow that Milton really wrote poetry in Paradise Lost because many of the lines are not end-stopped, but rather are examples of enjambment. In Shakespeare's earlier, more formal, plays, many end-stopped lines can be found; his later practice was to treat the line much more freely. The most extremely end-stopped lines are the second lines of closed heroic couplets; an example from Pope's Essay on Man  follows:

                                III. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
                                 All but the page prescrib'd, their present state;
                                 From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
                                 Or who could suffer Being here below?
                                 The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
                                 Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play?
                                 Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
                                 And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
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