<P> In poetry, enjambment (/ ɛnˈdʒæmbmənt / or / ɛnˈdʒæmmənt /; from the French enjambement) is incomplete syntax at the end of a line; the meaning runs over from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation . Lines without enjambment are end - stopped . </P> <P> In reading, the delay of meaning creates a tension that is released when the word or phrase that completes the syntax is encountered (called the rejet); the tension arises from the "mixed message" produced both by the pause of the line - end, and the suggestion to continue provided by the incomplete meaning . In spite of the apparent contradiction between rhyme, which heightens closure, and enjambment, which delays it, the technique is compatible with rhymed verse . Even in couplets, the closed or heroic couplet was a late development; older is the open couplet, where rhyme and enjambed lines co-exist . </P> <P> Enjambment has a long history in poetry . Homer used the technique, and it is the norm for alliterative verse where rhyme is unknown . In the 32nd Psalm of the Hebrew Bible enjambment is unusually conspicuous . It was used extensively in England by Elizabethan poets for dramatic and narrative verses, before giving way to closed couplets . The example of John Milton in Paradise Lost laid the foundation for its subsequent use by the English Romantic poets; in its preface he identified it as one of the chief features of his verse: "sense variously drawn out from one verse into another". </P>

When do you start a new line in poetry