Elision can designate some things described elsewhere in the definitions of other terms; synaeresis is a kind of elision. Also, ordinary contractions such as "it's" might be considered elision, except that they are well established in ordinary speech and prose. Other elisions can seem affected, and might be best seen as poetic contractions. Here, elision means the joining of two words by the omission of a vowel, for the purpose of maintaining the syllable count or rhythm of a line of poetry. Alexander Pope sometimes elides the definite article to an open vowel following it--and sometimes does not; the examples below suggest that for him, elision was required when "the" preceded an unstressed open vowel:

                    Th' inferior Priestess, at her Altar's side

                    NOT with more Glories, in th' Etherial Plain,

                    Th' Adventrous Baron the bright Locks admir'd,
                    He saw, he wish'd, and to the Prize aspir'd:

                    Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame

Oliver Goldsmith seems to have been far more uneasy than Pope about open vowels; in the entirety of The Deserted Village one finds a single instance: "the old," plus one marked elision in the line, "Redress the rigours of th' inclement clime."

Milton seems to have expected his readers automatically to supply elision whenever needed, without explicit marking:

                    Amongst the enthronèd gods on sainted seats

In addition to these examples using "the," poets have employed all manner of elisions to maintain their meters.
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