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diff --git a/32262-8.txt b/32262-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b006358 --- /dev/null +++ b/32262-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,18025 @@ +Project Gutenberg's English Verse, by Raymond MacDonald Alden, Ph.D. + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: English Verse + Specimens Illustrating its Principles and History + +Author: Raymond MacDonald Alden, Ph.D. + +Release Date: May 5, 2010 [EBook #32262] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH VERSE *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Louise Pattison and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +This e-text uses the Latin-1 ISO 8859-1 character set. The following +conventions are used to represent non-Latin-1 characters used in the +original: + + [=x] represents letter 'x' with macron. + [)x] represents letter 'x' with breve. + [gh] represents yogh. + [oe] represents oe ligature. + [^] represents a 'pause' mark in poetry. + ^{x} represents the letter 'x' superscripted. + +The following Latin-1 characters which may be unfamiliar are used in +this e-text: + + Ž, ž - upper and lower case thorn. + Š, š - upper and lower case eth. + +Footnotes have been numbered sequentially and moved to the end of each +chapter. + +Minor corrections to punctuation and capitalisation have been made +without note. Variant spelling, especially in Anglo-Saxon and middle +English poems, is as per the original. The following corrections to +typographical errors have been made: + + p.129: "I hope to get safely out of the turmoil" (had "... safety ...") + p.401: "It cannot be said, however," (Had "In ...") + p.457: "Lotos-Eaters" (Index entry, had "Lotus-Eaters") + + + + + ENGLISH VERSE + + _SPECIMENS ILLUSTRATING ITS PRINCIPLES AND HISTORY_ + + CHOSEN AND EDITED + + BY + + RAYMOND MACDONALD ALDEN, PH.D. + + _Associate Professor in Leland Stanford Junior + University_ + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK + + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + + + COPYRIGHT, 1903, + + BY + + HENRY HOLT & CO. + + + + + TO + + my Father and Mother + + WHO HAVE GIVEN + + BOTH THE INSPIRATION AND THE OPPORTUNITY + + FOR ALL MY STUDIES + + + + +PREFACE + + +The aim of this book is to give the materials for the inductive study of +English verse. Its origin was in certain university courses, for which +it proved to be necessary--often for use in a single hour's work--to +gather almost numberless books, some of which must ordinarily be +inaccessible except in the vicinity of large libraries. I have tried to +extract from these books the materials necessary for the study of +English verse-forms, adding notes designed to make the specimens +intelligible and useful. + +Dealing with a subject where theories are almost as numerous as those +who have written on it, it has been my purpose to avoid the setting +forth of my own opinions, and to present the subject-matter in a way +suited, so far as possible, to the use of those holding widely divergent +views. In the arrangement and naming of the earlier sections of the +book, some systematic theory of the subject--accepted at least +tentatively--was indeed indispensable; but I trust that even here those +who would apply to English verse a different classification or +terminology may be able to discard what they cannot approve and to make +use of the specimens from their own standpoint. Even where (as in these +introductory sections) the notes seem to overtop the text somewhat +threateningly, they are invariably intended--as the type indicates--to +be subordinate. Where it has been possible to do so, I have preferred to +present comments on the specimens in the words of other writers, and +have not confined these notes to opinions with which I wholly agree, but +only to those which seem worthy of attention. My own views on the more +disputed elements of the subject (such as the relations of time and +accent in our verse, the presence of "quantity" in English, and the +terminology of the subject) I have reserved for Part Three, where I +trust they will be found helpful by some readers, but where they may +easily be passed over. + +To classify the materials of this subject is peculiarly difficult, and +one who tries to solve the problem will early abandon the hope of being +able to follow any system with consistency. Main divisions and +subdivisions will inevitably conflict and overlap. For practical +purposes, basing my arrangement in part on that found convenient in +university lectures (which it will be seen is not altogether unlike that +followed by Schipper in his _Englische Metrik_), I have divided the +specimens of verse into two main divisions, each of which is suggested +by a word in the sub-title of the book. Part One contains specimens +designed to illustrate the principles of English verse, arranged in +topical order. Part Two contains specimens designed to illustrate the +history of the more important forms of English verse, arranged--in the +several divisions--in chronological order. Part Three has already been +spoken of. Part Four contains extracts from important critical writers +on the place and function of the verse-element in poetry,--matters which +give us the _raison d'źtre_ for the whole study of versification. + +If there had ever been hope of making the collection of specimens fairly +complete, even in a representative sense, this would have been +dissipated by the discovery, during the very time of the book's going +through the press, of a number of additional specimens which it seemed +wicked to omit. Doubtless every reader will miss some favorite selection +which might well have been included, and suggestions as to important +omissions will be received gratefully. The attempt has been to put +students on the track of all the more important lines of development of +English verse, and to indicate, by including a considerable number of +specimens from early periods, the continuity of this development from +the times of our Saxon forefathers to our own. + +Little consistency can be claimed for the practice observed in the +matter of modernizing texts that date from transition periods like the +sixteenth century. In some cases the text has been modernized, or +retained in its original form, according as it seemed well to emphasize +either the permanent significance or the historical position of the +specimen in question. In other cases the form of the text was determined +merely by the best edition accessible for purposes of reproduction. + +Dates have been appended to the specimens in those sections where +chronology is a significant element. It has not always been possible to +verify these dates with thoroughness, or to distinguish between the date +of writing and that of publication; but it is hoped that inaccuracies of +this sort will at least not be found of a character to misrepresent the +historical relations of the specimens. Dates are not ordinarily given +for the poems of writers still living. + +In the notes on the specimens I have tried to distinguish between +material likely to be useful for all students of the subject and that +going more into detail, which is intended only for advanced or special +students. Notes of the second class are printed in smaller type. There +has been no attempt to give the notes of a bibliographical character any +pretension to completeness. One may well hesitate to add, in this +direction, to the admirable material presented in the _Methods and +Materials of Literary Criticism_ of Professors Gayley and Scott. + +I have resisted strenuously all temptation to choose or to annotate +specimens on general grounds of ęsthetic enjoyment, apart from the +distinct study of verse-forms. Yet it would be useless to deny having +sometimes made choice of particular verses, all other considerations +being equal, for their poetic or literary value over and above their +prosodical. I shall not claim for the collection what Boswell did for +Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, that "he was so attentive in the choice" of +the illustrative passages "that one may read page after page ... with +improvement and pleasure;" yet I may say that, so far from fearing that +the enjoyment of any poem will be injured by a proper attention to the +elements of its metrical form, it is my hope that many a haunting verse +may linger, a perpetual possession of beauty, in the memory of the +student who first found it here classified under a technical name. + +Many obligations are to be acknowledged to scholars of whose advice I +have availed myself. Most kindly aid has been received from Professor G. +L. Kittredge and Dr. Fred N. Robinson, of Harvard University; from +Professor Felix E. Schelling, of the University of Pennsylvania; from my +friend, Mr. H. P. Earle, of Stanford University; and from my colleague, +Dr. Ewald Flügel. My obligation to Schipper's monumental works on +English verse will be obvious to every scholar. They suggested many of +the specimens of verse-forms, and are also represented by translations +or paraphrases in the notes; references to Schipper, without full +title, are to the _Englische Metrik_,--the larger work. I have also made +thankful use of Mr. John Addington Symonds's essays on Blank Verse, and +of Professor Corson's _Primer of English Verse_,--both somewhat +unscientific but highly suggestive works. The section on Artificial +French Forms obviously owes very much to Mr. Gleeson White's _Ballades +and Rondeaus_. A book to which my obligation is out of all proportion to +the number of actual quotations from it is Mr. J. B. Mayor's _Chapters +on English Metre_. This modest but satisfying volume seemed to me, when +I first was taking up the study of English verse, to be a grateful +relief from the thorny and often fruitless discussions with which the +subject had been overgrown; and in returning to it again and again, I +have never failed to renew the impression. Its suggestions underlie a +good part of the system of classification and terminology adopted for +this book. The new and enlarged edition came to hand too late for use, +but I was able to include references to it in the notes. + +I must also record thanks to those authors and publishers who have +courteously given permission for the reproduction of their publications: +to Mr. John Lane, for permission to quote from the works of Mr. William +Watson and Mr. Stephen Phillips; to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and +Company, for permission to make extracts from the poems of Mr. William +Vaughn Moody and from Mr. Stedman's _Nature and Elements of Poetry_; to +Macmillan and Company, Limited, of London, for permission to make +extracts from Professor Butcher's _Aristotle's Theory of Poetry_ and +from Mr. Courthope's _Life in Poetry and Law in Taste_; to Professor F. +B. Gummere and The Macmillan Company of New York, for permission to +quote from the former's _Beginnings of Poetry_; to the Lothrop +Publishing Company of Boston, for permission to reprint Mr. Clinton +Scollard's villanelle, "Spring Knocks at Winter's Frosty Door," from the +volume entitled _With Reed and Lyre_; to Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, +for permission to reprint her rondeau, "A Man must Live," from the +volume entitled _On This Our World_ (published by Small, Maynard and +Company); to Dr. Samuel Minturn Peck, for permission to reprint one of +the triolets called "Under the Rose," from his volume entitled _Cap and +Bells_; to the Frederick A. Stokes Company, for permission to reprint +Mr. Frank D. Sherman's "Ballade to Austin Dobson," from the volume +entitled _Madrigals and Catches_. Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Mr. W. E. +Henley, and Mr. Edmund Gosse have given generous permission to quote +freely from their poems. Mr. Henley was also good enough to suggest the +choice of the rondeau from his "Bric-ą-Brac"; and Mr. Gosse, whose +unfailing courtesy follows up his numerous published aids to students of +English poetry, has also added some personal notes on the history of the +heroic couplet. + +Finally, it should be said that a considerable part of the studies +resulting in this book was carried on while the editor held the Senior +Fellowship in English on the Harrison Foundation in the University of +Pennsylvania. If, therefore, the book should prove of service to any, +the fact will be a single additional tribute to the munificence of that +foundation. + + R. M. A. + + STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA, + November, 1902. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PART ONE + + PAGE + I. ACCENT AND TIME 3 + A.--Kinds of Accent 3 + B.--Time-intervals 11 + i. Regular intervals between accents 12 + ii. Irregular intervals 13 + iii. Silent intervals (pauses) 16 + II. THE FOOT AND THE VERSE 24 + One-stress iambic 25 + Two-stress iambic 26 + Two-stress trochaic 27 + Two-stress anapestic 28 + Two-stress dactylic 30 + Two-stress irregular 31 + Three-stress iambic 32 + Three-stress trochaic 33 + Three-stress anapestic 34 + Three-stress dactylic 37 + Four-stress iambic 37 + Four-stress trochaic 37 + Four-stress anapestic 39 + Four-stress dactylic 40 + Five-stress iambic 41 + Five-stress trochaic 41 + Five-stress anapestic 42 + Five-stress dactylic 42 + Six-stress iambic 43 + Six-stress trochaic 43 + Six-stress anapestic 43 + Six-stress dactylic 44 + Seven-stress iambic 44 + Seven-stress trochaic 45 + Seven-stress anapestic 45 + Seven-stress dactylic 46 + Eight-stress iambic 46 + Eight-stress trochaic 46 + Eight-stress anapestic 48 + Eight-stress dactylic 48 + Combinations and Substitutions 49 + i. Different feet regularly combined 49 + ii. Individual feet altered 55 + III. THE STANZA 62 + Tercets 63 + Quatrains 69 + Refrain Stanzas 78 + Various Stanza-forms + abccb 91 + ababb 91 + aabbb 91 + aabcdd 91 + aaaabb 92 + ababab 92 + ababcc 92 + ababbcc (Rime royal) 93 + ababcca 95 + ababccb 95 + abababab 96 + ababbaba 96 + ababbcbc 96 + ababccdd 97 + abababcc (ottava rima) 98 + aabaabbab 101 + ababcccdd 101 + ababbcbcc (Spenserian stanza) 102 + abababccc 107 + aabaabcc 107 + ababbcbcdd 107 + aabbbcc 108 + ababababbcbc 108 + aabccbddbeebffgggf 109 + ababccdeed 111 + aabccbddbeeb 111 + abcbdcdceccce 112 + IV. TONE-QUALITY 113 + A.--As a Structural Element 113 + i. Assonance 113 + ii. Alliteration 116 + iii. End-rime 121 + Double and triple rime 128 + Broken rime 131 + Internal rime 132 + B.--As a Sporadic Element (Tone-color) 135 + + + PART TWO + + I. FOUR-STRESS VERSE 151 + A.--Non-syllable-counting 151 + B.--Syllable-counting (Octosyllabic Couplet) 160 + II. FIVE-STRESS VERSE 174 + A.---The Decasyllabic Couplet 174 + B.--Blank Verse 213 + III. SIX-STRESS AND SEVEN-STRESS VERSE 252 + A.--The Alexandrine (Iambic Hexameter) 252 + B.--The Septenary 259 + C.--The "Poulter's Measure" 265 + IV. THE SONNET 267 + A.--The Regular (Italian) Sonnet 270 + B.--The English (Shaksperian) Sonnet 290 + V. THE ODE 298 + A.--Regular Pindaric 299 + B.--Irregular (Cowleyan) 307 + C.--Choral 323 + VI. IMITATIONS OF CLASSICAL METRES 330 + A.