[Grammar] I can't understand these sentences. Help me!

[eggcracker]

I think it's Inversion, but I can't understand it well..
I know there can be Inversion if negative words are in the clause or sentence, but I saw different kinds of Inversion clause not like before. Please check these sentences.
"First had come the persians and then the Muslim Arabs." (Why here is inversion even though here is no negative words?)

 

[SoothingDave]

Inversion is often found with negative constructions, but not always. Inversion can occur in other cases for emphasis or for poetic reasons.

 

[eggcracker]

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!

 

[Barb_D]

Note Persians needs a capital P

 

[TheParser]

"First had come the persians and then the Muslim Arabs."

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


May I add my two cents to Soothing Dave's excellent answer?

(1) In "regular order," you would have something like:


"The Persians had come first and the Muslim Arabs had come later."



(a) Now read out loud the inverted sentence and stress (emphasize) the underlined words:

First had come the Persians, and then the Muslim Arabs.

Doesn't that sound more elegant? Almost like music.

*****

I found this beautiful sentence in the second volume of A Grammar of the English Language, written by the one and only

Professor George Oliver Curme:

Then came the dreaded end! And fast into this perilous gulf of night walked Bosinney [a person's name] and fast after

him walked George. (from a novel called The Man of Property by the British author Galsworthy)

If that sentence used regular order, it would sound so boring.


*****

A few days ago, I read this beautiful sentence: "Let thy [your] sound my death tell."

I had to read it at least 15 times before I realized that the regular order was:

"Let thy sound tell my death." (The "sound" refers to a bell that announces a person's death.)


HAVE A NICE DAY!

 

[SoothingDave]

And even simple children's nursery rhymes sound lyrical with inversion:

...Down came the rain and washed the spider out
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain...