What do you call it when you transpose the last two words of a sentence on purpose?

Question

Such as: "Once upon a midnight dreary" Instead of "Once upon a dreary midnight?"

Or: "Hark! What light through yon window breaks" Instead of "What light is breaking through that window?"

Or: "God rest ye merry gentleman, let nothing you dismay?" Instead of "...Let nothing dismay you?"

Your examples are not just transposing the last two words of the sentence. That would imply the "normal" equivalent of "Hark! What light through yon window breaks" is ""Hark! What light through yon breaks window." In fact, they show various alternative word orders, which aren't especially related to one another. So I doubt there is a single name that encompasses all three examples. — herisson, Apr 20 '16 at 04:03
For the first example, I think the answer to the question here fits: Noun-adjective pattern name — herisson, Apr 20 '16 at 04:04
For the third, and possibly the second example, I would recommend checking out the answers to the questions linked from here: Unusual word order in a sentence It looks like fitting words might be anastrophe and hyperbaton. — herisson, Apr 20 '16 at 04:08

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:38

As per tchrist's answer to the linked possible duplicate, a technical term for this is anastrophe:

Inversion of the normal syntactic order of words; for example, "Matter too soft a lasting mark to bear" (Alexander Pope). - thefreedictionary.com

A more general term, but one that is in more widely used and that best covers the motive for doing such a thing would be poetic licence:

The liberty taken by an artist or a writer in deviating from conventional form or fact to achieve a desired effect. - thefreedictionary.com

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