--Lyrical Measures 331 + B.--Dactylic Hexameter 340 + VII. IMITATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL FRENCH LYRICAL FORMS 358 + A.--The Ballade 360 + B.--The Rondeau and Rondel 368 + i. "Rondel" type 369 + ii. "Rondeau" type 371 + C.--The Villanelle 376 + D.--The Triolet 381 + E.--The Sestina 383 + + + PART THREE + + THE TIME-ELEMENT IN ENGLISH VERSE 391 + + + PART FOUR + + THE PLACE AND FUNCTION OF THE METRICAL ELEMENT IN + POETRY 413 + Aristotle 413 + Sir Philip Sidney 416 + Samuel Johnson 417 + Wordsworth 417 + Coleridge 420 + Shelley 422 + William Hazlitt 423 + Leigh Hunt 425 + Theodore Watts 426 + Edmund Gurney 427 + W. J. Courthope 429 + E. C. Stedman 432 + F. B. Gummere 433 + + + APPENDIX + + TABLE ILLUSTRATING THE HISTORY OF THE HEROIC + COUPLET 437 + + + + +PART ONE + +ENGLISH VERSE + + + + +I. ACCENT AND TIME + + +A.--KINDS OF ACCENT + +The accents of English syllables as appearing in verse are commonly +classified in two ways: according to degree of intensity, and according +to cause or significance. + +Obviously there can be no fixed limits to the number of degrees of +intensity recognized in syllabic accent or stress. It is common to speak +of three such degrees: syllables having accent (stressed), syllables +having secondary accent, and syllables without accent (unstressed). +Schipper makes four groups: Principal Accent (_Hauptaccent_ or +_Hochton_), Secondary Accent (_Nebenaccent_ or _Tiefton_), No Accent +(_Tonlosigkeit_), and Disappearance of Sound (_Stummheit_). In +illustration he gives the word _ponderous_, where the first syllable has +the chief accent, the last a secondary accent, the second no accent; +while in the verse + + "Most ponderous and substantial things" + +the second syllable is suppressed or silent. + +Mr. A. J. Ellis, in like manner, recognized three principal classes of +syllables: those stressed in the first degree, those stressed in the +second degree, and those unstressed.[1] In the following lines from +_Paradise Lost_ he indicated these three degrees, as he recognized them, +by the figures 2, 1, 0, written underneath. + + Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit + 0 2 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 + + Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste + 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 2 + + Brought death into the world, and all our woe, + 1 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2 + + With loss of Eden, till one greater man + 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 2 + + Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, + 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 2 + + Sing, heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top + 2 2 0 2 1 0 0 2 0 1 + + Of Horeb or of Sinai, didst inspire + 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2 + + That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed + 1 2 0 0 2 2 0 2 0 2 + + In the beginning, how the heavens and earth + 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 2 + + Rose out of chaos.[2] + 2 0 0 2 0 + +It is worthy of note that the secondary accent seems originally to have +been a more important factor in English verse than it is commonly +considered to be in modern periods. In Anglo-Saxon verse the combination +of a primary stress, a secondary stress, and an unstressed syllable, is +a recognized type. In modern verse the reader is likely to make an +effort to reduce all syllables to the type of either stress or +no-stress. In such a verse as the following, however (from Matthew +Arnold's _Forsaken Merman_),-- + + "And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee,"-- + +we may find such a combination as that just referred to as familiar in +Anglo-Saxon rhythm. The syllables "_soul, Merman_" are respectively +cases of primary stress, secondary stress, and no-stress. On this matter +see further the remark of Luick, cited on p. 156, below. + + The element of Pitch is not ordinarily included in the treatment of + versification, as it is not ordinarily recognized as having any + significance peculiar to verse. According to Professor J. W. + Bright, however, there is such a thing as a "pitch-accent" which + plays an important part in verse where the word-accent conflicts + with that of the regular metre. Under certain exigencies, he says, + "_un-governed, pre-cisely, re-markable,_ and _Je-rusalem_ ... are + naturally pronounced with a pitch-accent upon the first syllables, + and with the undisturbed expiratory word-accent upon the second. It + will of course be understood that when the word-accent is defined + as expiratory this term does not exclude the inherent pitch of + English stress. Force, quantity, and pitch are combined in our + word-stress (or word-accent), both primary and secondary; but in + the secondary stress used as ictus there is a noticeable change in + the proportions of these elements, the pitch being relatively + increased. An answer is thus won for the question: How do we + naturally pronounce two stresses in juxtaposition on the same word, + or on adjacent words closely joined grammatically? This is further + illustrated in the specially emphasized words of such expressions + as 'The idea!'" where Professor Bright marks the pitch-accent on + the first syllable of "idea," retaining the stress-accent on the + second syllable. In the line + + "Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit" + + he marks a pitch-accent where the word-stress and metrical stress + are in conflict, that is, on the syllables "dis-" and "and." "The + rhythmic use of 'disobedience,'" he says, "illustrates with its + four syllables (as here used) as many recognizable varieties of + stress. The first syllable has a secondary word-accent, raised to a + pitch-accent for ictus; the second is wholly unaccented; the third + has the chief word-accent, employed as ictus (the accent of the + preceding word, "first," is subordinate to the rhythm); the fourth + has a secondary word-accent which remains unchanged in the thesis." + The conclusion is that "ictus in conflict requires a pitch-accent." + (All these quotations are from an article on 'Proper Names in Old + English Verse,' in the _Publications of the Modern Language + Association_, n.s. vol. vii. No. 3). Professor Bright's theory of + pitch-accent is a part of his general theory of opposition to what + he calls the "sense-doctrine" of the reading of verse,--that is, + the accepted doctrine that the word and sentence accents must + ordinarily take precedence of the metrical accent. + +According to cause or significance, accents are commonly classed in +three groups: Etymological or Word Accent, Syntactical or Rhetorical +Accent, and Metrical Accent. Accents of the first class are due to the +original stress of the syllable in English speech; those of the second +class are due to the importance of the syllable in the sentence; those +of the third class are due to the place of the syllable in the metrical +scheme. In the verse + + "Mary had a little lamb," + +the first syllable may be said to be stressed primarily for etymological +reasons, the seventh primarily for syntactical or rhetorical reasons, +and the third (which would not be accented in prose) for metrical +reasons. + +The general law of English verse is that only those syllables which bear +the accent of the first class (that is, which are stressed in common +speech), together with monosyllables which on occasion are stressed in +common speech, shall be placed so as to receive the metrical stress; and +that, if the word-stress and the metrical stress apparently conflict, +the metrical stress must yield. Less generally, the rhetorical or +syntactical accent in the same way takes precedence of the metrical. In +both cases exceptions are of course numerous. + +The following are examples of verses showing a conflict between the +normal prose-accent and the normal verse-accent, where--as commonly +read--the prose- (word-) accent triumphs. + + The blessed damozel leaned out + _From the gold bar_ of heaven. + +(ROSSETTI: _The Blessed Damozel._) + + _Love is_ a smoke _raised with_ the fume of sighs; + Being purged, a fire _sparkling_ in lover's eyes; + Being vexed, a sea _nourished_ with lover's tears. + +(SHAKSPERE: _Romeo and Juliet_, I. i. 196 ff.) + + Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness, + And fear'st to die? _famine_ is in thy cheeks, + _Need and_ oppression starveth in thine eyes. + +(SHAKSPERE: _ib._ V. i. 68 ff.) + + _Till, at_ his second bidding, Darkness fled, + _Light_ shone, and order from disorder sprung. + _Swift to_ their several quarters hasted then + The cumbrous elements--_Earth_, Flood, _Air_, Fire; + And this ethereal quintessence of Heaven + Flew upward, _spirited_ with various forms, + That rolled orbicular, and turned to stars + _Numberless_, as thou seest, and how they move. + +(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, iii. 712 ff.) + + _She was_ a gordian shape of dazzling hue, + Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue; + _Striped like_ a zebra, freckled like a pard, + _Eyed like_ a peacock, and all crimson barred. + +(KEATS: _Lamia_, i. 47 ff.) + + _"Boys!"_ shriek'd the old king, but vainlier than a hen + _To her_ false daughters in the pool; for none + Regarded; neither seem'd there more to say. + _Back_ rode we to my father's camp, and found + He thrice had sent a herald to the gates. + +(TENNYSON: _The Princess_, v. 318 ff.) + + Sequestered nest!--this kingdom, limited + Alone by one old _populous green_ wall; + _Tenanted_ by the ever-busy flies, + _Gray crickets and shy lizards and quick spiders_; + Each family of the silver-threaded moss-- + Which, look through near, this way, and it appears + A stubble-field _or a cane-brake_, a marsh + Of bulrush whitening _in the_ sun: _laugh now_! + +(BROWNING: _Paracelsus_, i. 36 ff.) + +On the other hand, we find verses showing a conflict between prose and +verse accent, where the verse-accent may be regarded as triumphing +wholly or in part. Where this triumph is complete, the accent is said to +be _wrenched_; as, for example, in old ballad endings like "north +countree."[3] Where there is a compromise effected in reading, the +accent is said to be _hovering_; as in one of Shakspere's songs,-- + + "It was a lover and his lass ... + That o'er the green _corn-field_ did pass." + + I sat with Love upon a woodside well, + Leaning across the water, I and he; + Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me, + But touched his lute wherein was _audible_ + The certain secret thing he had to tell: + Only our mirrored eyes met _silently_ + In the low wave; and that sound came to be + The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell. + And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers; + And with his foot and with his _wing-feathers_ + He swept the spring that watered my heart's drouth. + Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair, + And as I stooped, her own lips rising there + Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth. + +(ROSSETTI: _Willowwood. House of Life_, Sonnet xlix.) + + I wish my grave were growing green, + A winding-sheet drawn ower my een, + And I in Helen's arms _lying,_ + On fair Kirconnell lea. + +(_Fair Helen_; old ballad.) + + For the stars and the winds are unto her + As raiment, as songs of the _harp-player._ + +(SWINBURNE: Chorus in _Atalanta in Calydon._) + + Nothing is better, I well think, + Than love; the hidden _well-water_ + Is not so delicate to drink: + This was well seen of me and her. + +(SWINBURNE: _The Leper._) + +These wrenched accents are characteristic of one phase of the so-called +"pre-Raphaelite" poetry of the Victorian period; in part, no doubt, they +are due to the influence of the old ballads. My colleague Professor +Newcomer has suggested that they are partly due, also, to a dislike for +the combative accent which would occur where two heavy syllables came +together (accented as commonly) in a compound like "harp-player." + + Of special interest are the examples of wrenched and hovering + accent found in the verse of Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of + Surrey,--more especially in Wyatt. These mark the time when the + syllable-counting principle was coming into prominence in English + verse, under the new culture of the days of Henry VIII. The first + conscious followers of this principle seem to have given it such + prominence that a verse seemed good to them if it contained the + requisite number of syllables, whether the accents conformed to any + regular system or not. In the case of Wyatt we can also compare the + original forms of many of his poems, as preserved in manuscript, + with the revised forms as printed in Tottel's Miscellany (1557). + (See Dr. Flügel's transcriptions from the Wyatt Mss., in _Anglia_, + vol. xviii.) The following is the octave of one of the sonnets, as + found in the Ms.: + + "Avysing the bright bemes of these fayer Iyes + where he is that myn oft moisteth and wassheth + the werid mynde streght from the hert departeth + for to rest in his woroldly paradise + And fynde the swete bitter under this gyse + what webbes he hath wrought well he parceveth + whereby with himselfe on love he playneth + that spurreth with fyer: and bridillith with Ise." + + (_Anglia,_ xviii. 465.) + + Compare this with the revised form in Tottel's edition: + + "Avisyng the bright beames of those fayre eyes, + Where he abides that mine oft moistes and washeth: + The weried mynd streight from the hart departeth, + To rest within hys worldly Paradise, + And bitter findes the swete, under this gyse. + What webbes there he hath wrought, well he preceaveth + Whereby then with him self on love he playneth, + That spurs wyth fire, and brydleth eke with yse." + + (Arber Reprint, p. 40.) + + It appears that this revision was the work of the editor, who had a + better sense of true English rhythm than the poet himself. Alscher, + however, in his work on Wyatt, contends that Wyatt doubtless + revised his own verses so as to give them their finished form. (See + _Sir Thomas Wyatt und Seine Stellung_, etc., p. 49.) Other lines in + Wyatt's verse where the number of syllables is counted but where + the accents are faulty, are these: + + "The long love that in my thought I harbour." + + "And there campeth displaying his banner." + + "And there him hideth and not appeareth." + + "For good is the life, ending faithfully." + + Another large group of hovering accents is that formed by French + words with such terminations as _-our_, _-ance_, _-ace_, _-age_, + _-ant_, _-ess_. In such cases the original tendency of the word was + to accent the final syllable; but the general tendency of English + accents being recessive, the words often passed through a + transitional period when the accent was variable or "hovering." The + first of the four lines just quoted shows us a word of this + character. + + For an interesting presentation of certain phases of the laws of + stress in English verse, see Robert Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_ + (ed. 1901), Appendix J, "on the Rules of Stress Rhythms." + + +B.