Fully declensive languages such as Latin or Russian allow enormous syntactic freedom – word order can be shuffled almost at will without changing meaning. Or can it? Only, I suggest, if we limit ourselves to the crudest interpretation of 'meaning'. Modifying word order introduces subtle distinctions of emphasis that affect meaning at deeper than the most superficial level. Which is why declensive languages are widely considered by perceptive poets as the most expressive.

So we, who write in almost entirely non-declensive English, seem at first sight to be at a disadvantage. We're taught that word order in Good English is pretty much standardised and that departures from that standard are inadmissible – that tampering with syntax can render us subject to a sin tax. But that's not quite true. Let's take for example the Pundits' Shibboleth – the split infinitive –

 to read your poem happily
 to happily read your poem

Supposedly, the first is 'legitimate' but the second is a notional offence against the purity of the language (sorry, Star Trek – you can't Boldly Go). However, it might reasonably be argued that the modified syntax could reflect a difference of emphasis between an expectation of the poem making the reader happy in the first case and expression of a generous desire to read it in the second.

The problem here is one of the negative aspects of Tradition, from the days when Latin was considered the bees knees of literary language. Latin verb infinitives have a distinct declensive final syllable so there is no need for a prefix (the English 'to'). It was therefore assumed that the English infinitive consisted of the prefix and the verb inseparably linked (a kind of 'prefix declension'), simply because Latin was the ideal we should follow. However old habits do die – as long ago as 1918, Fowler & Fowler's 'The Kings English', while describing the split infinitive as 'an ugly thing',1 already doesn't prohibit it, and Philip Howard some six decades later confirms that a split infinitive is preferable to ambiguity.2

However, these positions merely indicate grudging acceptance of a specific bone of contention. But more generally (beyond the pure infinitive), syntactic variation, if used intelligently, can be a powerful expressive tool. So

 happily I will read your poem
 I will happily read your poem 3
 I will read your poem happily

  are quite distinct. The first indicates that the potential reader is in a position (e.g. has the free time) to read the poem; the second, that there is a volition or desire to read it; and the third that the potential reader expects to be in a happy state of mind when reading it.

Of course, one can take syntactic variation too far – to the point where it obscures, rather than elucidating, meaning. A tabloid headline I encountered a couple of years back read 'Police Shoot Dead Man with Crossbow', which seemed somewhat unlikely.

All this may seem rather abstract, but it's not – it matters practically, very much indeed. Our mission as poets should be to communicate the most subtle possible meanings in our messages, so it's essential both to develop a firm understanding of the wide implications of the words we use, and to pay deep attention to the resulting nuances of meaning when they're assembled into phrases and sentences. But it's equally essential to avoid the trap of viewing syntactic variations as tricks to enliven moribund verse. They won't. Ultimately, it's the meaning that matters most to the reader.

 [1] H.W. & F.G. Fowler, The King's English, Oxford, The Clarendon Press 1918, page 319.

 [2] Philip Howard, The Satae of the Language, Hamish Hamilton 1984, page 130

 [3] yes, the dreaded split infinitive!