--TIME-INTERVALS + +The fundamental principle of the rhythm of English verse (and indeed of +any rhythm) is that _the accents appear at regular time-intervals_. In +practice there is of course great freedom in departing from this +regularity, the equal time-intervals being at times only a standard of +rhythm to which the varying successions of accented and unaccented +syllables are mentally referred. Where the equal time-intervals are +observed with substantial regularity, two sorts of verse are still to +be clearly distinguished: that in which not only the intervals of time +but the numbers of syllables between the accents are substantially equal +and regular, and that in which the number of syllables varies. The +latter class is that of the native Germanic metres; the former is that +of the Romance metres, and of modern English verse as influenced by +them. With the development of regularity in the counting of syllables +there has perhaps also taken place a development of regularity in the +regular counting of the time-intervals. In other words, the modern +English reader, where the number of syllables between accents is +variable, makes the time-intervals as nearly equal as possible by +lengthening and shortening the syllables in the manner permitted by the +freedom of English speech; in early English verse, where the number of +syllables between accents varied very greatly, we cannot be sure that +the time-intervals were so accurately felt or preserved in recitation. + + +i. _Verse showing fairly regular intervals between accents_ + + Avoid extremes; and shun the fault of such + Who still are pleas'd too little or too much. + At every trifle scorn to take offence, + That always shows great pride, or little sense: + Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best, + Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest. + Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move; + For fools admire, but men of sense approve: + As things seem large which we through mist descry, + Dulness is ever apt to magnify. + +(POPE: _Essay on Criticism_, ll. 384-393.) + + Louder, louder chant the lay-- + Waken, lords and ladies gay! + Tell them youth and mirth and glee + Run a course as well as we; + Time, stern huntsman! who can baulk, + Staunch as hound and fleet as hawk; + Think of this, and rise with day, + Gentle lords and ladies gay! + +(SCOTT: _Hunting Song_.) + + Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, + Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise. + +(TENNYSON: _Locksley Hall_.) + + Wild April, enkindled to laughter and storm by the kiss of + the wildest of winds that blow, + Calls loud on his brother for witness; his hands that were + laden with blossom are sprinkled with snow. + +(SWINBURNE: _March_.) + + +ii. _Verse showing irregular intervals between accents_ + + Gegr[=e]tte š[=a] gumena gehwylcne, + hwate helm-berend, hindeman s[=i]še, + sw[=ę]se ges[=i]šas: "Nolde ic sweord beran, + w[=ę]pen t[=o] wyrme, gif ic wiste h[=u] + wiš š[=a]m [=a]gl[=ę]cean elles meahte + gylpe wišgr[=i]pan, sw[=a] ic g[=i]o wiš Grendle dyde; + ac ic š[=ę]r heašu-f[=y]res h[=a]tes w[=e]ne, + orešes ond attres; foršon ic m[=e] on hafu + bord ond byrnan. Nelle ic beorges weard + oferfl[=e]on f[=o]tes trem, + ac unc sceal weoršan ęt wealle, sw[=a] unc wyrd get[=e]oš, + Metod manna gehwęs. Ic eom on m[=o]de from, + žęt ic wiš žone g[=u]š-flogan gylp ofersitte. + +(_Beowulf_, ll. 2516-2528. ab. 700.) + + Ich herde men upo mold make muche mon, + hou he bež itened of here tilyynge: + gode yeres & corn bože bež agon, + ne kepež here no sawe ne no song synge. + Nou we mote worche, nis žer non ožer won, + mai ich no lengore lyue wiž mi lesinge. + Yet žer is a bitterore bit to že bon, + for euer že furže peni mot to že kynge.[4] + +(_The Farmer's Complaint_, ab. 1300; in Böddeker's _Altenglische +Dichtungen_, p. 102, and Wright's _Political Songs_, p. 149.) + + I will speake out aloude, I care not who heare it: + Sirs, see that my harnesse, my tergat and my shield + Be made as bright now as when I was last in fielde, + As white as I shoulde to warre againe to-morrowe; + For sicke shall I be but I worke some folke sorow. + Therefore see that all shine as bright as Sainct George, + Or as doth a key newly come from the smiths forge. + +(N. UDALL: _Ralph Roister Doister_, IV. iii. 13-19. 1566.) + + To this, this Oake cast him to replie + Well as he couth; but his enemie + Had kindled such coles of displeasure, + That the good man noulde stay his leasure, + But home him hasted with furious heate, + Encreasing his wrath with many a threat: + His harmefull Hatchet he hent in hand, + (Alas! that it so ready should stand!) + And to the field alone he speedeth, + (Aye little helpe to harme there needeth!) + Anger nould let him speake to the tree, + Enaunter his rage mought cooled bee; + But to the roote bent his sturdie stroake, + And made many wounds in the waste Oake. + +(SPENSER: _Shepherd's Calendar, February_. 1579.) + + Through many a dark and dreary vale + They passed, and many a region dolorous, + O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp, + Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death-- + A universe of death, which God by curse + Created evil, for evil only good; + Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds, + Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, + Abominable, inutterable, and worse + Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived. + +(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, II. 618 ff. 1667.) + + The night is chill; the forest bare; + Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? + There is not wind enough in the air + To move away the ringlet curl + From the lovely lady's cheek-- + There is not wind enough to twirl + The one red leaf, the last of its clan, + That dances as often as dance it can, + Hanging so light, and hanging so high, + On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. + +(COLERIDGE: _Christabel_, Part I. 1816.) + +In his Preface to this poem Coleridge said: "The metre of the +_Christabel_ is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so +from its being founded on a new principle; namely, that of counting in +each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary +from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be +only four. Nevertheless this occasional variation in number of syllables +is not introduced wantonly, or for the mere ends of convenience, but in +correspondence with some transition, in the nature of the imagery or +passion." The verse is accurately described, but it has frequently been +pointed out as curious that Coleridge should have spoken of it as +"founded on a new principle," when the principle in question was that of +native English verse from the earliest times.[5] + +For other specimens of verse showing irregularity in the number of +syllables between the accents, see Part Two, under Non-syllable-counting +Four-stress Verse. + + +iii. _Silent Time-intervals between Syllables (Pauses)_ + +(a) Pauses not filling the time of syllables. + +Most English verses of more than eight syllables are divided not only +into the time-intervals between the accents, but also into two parts +(which Schipper calls "rhythmical series") by the _Cesura_. The Cesura +is a pause not counted out of the regular time of the rhythm, but +corresponding to the pauses between "phrases" in music, and nearly +always coinciding with syntactical or rhetorical divisions of the +sentence. + +The medial cesura is the typical pause of this kind, dividing the verse +into two parts of approximately equal length. In much early English +verse, and in French verse, this medial cesura is almost universal; in +modern English verse (and in that of some early poets, notably Chaucer) +there is great freedom in the placing of the cesura, and also in +omitting it altogether. The importance of this matter in the history of +English decasyllabic verse will appear in Part Two. + + In the early Elizabethan period the impression was still general + that there should be a regular medial cesura. Spenser seems to have + been the first to imitate the greater freedom of Chaucer in this + regard. See the Latin dissertation on Spenser's verse of E. Legouis + (_Quomodo E. Spenserus_, etc., Paris, 1896), and the summary of its + results by Mr. J. B. Fletcher in _Modern Language Notes_ for + November, 1898. "Spenser," says Mr. Fletcher, "revived for 'heroic + verse' the neglected variety in unity of his self-acknowledged + master, Chaucer." In Gascoigne's _Notes of Instruction concerning + the making of verse or ryme in English_ (1575), we find: "There are + also certayne pauses or restes in a verse whiche may be called + Ceasures.... In mine opinion in a verse of eight sillables, the + pause will stand best in the middest, in a verse of tenne it will + be placed at the ende of the first foure sillables; in a verse of + twelve, in the midst.... In Rithme royall, it is at the wryters + discretion, and forceth not where the pause be untill the ende of + the line." This greater liberty allowed the rime royal is doubtless + due to the influence of Chaucer on that form. For Gascoigne's + practice in printing his verse with medial cesura, even without + regard to rhetorical divisions, see the specimen given below. + + Another interesting Elizabethan account of the cesura is found in + Puttenham's _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589), where the writer + compares the verse-pause to a stop made by a traveler at an inn for + rest and refreshment. (Arber's Reprint, p. 88.) + +_Specimen of French alexandrine, showing the regular medial cesura:_ + + Trois fois cinquante jours le général naufrage + Dégasta l'univers; en fin d'un tel ravage + L'immortel s'émouvant, n'eūt pas sonné si tōt + La retraite des eaux que soudain flot sur flot + Elles gaignent au pied; tous les fleuves s'abaissant. + Le mer rentre en prison; les montagnes renaissent. + +(DU BARTAS: _La Premičre Semaine_. 1579.) + +See further, on the character of the French alexandrine and its medial +cesura, in Part Two, under Six-stress Verse. + +_Specimen of early blank verse printed with regular medial cesura:_ + + O Knights, O Squires, O Gentle blouds yborne, + You were not borne, al onely for your selves: + Your countrie claymes, some part of al your paines. + There should you live, and therein should you toyle, + To hold up right, and banish cruel wrong, + To helpe the pore, to bridle backe the riche, + To punish vice, and vertue to advaunce, + To see God servde, and Belzebub supprest. + You should not trust, lieftenaunts in your rome, + And let them sway, the scepter of your charge, + Whiles you (meane while) know scarcely what is don, + Nor yet can yeld, accompt if you were callde. + +(GASCOIGNE: _The Steel Glass_, ll. 439 ff. 1576.) + +For specimens of regular medial cesura, and of variable cesura, in +modern verse, see under the Decasyllabic Couplet and Blank Verse, in +Part Two. + +The Cesura is called _masculine_ when it follows an accented syllable. +(For examples, see previous specimen from Gascoigne.) It is called +_feminine_ when it follows an unaccented syllable. Two varieties of the +feminine cesura are also distinguished: the Lyric, when the pause occurs +inside a foot; _e.g._: + + "This wicked traitor, whom I thus accuse;" + +the Epic, when the pause occurs after an extra (hypermetrical) light +syllable; _e.g._: + + "To Canterbury with ful devout corage." + + "But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives." + +The "epic" cesura is quite as characteristic of dramatic blank verse as +of epic. + +The pause occurring at the end of a line is equally regular with the +medial pause, and corresponds in the same way to a phrase-pause in +music. It is an element of the same character, then, as the cesura, +though not bearing the same name. It coincides less closely than the +cesura with syntactical and rhetorical pauses. When there is no +corresponding syntactical or rhetorical pause at the end of the line (in +other words, when the metrical pause marking the end of the verse cannot +be prominently represented in reading without interfering with the +expression of the sense), the line is said to be "run-on." Such an +ending is also called _enjambement_. The importance of this distinction +between "end-stopped" and "run-on" lines will appear in the notes on the +Decasyllabic Couplet and Blank Verse, in Part Two. + +(_b_) Pauses filling the time of syllables. + +A second class of silent time-intervals, or pauses, is to be +distinguished from the cesural pause by the fact that in this case the +time of the pause is counted in the metrical scheme. Pauses of this +class correspond to rests in music; and as in the case of such rests, +their occurrence is exceptional. + + Of fustian he wered a gipoun + [^] Al bismotered with his habergeoun. + + For him was lever have at his beddes heed + [^] Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed. + +(CHAUCER: Prologue to _Canterbury Tales_, 75 f. and 293 f.) + +This omission of the first light syllable is characteristic of Chaucer's +couplet and of Middle English verse generally. (See Schipper, vol. i. p. +462, and ten Brink's _Chaucer's Sprache und Verskunst_, p. 175.) In +modern verse it is not usually permitted. + + The time doth pass, [^] yet shall not my love. + +(WYATT: _The joy so short, alas!_) + +The omitted syllable following the medial pause is closely parallel to +that at the beginning of the verse. + + Stay! [^] The king hath thrown his warder down. + +(_Richard II_, I. iii. 118.) + + Kneel thou down, Philip. [^] But rise more great. + +(_King John_, I. i. 161.) + + In drops of sorrow. [^] Sons, kinsmen, thanes. + +(_Macbeth_, I. iv. 35.) + + Than the soft myrtle. [^] But man, proud man. + +(_Measure for Measure_, II. ii. 117.) + +These specimens of pauses in Shakspere's verse indicate the natural +varieties of dramatic form. In such cases the pause often occurs +between speeches, or where some action is to be understood as filling +the time; as in the second instance, where the accolade is given in the +middle of the line. (See Abbott's _Shakespearian Grammar_, pp. 413 ff.) + + [^] Break, [^] break, [^] break, + On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! + And I would that my tongue could utter + The thoughts that arise in me. + +(TENNYSON: _Break, Break, Break._) + +In Lanier's _Science of English Verse_, p. 101, this stanza is +represented in musical notation, with rests, to show that rhythm "may be +dependent on silences." + + Should auld acquaintance be forgot, + And never brought to mind? + Should auld acquaintance be forgot, + And auld [^] lang [^] syne? + +(BURNS: _Auld Lang Syne._) + +Here the syllables "auld" and "lang" may be regarded as lengthened so as +to fill the time of the missing light syllables. So in many cases there +is a choice between compensatory lengthening and compensatory pause. + + Thus [^] said the Lord [^] in the Vault above the Cherubim, + Calling to the angels and the souls in their degree: + "Lo! Earth has passed away + On the smoke of Judgment Day. + That Our word may be established shall We gather up the sea?" + + Loud [^] sang the souls [^] of the jolly, jolly mariners: + "Plague upon the hurricane that made us furl and flee! + But the war is done between us, + In the deep the Lord hath seen us-- + Our bones we'll leave the barracout', and God may sink the sea!" + +(KIPLING: _The Last Chantey._) + +This is an instance of a pause forming a regular part of the +verse-rhythm. Thus in the first verse of each stanza the second and +sixth syllables are omitted, and the result gives the characteristic +effect of the rhythm. In measures where there is regular catalexis (that +is, where the last light syllable of the verse is regularly omitted) the +phenomenon is really of the same kind. + + These, these will give the world another heart, + And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum + Of mighty workings?---- + Listen awhile, ye nations, and be dumb. + +(Keats: _Sonnet to Haydon_.) + + Call her once before you go,-- + Call once yet! + In a voice that she will know,-- + "Margaret! Margaret!" + Children's voices should be dear + (Call once more) to a mother's ear; + Children's voices, wild with pain,-- + Surely she will come again! + Call her once, and come away; + This way, this way!... + + Come, dear children, come away down: + Call no more! + One last look at the white-walled town, + And the little gray church on the windy shore; + Then come down! + She will not come, though you call all day; + Come away, come away! + +(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _The Forsaken Merman_.) + +In this specimen no attempt has been made to indicate the pauses, as +different readers would interpret the verse variously. It will be found +that this whole poem is a study in delicate changes and arrangements of +time-intervals. The four stresses characteristic of the rhythm can be +accounted for in such short lines as the second and tenth, properly +read. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Transactions of the Philological Society_, 1875-76. + +[2] According to a more elaborate system Mr. Ellis recognized nine +varieties of force or stress, which he named in order as follows: +subweak, weak, superweak, submean, mean, supermean, substrong, strong, +superstrong. In like manner he named nine degrees each of length, pitch, +weight, and silence. Length and Silence are both terms of duration of +time. The meaning of Weight has not been generally understood, nor is +the term ordinarily recognized. Mr. Ellis described it as "due to +expression and mental conceptions of importance, resulting partly from +expression in delivery, produced by quality of tone and gliding pitch, +and partly from the mental effect of the constructional predominance of +conceptions." On this whole scheme of Mr. Ellis's, Mr. Mayor remarks +interestingly: "Whilst I admire, I with difficulty repress a shudder at +the elaborate apparatus he has provided for registering the minutest +variations of metrical stress. Not only does he distinguish nine +different degrees of force, but there are the same number of degrees of +length, pitch, silence, and weight, making altogether forty-five +varieties of stress at the disposal of the metrist ... If the analysis +of rhythm is so terribly complicated, let us rush into the arms of the +intuitivists and trust to our ears only, for life is not long enough to +admit of characterizing lines when there are forty-five expressions for +each syllable to be considered." (_Chapters on English Metre_, p. 69.) + +[3] The term "wrenched" was used originally, it would seem, as one of +reprobation. Thus Puttenham, in his _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589), +said; "There can not be in a maker a fowler fault, than to falsifie his +accent to serve his cadence, or by untrue orthographie to wrench his +words to helpe his rime." (Arber ed., p. 94.) + +[4] It is interesting to compare with these irregular lines another +stanza of similar form, of about the same date, from an Elegy on Edward +I., in Böddeker's Collection, p. 140, and Wright's _Political Songs_, p. +246. + +Alle žat beož of huerte trewe, a stounde herknež to my song of duel, žat +dež haž diht vs newe (žat makež me syke ant sorewe among!) of a knyht, +žat wes so strong, of wham god haž don ys wille; me žunchež žat dež haž +don vs wrong, žat he so sone shal ligge stille. + +The comparatively great regularity of the measures in this second stanza +is due to the fact that it was under the syllable-counting influence of +the French, being in fact a translation of a French original. + +[5] Leigh Hunt said that "Coleridge saw the mistake which had been made +with regard to this measure, and restored it to the beautiful freedom of +which it was capable, by calling to mind the liberties allowed its old +musical professors the minstrels, and dividing it by _time_ instead of +_syllables_." (See the entire passage on _Christabel_, in the +Introduction, on "What is Poetry?", to _Imagination and Fancy_. For a +criticism of the metrical structure of _Christabel_, see Robert +Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_ (ed. 1901, pp. 73-75).) + + + + +II. THE FOOT AND THE VERSE + + +English verse is commonly measured by feet, a determinate number of +which go to form a verse or line. The foot is determined by the distance +from one accented syllable to another in the regular scheme of the +metre. The usual metrical feet are either dissyllabic or trisyllabic. +The dissyllabic foot is commonly called an _iambus_ (or _iamb_) if the +unaccented syllable precedes the accented, and a _trochee_ if the +accented precedes the unaccented. The trisyllabic foot is commonly +called an _anapest_ if the two unaccented syllables precede the accented +syllable, and a _dactyl_ if they follow the accented syllable.[6] It +will be observed that the fundamental rhythm of both iambic and trochaic +verse is the same, as is also that of both anapestic and dactylic verse; +the distinction belonging only to the metre as measured into regular +lines. Iambic and anapestic verse (in which the light syllables commonly +open the verse) are sometimes called "ascending rhythm"; trochaic and +dactylic verse (in which the accented syllables commonly open the +verse) "descending rhythm." Ascending rhythm is very greatly in +predominance in English poetry. + +The normal verse of any poem is therefore described by indicating the +name of the foot and the number of feet in the verse. The number of feet +is always indicated by the number of stresses or principal accents in +the normal verse. As the light or unaccented syllables may vary from the +typical number, it may also be necessary to indicate that the line is +longer than its name would imply, by reason of Feminine Ending (a light +syllable added at the end) or Anacrusis (a light syllable prefixed); or +that it is shorter than its name would indicate by reason of Catalexis +or Truncation (the light syllable at the end--or less frequently at the +beginning--being omitted). + +In like manner, any particular verse or line is fully described by +indicating: (1) the typical foot; (2) the number of feet; (3) the place +of the cesura; (4) the presence or absence of a final pause +("end-stopped" or "run-on"); (5) the presence of such irregularities as + + (_a_) Anacrusis or feminine ending, + (_b_) Catalexis (or truncation), + (_c_) Substitution of exceptional feet for the typical foot, + (_d_) Pauses other than the cesural. + + +_One-stress iambic_. + + Thus I + Pass by + And die + As one + Unknown + And gone. + +(HERRICK: _Upon his Departure Hence_. 1648.) + +(In combination with two-stress and three-stress:) + + No more I'll vaunt, + For now I see + Thou only hast the power + To find + And bind + A heart that's free, + And slave it in an hour. + +(HERRICK: _His Recantation._ 1648.) + + +_Two-stress iambic_. + + Most good, most fair, + Or things as rare + To call you 's lost; + For all the cost + Words can bestow + So poorly show,... + +(DRAYTON: _Amouret Anacreontic._ ab. 1600.) + + Because I do + Begin to woo, + Sweet singing Lark, + Be thou the clerk, + And know thy when + To say Amen. + +(HERRICK: _To the Lark._ 1648.) + + The raging rocks, + And shivering shocks, + Shall break the locks + Of prison-gates; + And Phibbus' car + Shall shine from far, + And make and mar + The foolish Fates. + +(SHAKSPERE: Bottom's song in _Midsummer Night's Dream_, I. ii. ab. +1595.) + +(In combination with three-stress:) + + Only a little more + I have to write; + Then I'll give o'er, + And bid the world good-night. + + 'Tis but a flying minute + That I must stay, + Or linger in it; + And then I must away. + +(HERRICK: _His Poetry his Pillar._ 1648.) + +In the second stanza we have the same measure with feminine ending. + +(In combination with four-stress:) + + Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, + Thus unlamented let me die; + Steal from the world, and not a stone + Tell where I lie. + +(POPE: _Ode on Solitude._ ab. 1700.) + + +_Two-stress trochaic_. + + Could I catch that + Nimble traitor, + Scornful Laura, + Swift-foot Laura, + Soon then would I + Seek avengement. + +(CAMPION: Anacreontics, in _Observations in the Art of English Poesie_. +1602.) + +(In combination with four-stress:) + + Dust that covers + Long dead lovers + Song blows off with breath that brightens; + At its flashes + Their white ashes + Burst in bloom that lives and lightens. + +(SWINBURNE: _Song in Season._) + +(Catalectic, and in combination with three-stress:) + + Summer's crest + Red-gold tressed, + Corn-flowers peeping under;-- + Idle noons, + Lingering moons, + Sudden cloud, + Lightning's shroud, + Sudden rain, + Quick again + Smiles where late was thunder. + +(GEORGE ELIOT: Song from _The Spanish Gypsy_, Bk. i. 1868.) + +The trochaic measures in _The Spanish Gypsy_ are in imitation of the +similar forms in Spanish poetry. See p. 114, below. + + +_Two-stress anapestic._ + +(In combination with three-stress:) + + Like a gloomy stain + On the emerald main + Alpheus rushed behind,-- + As an eagle pursuing + A dove to its ruin + Down the streams of the cloudy wind. + +(SHELLEY: _Arethusa._ 1820.) + +(With feminine ending:) + + He is gone on the mountain, + He is lost to the forest, + Like a summer-dried fountain, + When our need was the sorest. + The font, reappearing, + From the raindrops shall borrow, + But to us comes no cheering, + To Duncan no morrow! + +(SCOTT: Coronach, from _The Lady of the Lake_, Canto 3. 1810.) + +(In combination with four-stress:) + + Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat, + The mist in my face. + When the snows begin, and the blasts denote + I am nearing the place, + The power of the night, the press of the storm, + The post of the foe; + Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, + Yet the strong man must go. + +(BROWNING: _Prospice._ 1864.) + +These specimens, as is usual in anapestic verse, show considerable +freedom in the treatment of the part of the foot containing the light +syllables, substituted iambi being very common. Note the iambi in the +Shelley stanza, line 1, second foot, and line 5, first foot. In the +latter case, however, the first light syllable of line 5 is really +supplied by the syllable added to make the feminine ending of line 4. In +like manner, in the Scott stanza, the first syllable of line 8 is really +supplied by the _-ing_ of line 7; and where we have both feminine ending +(in line 1) and a full anapest following, the effect is that of a +hypermetrical syllable which must be hurried over in the reading. In the +specimen from Browning we find an iambus in the opening foot in lines 2 +and 6 (also, of course, in lines 1 and 5). + + +_Two-stress dactylic._ + + One more Unfortunate, + Weary of breath, + Rashly importunate, + Gone to her death! + + Take her up tenderly, + Lift her with care; + Fashioned so slenderly, + Young, and so fair! + +(THOMAS HOOD: _The Bridge of Sighs._ ab. 1830.) + +Here the alternate lines are catalectic, both light syllables being +wanting. + + Cannon to right of them, + Cannon to left of them, + Cannon in front of them + Volley'd and thunder'd; + Storm'd at with shot and shell, + Boldly they rode and well, + Into the jaws of Death, + Into the mouth of Hell + Rode the six hundred. + +(TENNYSON: _Charge of the Light Brigade._ 1854.) + +Here the fourth and ninth lines are catalectic. + + Loudly the sailors cheered + Svend of the Forked Beard, + As with his fleet he steered + Southward to Vendland; + Where with their courses hauled + All were together called, + Under the Isle of Svald + Near to the mainland. + +(LONGFELLOW: _Saga of King Olaf_, xvii. 1863.) + +In the reading of these stanzas from Tennyson and Longfellow there is so +marked a stress on the final syllable as to make the second dactyl +(except in the opening lines of the Tennyson stanza) more like a Cretic +(in the classical terminology); _i.e._ a foot made up of two heavy +syllables with a light syllable between them. But no such foot is +generally recognized in English verse. + + +_Two-stress irregular._ + + On the ground + Sleep sound: + I'll apply + To your eye, + Gentle lover, remedy. + When thou wak'st, + Thou tak'st + True delight + In the sight + Of thy former lady's eye. + +(SHAKSPERE: Puck's Song in _Midsummer Night's Dream_, III. ii. ab. +1595.) + + What I hate, + Be consecrate + To celebrate + Thee and Thy state, + No mate + For Thee; + What see + For envy + In poor me? + +(BROWNING: Song in _Caliban upon Setebos_. 1864.) + +In the usual printing of _Caliban upon Setebos_ this song is brought +into the form of the five-accent lines. It is evidently intended, +however, to be read in two-accent groups. Professor Moulton has remarked +interestingly that Browning gives the unique figure of Caliban not only +a grammar but a prosody of his own. + + Though my rime be ragged, + Tattered and jagged, + Rudely raine-beaten, + Rusty and moth-eaten; + If ye take wel therewith, + It hath in it some pith. + +(JOHN SKELTON: _Colyn Cloute_. ab. 1510.) + +This is a specimen of what Mr. Churton Collins calls "that headlong +voluble breathless doggrel which, rattling and clashing on through +quick-recurring rhymes, ... has taken from the name of its author the +title of Skeltonical verse." (Ward's _English Poets_, vol. i. p. 185.) +The number of accents, as well as the number of syllables, is irregular, +being quite as often (perhaps more often) three as two. + + +_Three-stress iambic._ + + O let the solid ground + Not fail beneath my feet + Before my life has found + What some have found so sweet; + Then let come what come may, + What matter if I go mad, + I shall have had my day. + +(TENNYSON: Song in _Maud_, xi. 1855.) + +(In combination with verse of four, five, and six stresses:) + + The Oracles are dumb; + No voice or hideous hum + Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. + Apollo from his shrine + Can no more divine, + With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving: + No nightly trance or breathed spell + Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. + +(MILTON: _Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity_. 1629.) + +Here, in line 5, we have an instance of a verse truncated at the +beginning,--rare in modern English poetry. + +(With feminine ending:) + + The mountain sheep are sweeter, + But the valley sheep are fatter; + We therefore deemed it meeter + To carry off the latter. + We made an expedition; + We met an host and quelled it; + We forced a strong position, + And killed the men who held it. + +(THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK: War Song of Dinas Vawr, from _The Misfortunes of +Elphin_. 1829.) + +In line 2 is an instance of anacrusis. + + +_Three-stress trochaic._ + +(In combination with iambic:) + + Go where glory waits thee, + But, while fame elates thee, + Oh! still remember me. + When the praise thou meetest + To thine ear is sweetest, + Oh! then remember me. + +(THOMAS MOORE: _Go Where Glory Waits Thee_. ab. 1820.) + +(In combination with six-stress verses:) + + Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! + Bird thou never wert, + That from heaven, or near it, + Pourest thy full heart + In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. + + Higher still and higher + From the earth thou springest, + Like a cloud of fire + The blue deep thou wingest, + And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. + +(SHELLEY: _To a Skylark_. 1820.) + +Here lines 2 and 4 are catalectic. + + +_Three-stress anapestic._ + + I am monarch of all I survey; + My right there is none to dispute; + From the centre all round to the sea + I am lord of the fowl and the brute. + +(COWPER: _Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk._ 1782.) + +In this specimen lines 2, 5, 6, and 8 show initial truncation, the first +light syllable being missing. + +(With two-stress verse:) + + His desire is a dureless content, + And a trustless joy; + He is won with a world of despair + And is lost with a toy.... + + But true love is a durable fire, + In the mind ever burning, + Never sick, never old, never dead, + From itself never turning. + +(SIR WALTER RALEIGH (?): _Pilgrim to Pilgrim_. In MS. Rawl. 85; in +Schelling's _Elizabethan Lyrics_, p. 3.) + + "The metres of the earlier years of Elizabeth's reign are so + overwhelmingly iambic," Professor Schelling observes, "that this + perfectly metrical, if somewhat irregular, anapęstic movement comes + like a surprise. Professor Gummere, of Haverford College, calls my + attention to three epigrams--printed among the poems of Raleigh, + ed. Hannah, p. 55--all of them in more or less limping anapęsts, + but not of this measure. It is quite possible that the time to + which these verses were sung may have affected the measure." (Notes + to _Elizabethan Lyrics_, pp. 211, 212.) + +(With initial truncation:) + + She gazed, as I slowly withdrew, + My path I could hardly discern; + So sweetly she bade me adieu, + I thought that she bade me return. + +(SHENSTONE: _Pastoral Ballad._ 1743.) + +Mr. Saintsbury praises highly the anapests of Shenstone (Ward's _English +Poets_, vol. iii. p. 272), saying that he "taught the metre to a greater +poet than himself, Cowper, and these two between them have written +almost everything that is worth reading in it, if we put avowed parody +and burlesque out of the question." But this is probably to be regarded +as overstating the case. + +(With feminine ending:) + + If you go over desert and mountain, + Far into the country of sorrow, + To-day and to-night and to-morrow, + And maybe for months and for years; + You shall come, with a heart that is bursting + For trouble and toiling and thirsting, + You shall certainly come to the fountain + At length,--to the Fountain of Tears. + +(ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY: _The Fountain of Tears._ 1870.) + +Here the extra light syllable at the end of the line is really the +initial light syllable of the following line, as in the specimen on p. +29, above. + + So this is a psalm of the waters,-- + The wavering, wandering waters: + With languages learned in the forest, + With secrets of earth's lonely caverns, + The mystical waters go by me + On errands of love and of beauty, + On embassies friendly and gentle, + With shimmer of brown and of silver. + +(S. WEIR MITCHELL: _A Psalm of the Waters._ 1890.) + +Here, also, the final light syllable might be said to take the place of +the missing initial syllable; but the structure of the verse, with the +fact that the initial anapest is always truncated and that the final +syllable is never accented, indicates that the verse as it stands is the +norm of the poem--three-stress anapestic, with initial truncation and +feminine ending. + + +_Three-stress dactylic._ + +(Catalectic:) + + This is a spray the Bird clung to, + Making it blossom with pleasure, + Ere the high tree-top she sprung to, + Fit for her nest and her treasure. + +(BROWNING: _Misconceptions_. 1855.) + + +_Four-stress iambic._ + +(For specimens, see Part Two.) + + +_Four-stress trochaic._ + + Maiden, crowned with glossy blackness, + Lithe as panther forest-roaming, + Long-armed naiad, when she dances, + On a stream of ether floating. + +(GEORGE ELIOT: Song from _The Spanish Gypsy_, Book i. 1868.) + + Westward, westward Hiawatha + Sailed into the fiery sunset, + Sailed into the purple vapors, + Sailed into the dusk of evening. + +(LONGFELLOW: _Hiawatha_. 1855.) + + Honour, riches, marriage-blessing, + Long continuance, and increasing, + Hourly joys be still upon you! + Juno sings her blessings on you. + +(SHAKSPERE: Juno's Song in _The Tempest_, IV. i. ab. 1610.) + +(Catalectic:) + + On a day, alack the day! + Love, whose month is ever May, + Spied a blossom passing fair + Playing in the wanton air: + Through the velvet leaves the wind, + All unseen, can passage find; + That the lover, sick to death, + Wish himself the heaven's breath. + +(SHAKSPERE: _Love's Labor's Lost_, IV. 3. ab. 1590.) + + Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee + Jest, and youthful jollity, + Quips and cranks and wanton wiles, + Nods and becks and wreathed smiles, + Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, + And love to live in dimple sleek. + +(MILTON: _L'Allegro_. 1634.) + + Souls of Poets dead and gone, + What Elysium have ye known, + Happy field or mossy cavern, + Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? + Have ye tippled drink more fine + Than mine host's Canary wine? + Or are fruits of Paradise + Sweeter than those dainty pies + Of venison? O generous food! + Drest as though bold Robin Hood + Would, with his maid Marian, + Sup and bowse from horn and can. + +(KEATS: _Lines on the Mermaid Tavern_. 1820.) + + +_Four-stress anapestic._ + + What I speak, my fair Chloe, and what I write, shows + The difference there is betwixt nature and art: + I court others in verse; but I love thee in prose: + And they have my whimsies; but thou hast my heart. + +(PRIOR: _A Better Answer_. ab. 1710.) + +Prior's anapests well illustrate the appropriateness of the measure for +light tripping effects, such as are sought _vers de société_. See also +the measure of Goldsmith's _Retaliation_, especially the passage +beginning-- + + "Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can; + An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man." + + The small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning, + The murmuring streamlet winds clear through the vale; + The hawthorn trees blow in the dews of the morning, + And wild scatter'd cowslips bedeck the green dale. + +(BURNS: _The Chevalier's Lament_. 1788.) + + The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, + And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; + And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, + When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. + +(BYRON: _The Destruction of Sennacherib_. 1815.) + +(With three-stress:) + + Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, + Which I gaze on so fondly to-day, + Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms, + Like fairy-gifts fading away, + Thou wouldst still be ador'd, as this moment thou art, + Let thy loveliness fade as it will, + And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart + Would entwine itself verdantly still. + +(THOMAS MOORE: _Believe me, if all those endearing young charms._ ab. +1825.) + + +_four-stress dactylic_. + + After the pangs of a desperate lover, + When day and night I have sighed all in vain; + Ah, what a pleasure it is to discover + In her eyes pity, who causes my pain! + +(DRYDEN: Song in _An Evening's Love_. 1668.) + +Of this song Mr. Saintsbury says that it is "one of the rare examples of +a real dactylic metre in English, where the dactyls are not, as usual, +equally to be scanned as anapests." (_Life of Dryden_, Men of Letters +Series, p. 62.) Here, as almost always in English, the measure is +catalectic, a final dactyl being instinctively avoided, except in short +two-stress lines. + + Warriors and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword + Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord, + Heed not the corse, though a king's, in your path: + Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath! + +(BYRON: _Song of Saul before his Last Battle._ 1815.) + + Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King, + Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing: + And, pressing a troop, unable to stoop + And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop, + Marched them along, fifty-score strong, + Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. + +(BROWNING: _Cavalier Tunes._ 1843.) + +Here the metre is varied interestingly by pauses. Thus in lines 1 and 5 +the light syllables of the second foot are wholly wanting. + + +_Five-stress iambic._ + +(For specimens, see Part Two.) + + +_Five-stress trochaic._ + + What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy? + Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal, + Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), + All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos), + She would turn a new side to her mortal, + Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman-- + Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, + Blind to Galileo on his turret, + Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats--him, even! + +(BROWNING: _One Word More._ 1855.) + +This is a rare specimen of unrimed verse in other than iambic rhythm. + +(Catalectic:) + + Then methought I heard a mellow sound, + Gathering up from all the lower ground; + Narrowing in to where they sat assembled + Low voluptuous music winding trembled, + Wov'n in circles: they that heard it sighed, + Panted, hand-in-hand with faces pale, + Swung themselves, and in low tones replied; + Till the fountain spouted, showering wide + Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail. + +(TENNYSON: _The Vision of Sin._ 1842.) + + +_Five-stress anapestic._ + + As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved + Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being beloved! + He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most + weak. + 'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek + In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be + A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, + Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand + Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand! + +(BROWNING: _Saul._ 1845.) + + Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a wind, + We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still, + And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind; + It is better to fight for the good than to rail at the ill; + I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind, + I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom assign'd. + +(TENNYSON: _Maud_, III. vi. 1855.) + +Here frequent iambi are substituted for anapests; as in line 1, second +and fourth feet; lines 2 and 3, fifth foot; line 5, third foot. + + +_Five-stress dactylic._ + +This form is almost unknown. In the following lines we find five-stress +catalectic verse of dactyls and trochees combined: + + Surely the thought in a man's heart hopes or fears + Now that forgetfulness needs must here have stricken + Anguish, and sweetened the sealed-up springs of tears. + +(SWINBURNE: _A Century of Roundels._) + + +_Six-stress iambic._ + +(For specimens, see Part Two.) + + +_Six-stress trochaic._ + +(With alternate lines catalectic:) + + Day by day thy shadow shines in heaven beholden, + Even the sun, the shining shadow of thy face: + King, the ways of heaven before thy feet grow golden; + God, the soul of earth is kindled with thy grace. + +(SWINBURNE: _The Last Oracle._) + + +_Six-stress anapestic._ + + For I trust if an enemy's fleet came yonder round by the hill, + And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out of + the foam, + That the smooth-faced snubnosed rogue would leap from his counter + and till, + And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating yard-wand, + home. + +(TENNYSON: _Maud_, I. i. 1855.) + +(See note on p. 41.) + + All under the deeps of the darkness are glimmering: all over + impends + An immeasurable infinite flower of the dark that dilates and + descends, + That exalts and expands in its breathless and blind efflorescence + of heart + As it broadens and bows to the wave-ward, and breathes not, and + hearkens apart. + +(SWINBURNE: _The Garden of Cymodoce_, in _Songs of the Springtides_.) + + +_Six-stress dactylic._ + +(For this, see chiefly Part Two.) + +(Catalectic:) + + Dosn't thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awaay? + Proputty, proputty, proputty--that's what I 'ears 'em saay. + Proputty, proputty, proputty--Sam, thou's an ass for thy paains: + Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs nor in all thy braains. + +(TENNYSON: _Northern Farmer--new style._ ab. 1860.) + + Thee I behold as a bird borne in with the wind from the west, + Straight from the sunset, across white waves whence rose as a + daughter + Venus thy mother, in years when the world was a water at rest. + +(SWINBURNE: _Hesperia._) + + +_Seven-stress iambic._ + + There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away + When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay; + 'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so + fast, + But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past. + +(BYRON: _Stanzas for Music._ 1815.) + +Here we have anacrusis in lines 2 and 4. + + Beyond the path of the outmost sun, through utter darkness + hurled-- + Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled-- + Live such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our + world. + +(KIPLING: _Wolcott Balestier._) + +(See also under Seven-stress Verse, in Part Two.) + + +_Seven-stress trochaic._ + +(Catalectic:) + + Clear the way, my lords and lackeys, you have had your day. + Here you have your answer, England's yea against your nay; + Long enough your house has held you: up, and clear the way! + +(SWINBURNE: _Clear the Way._) + + +_Seven-stress anapestic._ + +(With feminine ending:) + + Come on then, ye dwellers by nature in darkness, and like to the + leaves' generations, + That are little of might, that are moulded of mire, unenduring and + shadowlike nations, + Poor plumeless ephemerals, comfortless mortals, as visions of + creatures fast fleeing, + Lift up your mind unto us that are deathless, and dateless the date + of our being. + +(SWINBURNE: _The Birds_, from Aristophanes.) + +Of this translation Mr. Swinburne says that it was undertaken from a +consideration of the fact that the "marvellous metrical invention of the +anapestic heptameter was almost exactly reproducible in a language to +which all variations and combinations of anapestic, iambic, or trochaic +metre are as natural and pliable as all dactylic and spondaic forms of +verse are unnatural and abhorrent." ... "I have not attempted," he says +further, "the impossible and undesirable task of reproducing the rare +exceptional effect of a line overcharged on purpose with a +preponderance of heavy-footed spondees.... My main desire ... was to +renew as far as possible for English ears the music of this resonant and +triumphant metre, which goes ringing at full gallop as of horses who + + 'dance as 'twere to the music + Their own hoofs make.'" + +(_Studies in Song_, p. 68.) + + +_Seven-stress dactylic._ + +This form of verse may be said to be wanting. Schipper quotes as +possible examples some lines which (as he remarks) seem to be made +merely for the metrical purpose: + + "Out of the kingdom of Christ shall be gathered, by angels o'er + Satan victorious, + All that offendeth, that lieth, that faileth to honor his name + ever glorious." + +(_Englische Metrik_, vol. ii. p. 419.) + + +_Eight-stress iambic._ + +This is almost unknown in English verse, because where conceivably +occurring it shows an irresistible tendency to break up into two halves +of four stresses each. William Webbe, in his _Discourse of English +Poetrie_ (1586), quoted these lines as "the longest verse in length +which I have seen used in English": + + "Where virtue wants and vice abounds, there wealth is but a baited + hook, + To make men swallow down their bane, before on danger deep they + look." + + +_Eight-stress trochaic._ + +(Catalectic:) + + Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands; + Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. + Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with + might; + Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of + sight. + +(TENNYSON: _Locksley Hall._ 1842.) + + Open then I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, + In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore. + Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed he; + But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door,-- + Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door. + +(POE: _The Raven._ 1845.) + + Night, in utmost noon forlorn and strong, with heart athirst and + fasting, + Hungers here, barred up forever, whence as one whom dreams affright, + Day recoils before the low-browed lintel threatening doom and + casting Night. + +(SWINBURNE: _Night in Guernsey._) + +In the last line of this specimen we have a nine-accent verse,--very +rare in English poetry. + +The tendency of all eight-accent lines being to break up into halves of +four accents, the distinction between four-stress and eight-stress verse +may be at times only a question of printing. Thus, Thackeray's _Sorrows +of Werther_ might be regarded as eight-stress trochaic, though commonly +printed in short lines: + + "Werther had a love for Charlotte + Such as words could never utter. + Would you know how first he saw her? + She was cutting bread and butter." + + +_Eight-stress anapestic._ + + Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and the splendor + of winter had passed out of sight, + The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that + fulfil us in sleep with delight; + The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and + branches that glittered and swayed + Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow, or of frost that + out-lightens all flowers till it fade, + That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night + than the day, nor the day than the night, + Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had + the madness and might in thee made, + March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that + enkindle the season they smite. + +(SWINBURNE: _March._) + + +_Eight-stress dactylic._ + + Onward and onward the highway runs to the distant city, impatiently + bearing + Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of hate, of doing + and daring. + +(LONGFELLOW: _Golden Legend_, iv. 1851.) + +The breathlessly continuous character of such long anapestic or +dactylic lines may of course be interrupted, by way of relief, by the +substitution of iambi or trochees. In the specimen from Swinburne such a +resting-place is found in line 3, where a light syllable is omitted +after _winds_. In the specimen from Longfellow the words _high-way_, +_distant_, _human_, of course, fill the places of complete dactyls. + + +COMBINATIONS AND SUBSTITUTIONS + + +i. _Verses in which different sorts of feet are more or less regularly +combined_. + + In the morning, O so early, my beloved, my beloved, + All the birds were singing blithely, as if never they would cease: + 'Twas a thrush sang in my garden, "Hear the story, hear the story!" + And the lark sang "Give us glory!" and the dove said "Give us peace." + +(JEAN INGELOW: _Give us Love and Give us Peace._) + + Fair is our lot--O goodly is our heritage! + (Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!) + For the Lord our God Most High + He hath made the deep as dry, + He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the Earth! + +(KIPLING: _A Song of the English._) + +In both these specimens the full accent regularly recurs in only the +alternate feet. Thus while the first specimen is technically +eight-stress trochaic, there are in the normal reading of it only four +full accents to the line. In other words the first, third, fifth, and +seventh feet are regularly pyrrhics. (See p. 55.) The same thing appears +in the specimen from Kipling: _ye_, _and_, _in_ (in line 2) are accented +only in a distinctly secondary fashion. Some have suggested, for such +rhythms as these, the recognition of a foot made up of one stressed and +three unstressed syllables. Lanier represents such measures (in _The +Science of English Verse_) in four-eight time. + + Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat, + The mist in my face, + When the snows begin, and the blasts denote + I am nearing the place, + The power of the night, the press of the storm, + The post of the foe; + Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, + Yet the strong man must go. + +(BROWNING: _Prospice._) + +Here the tendency is to use iambi and anapests in alternate feet; see +especially lines 2, 3, and 5. + + All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist; + Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power + Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist + When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. + + The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, + The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, + Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; + Enough that He heard it once: we shall hear it by-and-by. + +(BROWNING: _Abt Vogler._) + +Here we have a hexameter which is neither iambic nor anapestic, but a +combination of the two rhythms. So in the following specimens +dissyllabic and trisyllabic feet are used interchangeably. + + When the lamp is shatter'd + The light in the dust lies dead-- + When the cloud is scatter'd + The rainbow's glory is shed. + When the lute is broken, + Sweet tones are remember'd not; + When the lips have spoken, + Loved accents are soon forgot. + +(SHELLEY: _The Flight of Love._) + + The sea is at ebb, and the sound of her utmost word + Is soft at the least wave's lapse in a still small reach. + From bay unto bay, on quest of a goal deferred, + From headland ever to headland and breach to breach, + Where earth gives ear to the message that all days preach. + +(SWINBURNE: _The Seaboard._) + + England, none that is born thy son, and lives, by grace of thy + glory, free, + Lives and yearns not at heart and burns with hope to serve as he + worships thee; + None may sing thee: the sea-bird's wing beats down our songs as it + hails the sea. + +(SWINBURNE: _The Armada_, vii.) + + This life of ours is a wild Ęolian harp of many a joyous strain, + But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail, as of souls + in pain. + +(LONGFELLOW: _The Golden Legend_, iv.) + + Come away, come away, Death, + And in sad cypress let me be laid; + Fly away, fly away, breath; + I am slain by a fair cruel maid. + My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, + O prepare it! + My part of death, no one so true + Did share it. + +(SHAKSPERE: _Twelfth Night_, II. iv.) + +The characteristic irregularity in this stanza is the variation from +trochaic to iambic rhythm. In this case the variations are in part due, +no doubt, to the fact that the words were written for music. + + Maud with her exquisite face, + And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky, + And feet like sunny gems on an English green, + Maud in the light of her youth and her grace, + Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot die, + Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean + And myself so languid and base. + +(TENNYSON: _Maud_, I. v.) + +In this specimen the characteristic rhythm of lines 1, 4, and 5 is +dactylic, that of the remainder anapestic-iambic. + + The trumpet's loud clangor + Excites us to arms + With shrill notes of anger + And mortal alarms. + The double double double beat + Of the thundering drum + Cries, hark! the foes come; + Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat. + The soft complaining flute + In dying notes discovers + The woes of helpless lovers, + Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. + +(DRYDEN: _Song for St. Cecilia's Day_, 1687.) + +In this famous stanza the rhythm changes for obvious purposes of +imitative representation. + + Children dear, was it yesterday + (Call yet once) that she went away? + Once she sate with you and me, + On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, + And the youngest sate on her knee. + She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well, + When down swung the sound of a far-off bell. + She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea; + She said, "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray + In the little gray church on the shore to-day. + 'Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me! + And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee." + I said, "Go up, dear heart, through the waves; + Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!" + She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay. + Children dear, was it yesterday? + + ... Down, down, down! + Down to the depths of the sea! + She sits at her wheel in the humming town, + Singing most joyfully. + Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy, + For the humming street, and the child with its toy! + For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well; + For the wheel where I spun, + And the blessed light of the sun!" + And so she sings her fill, + Singing most joyfully, + Till the spindle drops from her hand, + And the whizzing wheel stands still. + She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, + And over the sand at the sea; + And her eyes are set in a stare; + And anon there breaks a sigh, + And anon there drops a tear, + From a sorrow-clouded eye, + And a heart sorrow-laden, + A long, long sigh, + For the cold strange eyes of a little mermaiden, + And the gleam of her golden hair. + +(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _The Forsaken Merman._) + + Then the music touch'd the gates and died; + Rose again from where it seem'd to fail, + Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale; + Till thronging in and in, to where they waited, + As 'twere a hundred-throated nightingale, + The strong tempestuous treble throbbed and palpitated; + Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound, + Caught the sparkles, and in circles, + Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes, + Flung the torrent rainbow round: + Then they started from their places, + Moved with violence, changed in hue, + Caught each other with wild grimaces, + Half-invisible to the view, + Wheeling with precipitate paces + To the melody, till they flew, + Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces, + Twisted hard in fierce embraces, + Like to Furies, like to Graces, + Dash'd together in blinding dew. + +(TENNYSON: _Vision of Sin._) + + +ii. _Verses in which individual feet are altered from the metrical +scheme._ + +Even in metre exhibiting no marked irregularities, it is of course +rather exceptional than otherwise to find all the feet in a verse +conforming to the type-foot of the metre. Departures from the typical +metre may be conveniently classified in five groups: Deficiency in +accent; excess of accent; inversion of accent; light syllable added to +dissyllabic foot; light syllable omitted in trisyllabic foot. + +Deficiency of accent is the most common of all the variations, if we +understand by "accent" such syllabic stress as would be ordinarily +appreciable in the reading of the word in question. It would be safe to +say that in English five-stress iambic verse, read with only the +ordinary etymological and rhetorical accents, twenty-five per cent of +the verses lack the full five stresses characteristic of the type. In +many cases, too, a foot with deficiency in stress is compensated for by +another foot in the same verse showing excess of stress. Feet thus +deficient in stress may conveniently be called _pyrrhics_, the pyrrhic +being understood as made up of two unstressed syllables. This term has +never become fully domesticated in English prosody, and some object to +its use on the ground that we have no feet wholly without stress. Its +use in the sense just indicated, however, seems to be an unquestionable +convenience. + +Excess of accent, while less common than deficiency of accent, is even +more easily recognizable. The foot containing two stressed syllables, +even though one of the stresses may be distinctly stronger than the +other, may conveniently be called a _spondee_. + +Inversion of accent is exceedingly familiar, especially at the beginning +of the verse and after the medial pause. It consists, technically +speaking, in the substitution of a trochee for an iambus or an iambus +for a trochee (the latter very rarely). + +A light syllable inserted in dissyllabic measure is not unusual, though +by no means so common as the variations previously enumerated. Such a +syllable is frequently spoken of as "hypermetrical"; or, the variation +may be considered as the substitution of an anapest for an iambus, in +iambic measure, or the substitution of a dactyl for a trochee, in +trochaic measure. + +The omission of one of the two light syllables from the foot in +trisyllabic verse is so common as to make it difficult to find pure +anapestic or dactylic verse in English. This fact is due in part to +preference for dissyllabic measures, and in part to the usual +indifference, in all Germanic verse, to accuracy in the number of light +syllables. The variation may frequently be regarded as involving a +prolongation of the light syllable of the foot, or a pause equal to the +time of the omitted syllable; technically speaking, it consists in the +substitution of an iambus for an anapest, or a trochee for a dactyl. + +Examples of all these variations may best be found in the specimens of +verse included in the preceding pages. A few specimens of detail are +added here, for the sake of greater clearness. + + +_Deficiency in accent (substituted pyrrhic)._ + + To further this, Achit_ophel_ unites + The malcontents of all the Israelites, + Whose differing par_ties he_ could wisely join + For several ends to serve the same design; + The best (_and of_ the princes some were such) + Who thought the power of mon_archy_ too much; + Mistaken men and patr_iots in_ their hearts, + Not wick_ed, but_ seduced by impious arts; + By these the springs of prop_erty_ were bent, + And wound so high they crack'd the gov_ernment_. + +(DRYDEN: _Absalom and Achitophel_, I.) + + +_Excess of accent (substituted spondee)._ + + And ten _low words_ oft creep in one _dull line_. + +(POPE: _Essay on Criticism._) + + _Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens_, and shades of death. + +(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, II. 621.) + + _See, see_ where Christ's _blood streams_ in the firmament! + +(MARLOWE: _Faustus_, sc. xvi.) + + O great, _just, good God! Mis_erable me! + +(BROWNING: _The Ring and the Book_, VI.) + + A tree's _head snaps_--and there, _there, there, there, there_! + +(BROWNING: _Caliban upon Setebos._) + + +_Inversion of accent (substituted trochee)._ + + Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, + _Gorged with_ the dearest morsel of the earth. + +(SHAKSPERE: _Romeo and Juliet_, V. iii. 45 f.) + + Finds tongues in trees, _books in_ the running brooks, + _Sermons_ in stones, and good in every thing. + +(_As You Like It_, II. i. 16 f.) + + The watery kingdom whose ambitious head + _Spits in_ the face of heaven. + +(_Merchant of Venice_, II. vii. 44 f.) + + Long lines of cliff _breaking_ have left a chasm. + +(TENNYSON: _Enoch Arden._) + + There whirled her white robe like a blossomed branch + _Rapt to_ the horrible fall: a glance I gave, + No more; but woman-vested as I was + _Plunged; and_ the flood _drew; yet_ I caught her; then + _Oaring_ one arm,... + +(TENNYSON: _The Princess._) + + _Stabbed through_ the heart's affections to the heart! + _Seethed like_ a kid in its own mother's milk! + _Killed with_ a word worse than a life of blows! + +(TENNYSON: _Merlin and Vivien._) + + He flowed + _Right for_ the polar star, past Orgunje, + _Brimming_, and bright, and large; then sands begin,... + +(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _Sohrab and Rustum._) + + +_Hypermetrical syllable (substituted anapest)._ + + _Let me see, let me see_, is not the leaf turn'd down? + +(SHAKSPERE: _Julius Cęsar_, IV. iii. 271.) + + Leviathan, which God of all his works + Created hug_est that swim_ the ocean stream. + +(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, I. 201 f.) + +This passage was one of those where Bentley made himself ridiculous in +his edition of Milton. "To smooth it" he changed the lines to read-- + + "Leviathan, whom God the vastest made + Of all the kinds that swim the ocean stream,"-- + +not perceiving, what Cowper pointed out, that Milton had designedly used +"the word _hugest_ where it may have the clumsiest effect.... +Smoothness was not the thing to be consulted when the Leviathan was in +question." + + So he with diff_iculty_ and labour hard + Moved on, with diff_iculty_ and labour he. + +(_ib._ II. 1021 f.) + + The sweep + Of some precip_itous rivulet to_ the wave. + +(TENNYSON: _Enoch Arden._) + + The sound of many a heav_ily galloping_ hoof. + +(TENNYSON: _Geraint and Enid._) + + I wish that somewhere in the ruin'd folds,... + Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her + _The Abominable_, that uninvited came. + +(TENNYSON: _[OE]none._) + + _Do you see_ this square old yellow book I toss + _I' the air_, and catch again, and twirl about + _By the crumpl_ed vellum covers; pure crude fact-- + +(BROWNING: _The Ring and the Book_, I.) + + That plant + Shall never wave its tangles light_ly and soft_ly + As a queen's languid and imperial arm. + +(BROWNING: _Paracelsus_, I.) + +A distinction should be made between these hypermetrical syllables which +change the character of the foot from dissyllabic to trisyllabic, and +syllables (in a sense hypermetrical) which are slurred or elided in the +reading. The word _radiance_, for example, is regarded as trisyllabic in +prose, but in the verse-- + + "Girt with omnipotence, with radiance crowned," + +it is made dissyllabic by instinctive compression, and in no proper +sense makes an anapest of the fifth foot. Of the same character are the +numerous cases where a vowel is elided before another vowel--especially +the vowel of the article _the_.[7] On the elisions of Milton's verse, +see Mr. Robert Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_; on those of Shakspere's +verse, see Abbott's _Shakespearian Grammar_. In modern verse the use of +elision and slurring is ordinarily that found in common speech. + + +_Omitted syllable (substituted iambus)._ + + As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean, + that none but a god _might see_, + _Rose out_ of the silence _of things unknown_ + of a presence, a form, _a might_, + And we heard as a prophet that hears _God's mes_sage + against him, and may _not flee_. + +(SWINBURNE: _Death of Richard Wagner._) + +See also specimens on pp. 42, 43, 48, above. + +Mr. Mayor considers the question as to how far substitution of other +than the typical foot may be carried in a verse, without destroying the +genuineness of the fundamental rhythm. His conclusions are these: + +(1) The limit of trochaic substitution is three feet out of five, with +the final foot iambic; or two out of five, if the fifth foot is +inverted. + +(2) A spondee is allowable in any position; the limit is four out of +five, with either the fourth or fifth foot remaining iambic. + +(3) A pyrrhic may occur in any position; the limit is three out of five, +with the other feet preferably spondees. + +(4) The limit for trisyllabic substitution is three out of five. + +(_Chapters on English Metre_, chap. V.) + +Professor Corson discusses the ęsthetic effect of these changes from the +typical metre: "The true metrical artist ... never indulges in variety +for variety's sake.... All metrical effects are to a great extent +_relative_--and relativity of effect depends, of course, upon having a +standard in the mind or feelings.... Now the more closely the poet +adheres to his standard--to the even tenor (modulus) of his verse--so +long as there is no logical nor ęsthetic motive for departing from it, +the more effective do his departures become when they are sufficiently +motived. All non-significant departures weaken the significant ones.... +The normal tenor of the verse is presumed to represent the normal tenor +of the feeling which produces it. And departures from that normal tenor +represent, or should represent, variations in the normal tenor of the +feeling. Outside of the general law ... of the slurring or suppression +of extra light syllables, which do not go for anything in the +expression, an exceptional foot must result in emphasis, whether +intended or not, either logical or emotional.... A great poet is +presumed to have metrical skill; and where ripples occur in the stream +of his verse, they will generally be found to justify themselves as +organic; _i.e._ they are a part of the expression." + +(_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 48-50.) + +On the ęsthetic symbolism of various metrical movements, see G. L. +Raymond's _Poetry as a Representative Art_, pp. 113 ff. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] The names of the several kinds of feet are of course borrowed from +classical prosody, where they are used to mark feet made up not of +accented and unaccented, but of long and short syllables. The different +significance of the terms as applied to the verse of different languages +has given rise to some confusion, and it is proposed by some to abandon +the classical terms; their use, however, seems to be too well +established in English to permit of change. Some would even abandon the +attempt to measure English verse by feet, contending that its rhythm is +too free to admit of any such measuring process; thus, see Mr. J. M. +Robertson, in the Appendix to _New Essays toward a Critical Method_, and +Mr. J. A. Symonds in his _Blank Verse_. See also in Mr. Robert Bridges's +_Milton's Prosody_, Appendix G "On the Use of Greek Terminology in +English Prosody." (1901 ed. p. 77.) + +[7] On the historical problem of the distinction between elided and +genuinely hypermetrical syllables in the French and English decasyllabic +verse, see Motheré: _Les théories du vers héroique anglais et ses +relations avec la versification franēaise_ (Havre, 1886). + + + + +III. THE STANZA + + +The stanza, or strophe, is the largest unit of verse-measure ordinarily +recognized. It is based not so much on rhythmical divisions as on +periods either rhetorical or melodic; that is, a short stanza will +roughly correspond to the period of a sentence, and a long one to that +of a paragraph, while in lyrical verse the original idea was to conform +the stanza to the melody for which it was written. Thus Schipper +observes: "The word strophe properly signifies a _turning_, and +originally indicated the return of the song, as sung, to the melody with +which it began." Schipper defines a stanza as a group of verses of a +certain number, so combined that all the stanzas of the same poem will +be identical in the number, the length, and the metre of the +corresponding verses; in rimed verse, also, the arrangement of the rimes +will be identical. (See _Grundriss_, p. 268.) + +The form of a stanza, then, is determined and described (the fundamental +metre being assumed) by the number of verses, the length of verses, and +the arrangement of rimes. The usual and convenient method of indicating +these conditions is to represent all the verses that rime together by +the same letter, while the number of feet in the verse is written like +an algebraic exponent. Thus a quatrain in "common metre" (four-stress +and three-stress lines), riming alternately, is represented by the +formula _a^{4}b^{3}a^{4}b^{3}_. + + * * * * * + +The appearance of the stanza in English verse is always the sign of +foreign influence. The West Germanic verse, as far back as we have +specimens of it, is uniformly _stichic_ (that is, marked by no periods +save those of the individual verse), not _stanzaic_.[8] On the other +hand, we find the stanza in the Old Norse verse. Sievers's view is that +originally the two sorts of verse existed side by side, the stanzaic +being preferred for chorus delivery, the stichic for individual +recitation; one form at length crowding out the other. + +The great organizer of the stanza is, of course, the element of rime. +While unrimed stanzas are familiar in classical verse, the two +innovations, rime and stanza, were introduced together into English +verse, under both Latin and French influences, and have almost +invariably been associated. For notes on the history of the beginnings +of stanza-forms in English, see therefore under Rime, in the following +section. + + +TERCETS + + Truth may seem, but cannot be; + Beauty brag, but 'tis not she; + Truth and beauty buried be. + +(SHAKSPERE: _The Ph[oe]nix and the Turtle._ 1601.) + + O praise the Lord, his wonders tell, + Whose mercy shines in Israel, + At length redeem'd from sin and hell. + +(GEORGE SANDYS: _Paraphrase upon Luke i._ ab. 1630.) + + Love, making all things else his foes, + Like a fierce torrent overflows + Whatever doth his course oppose. + +(SIR JNO. DENHAM: _Against Love._ ab. 1640.) + + Children, keep up that harmless play: + Your kindred angels plainly say + By God's authority ye may. + +(LANDOR: _Children Playing in a Churchyard._ 1858.) + + Whoe'er she be, + That not impossible She + That shall command my heart and me; + + Where'er she lie, + Lock'd up from mortal eye + In shady leaves of destiny:... + + --Meet you her, my Wishes, + Bespeak her to my blisses, + And be ye call'd, my absent kisses. + +(CRASHAW: _Wishes for the Supposed Mistress._ 1646.) + + I said, "I toil beneath the curse, + But, knowing not the universe, + I fear to slide from bad to worse. + + "And that, in seeking to undo + One riddle, and to find the true, + I knit a hundred others new." + +(TENNYSON: _The Two Voices._ 1833.) + + Like the swell of some sweet tune, + Morning rises into noon, + May glides onward into June. + +(LONGFELLOW: _Maidenhood._ 1842.) + + Whenas in silks my Julia goes, + Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows + That liquefaction of her clothes. + +(HERRICK: _To Julia._ 1648) + + The fear was on the cattle, for the gale was on the sea, + An' the pens broke up on the lower deck an' let the creatures free-- + An' the lights went out on the lower deck, an' no one down but me. + +(KIPLING: _Mulholland's Contract._) + + +_Terza rima_ (_aba_, _bcb_, etc.). + + A spending hand that alway poureth out + Had need to have a bringer in as fast; + And on the stone that still doth turn about + + There groweth no moss. These proverbs yet do last: + Reason hath set them in so sure a place, + That length of years their force can never waste. + + When I remember this, and eke the case + Wherein thou stand'st, I thought forthwith to write, + Bryan, to thee. Who knows how great a grace,... + +(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _How to use the court and himself therein, written to +Sir Francis Bryan._ ab. 1542.) + +The _terza rima_ is, strictly speaking, a scheme of continuous verse +rather than a stanza, each tercet being united by the rime-scheme to the +preceding. Its use in English has always been slight, and always due to +conscious imitation of the Italian. No successful attempt has been made +to use it for a long poem, as Dante did in the _Divina Commedia_. +Wyatt's specimen is the earliest in English; he chose the form for his +three satires imitating those of Alamanni. + + Once, O sweet once, I saw with dread oppressed + Her whom I dread; so that with prostrate lying + Her length the earth Love's chiefe clothing dressed. + I saw that riches fall, and fell a crying:-- + Let not dead earth enjoy so deare a cover, + But decke therewith my soule for your sake dying; + Lay all your feare upon your fearfull lover: + Shine, eyes, on me, that both our lives be guarded: + So I your sight, you shall your selves recover. + +(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Thyrsis and Dorus_, in the _Countess of Pembroke's +Arcadia_. ab. 1580.) + + Why do the Gentiles tumult, and the nations + Muse a vain thing, the kings of earth upstand + With power, and princes in their congregations + + Lay deep their plots together through each land + Against the Lord and his Messiah dear? + "Let us break off," say they, "by strength of hand + + Their bonds, and cast from us, no more to wear, + Their twisted cords." He who in Heaven doth dwell + Shall laugh. + +(MILTON: _Psalm II._ 1653.) + + O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, + Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead + Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, + Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, + Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou + Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed + The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, + Each like a corpse within its grave, until + Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow + Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill + (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) + With living hues and odors plain and hill: + Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; + Destroyer and Preserver; hear, oh hear! + +(SHELLEY: _Ode to the West Wind._ 1819.) + +In this case the tercets are united in groups of three to form a strophe +of fourteen lines together with a final couplet riming with the middle +line of the preceding tercet. + + The true has no value beyond the sham: + As well the counter as coin, I submit, + When your table's a hat, and your prize a dram. + + Stake your counter as boldly every whit, + Venture as warily, use the same skill, + Do your best, whether winning or losing it, + + If you choose to play!--is my principle. + Let a man contend to the uttermost + For his life's set prize, be it what it will! + +(BROWNING: _The Statue and the Bust._ 1855.) + +The effort to translate Dante in the original metre is especially +interesting, and marked by great difficulties; to furnish the necessary +rimes, without introducing expletive words that mar the simplicity of +the original, being a serious problem. The following are interesting +specimens of translations where this problem is grappled with; the first +is a well-known fragment, the second a portion of a still unpublished +translation of the _Inferno_, reproduced here by the courtesy of the +author. + + Then she to me: "The greatest of all woes + Is to remind us of our happy days + In misery, and that thy teacher knows. + But if to learn our passion's first root preys + Upon thy spirit with such sympathy, + I will do even as he who weeps and says. + We read one day for pastime, seated nigh, + Of Lancelot, how love enchained him too. + We were alone, quite unsuspiciously. + But oft our eyes met, and our cheeks in hue + All o'er discolored by that reading were; + But one point only wholly us o'erthrew; + When we read the long-sighed-for smile of her, + To be thus kissed by such devoted lover, + He who from me can be divided ne'er + Kissed my mouth, trembling in the act all over. + Accursed was the book and he who wrote! + That day no further leaf did we uncover." + +(BYRON: _Francesca of Rimini_, from Dante's _Inferno_, Canto V. 1820.) + + "Wherefore for thee I think and deem it well + Thou follow me, and I will bring about + Thy passage thither where the eternal dwell. + There shalt thou hearken the despairing shout, + Shalt see the ancient spirits with woe opprest, + Who craving for the second death cry out. + Then shalt thou those behold who are at rest + Amid the flame, because their hopes aspire + To come, when it may be, among the blest. + If to ascend to these be thy desire, + Thereto shall be a soul of worthier strain; + Thee shall I leave with her when I retire: + Because the Emperor who there doth reign, + For I rebellious was to his decree, + Wills that his city none by me attain. + In all parts ruleth, and there reigneth he,-- + There is his city and his lofty throne: + O happy they who thereto chosen be!" + +(MELVILLE B. ANDERSON: _Dante's Inferno_, Canto i. ll. 112-129.) + + +QUATRAINS + + +_aaaa_ + + Suete iesu, king of blysse, + Myn huerte love, min huerte lisse, + Žou art suete myd ywisse, + Wo is him žat že shal misse! + +(Song from Harleian Ms. 2253--12th century, Böddeker's _Altenglische +Dichtungen_, p. 191.) + + +_aabb_ + + O Lord, that rul'st our mortal line, + How through the world Thy name doth shine; + Thou hast of Thy unmatched glory + Upon the heavens engrav'd Thy story. + +(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Psalm viii._ ab. 1580.) + + A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, + And the young winds fed it with silver dew, + And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light, + And closed them beneath the kisses of night. + +(SHELLEY: _The Sensitive Plant._ 1820.) + + +_abcb_ + + In somer, when the shawes be sheyne, + And leves be large and long, + Hit is full mery in feyre foreste + To here the foulys song. + +(Ballad of _Robin Hood and the Monk_. In Gummere's _English Ballads_, p. +77.) + +This is the familiar stanza of the early ballads. The omission of rime +in the third line signalizes the fact that the stanza could be (and was) +regarded indifferently as made up either of two long lines or four short +ones. Thus the famous Chevy Chase ballad is found (Ashmole Ms., of about +1560) written in long lines: + + "The yngglyshe men hade ther bowys ybent yer hartes wer good ynoughe + The first off arros that the shote off seven skore spear-men the + sloughe." + +(See in Flügel's _Neuenglisches Lesebuch_, vol. i. p. 199.) + +The same thing occurs also where there are two rimes to the stanza. +Originally, the extra internal rime was no doubt the cause of the +breaking up of the long couplet into two short lines. (See examples in +Part Two, in the case of the septenary.) + + Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, + How can ye bloom sae fair! + How can ye chant, ye little birds, + And I sae fu' o' care! + +(BURNS: _Bonnie Doon._ ab. 1790.) + + +_abab_ + + Že grace of god ful of mi[gh]t + Žat is king and ever was, + Mote among us ali[gh]t + And [gh]ive us alle is swet grace. + +(From the Harleian Ms. 913. In Mätzner's _Altenglische Sprachproben_, +vol. i. p. 125.) + +Furnivall prints this in long lines with internal rime, which of itself +seems to form the short-line stanza from the long lines. + + Of al this world the wyde compas + Hit wol not in myn armes tweyne.-- + Who-so mochel wol embrace + Litel thereof he shal distreyne. + +(CHAUCER: _Proverb._ ab. 1380.) + + When youth had led me half the race, + That Cupid's scourge me caus'd to run, + I looked back to meet the place + From whence my weary course begun. + +(EARL OF SURREY: _Description of the restless state of a lover._ ab. +1545.) + + Weep with me, all you that read + This little story; + And know, for whom a tear you shed + Death's self is sorry. + +(BEN JONSON: _Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy._ 1616.) + + And now the weary world's great medicine, Sleep, + This learned host dispensed to every guest, + Which shuts those wounds where injured lovers weep, + And flies oppressors to relieve the opprest. + +(SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT: _Gondibert_, Bk. i. Canto 6. 1651) + + Now like a maiden queen she will behold + From her high turrets hourly suitors come; + The East with incense and the West with gold + Will stand like suppliants to receive her doom. + +(DRYDEN: _Annus Mirabilis_, stanza 297. 1667.) + + The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, + And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, + Await alike the inevitable hour. + The paths of glory lead but to the grave. + +(GRAY: _Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard._ 1751.) + +To Davenant's _Gondibert_ is usually traced the use of this "heroic" +stanza (_abab_ in iambic five-stress lines) in the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries. In his preface the author said: "I believed it +would be more pleasant to the reader, in a work of length, to give this +respite or pause, between every stanza, ... than to run him out of +breath with continued couplets. Nor doth alternate rime by any lowliness +of cadence make the sound less heroic, but rather adapt it to a plain +and stately composing of music." Dryden followed Davenant in using the +stanza for his _Annus Mirabilis_, saying in his preface: "I have chosen +to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, +because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both +for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us.... I +have always found the couplet verse most easy (though not so proper for +this occasion), for there the work is sooner at an end, every two lines +concluding the labor of the poet; but in quatrains he is to carry it +further on, and not only so, but to bear along in his head the +troublesome sense of four lines together." Dryden did not use the stanza +again, however, and it is obviously unsuited to a long narrative poem. +Saintsbury says: "With regard to the nobility and dignity of this +stanza, it may safely be said that _Annus Mirabilis_ itself, the best +poem ever written therein, killed it by exposing its faults.... It is +chargeable with more than the disjointedness of the couplet, without the +possibility of relief; while, on the other hand, the quatrains have not, +like the Spenserian stave or the _ottava rima_, sufficient bulk to form +units in themselves." (_Life of Dryden_, Men of Letters Series, p. 34.) + +It is hard to say what Mr. Saintsbury means in speaking of the _Annus +Mirabilis_ as the best poem ever written in the heroic quatrain, when we +remember that it is the quatrain of Gray's _Elegy_. On the possible +sources of his use of it, see Gosse's _Life of Gray_, in the Men of +Letters Series, p. 98 (also his _From Shakespeare to Pope_, p. 140). Mr. +Gosse refers to the use of the quatrain by Sir John Davies in the _Nosce +Teipsum_ (1599), with which Gray was familiar, and (in addition to +Davenant, Dryden, and Hobbes's _Homer_) to the _Love Elegies_ of James +Hammond, published 1743. "It is believed that the printing of Hammond's +verses incited Gray to begin his _Churchyard Elegy_, and to make the +four-line stanza the basis of most of his harmonies.... The measure +itself, from first to last, is an attempt to render in English the +solemn alternation of passion and reserve, the interchange of imploring +and desponding tones, that is found in the Latin elegiac; and Gray gave +his poem, when he first published it, an outward resemblance to the text +of Tibullus by printing it without any stanzaic pauses." Mr. Gosse +neglects the elegies of William Shenstone, which were also in the +quatrain, and some of which had apparently been published before the +_Churchyard Elegy_. On this matter see Beers's _Romanticism in the +Eighteenth Century_, p. 137, where Shenstone is said to have borrowed +the stanza from Hammond, and Gray from Shenstone. Shenstone, in his +_Prefatory Essay on Elegy_, defended the metrical form and referred to +the elegies of Hammond. "Heroic metre, with alternate rhyme, seems well +enough adapted to this species of poetry; and, however exceptionable +upon other occasions, its inconveniencies appear to lose their weight in +shorter elegies, and its advantages seem to acquire an additional +importance. The world has an admirable example of its beauty in a +collection of elegies not long since published." (Chalmers's _English +Poets_, vol. xiii. p. 264.) + + For there was Milton like a seraph strong, + Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild; + And there the world-worn Dante grasped his song, + And somewhat grimly smiled. + +(TENNYSON: _The Palace of Art._ 1833.) + + +_abba_ + + Yet those lips, so sweetly swelling, + Do invite a stealing Kiss. + Now will I but venture this; + Who will read, must first learn spelling. + +(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Astrophel and Stella_, Song ii. ab. 1580.) + + Let the bird of loudest lay, + On the sole Arabian tree, + Herald sad and trumpet be, + To whose sound chaste wings obey. + +(SHAKSPERE: _The Ph[oe]nix and the Turtle_, 1601.) + + Though beauty be the mark of praise, + And yours of whom I sing, be such + As not the world can praise too much, + Yet is't your virtue now I raise. + +(BEN JONSON: _Elegy_, in _Underwoods_. 1616.) + + Lord, in thine anger do not reprehend me, + Nor in thy hot displeasure me correct; + Pity me, Lord, for I am much deject, + And very weak and faint; heal and amend me. + +(MILTON: _Psalm vi._ 1653.) + + Away, those cloudy looks, that lab'ring sigh, + The peevish offspring of a sickly hour! + Nor meanly thus complain of fortune's power, + When the blind gamester throws a luckless die. + +(COLERIDGE: _To a Friend._ ab. 1795.) + + Twelve struck. That sound, by dwindling years + Heard in each hour, crept off; and then + The ruffled silence spread again, + Like water that a pebble stirs. + +(ROSSETTI: _My Sister's Sleep._ 1850.) + + I hold it true, whate'er befall; + I feel it when I sorrow most; + 'Tis better to have loved and lost + Than never to have loved at all. + +(TENNYSON: _In Memoriam_, xxvii. 1850.) + + Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, + That rollest from the gorgeous gloom + Of evening over brake and bloom + And meadow, slowly breathing bare + + The round of space, and rapt below + Thro' all the dewy-tasselled wood, + And shadowing down the horned flood + In ripples, fan my brows and blow + + The fever from my cheek, and sigh + The full new life that feeds thy breath + Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, + Ill brethren, let the fancy fly + + From belt to belt of crimson seas + On leagues of odor streaming far, + To where in yonder orient star + A hundred spirits whisper "Peace." + +(TENNYSON: _ibid._, lxxxiv.) + +This stanza (_abba_ in four-stress iambics) is commonly known as the +"_In Memoriam_ stanza," from its familiar use by Tennyson. Tennyson is +indeed said to have invented it for his own use, not knowing of its +earlier appearance in the works of Jonson and Rossetti. Professor Corson +has an interesting passage on the poetic quality of the stanza: "By the +rhyme-scheme of the quatrain, the terminal rhyme-emphasis of the stanza +is reduced, the second and third verses being most closely braced by the +rhyme. The stanza is thus admirably adapted to that sweet continuity of +flow, free from abrupt checks, demanded by the spiritualized sorrow +which it bears along. Alternate rhyme would have wrought an entire +change in the tone of the poem. To be assured of this, one should read, +aloud of course, all the stanzas whose first and second, or third and +fourth, verses admit of being transposed without affecting the sense. By +such transposition, the rhymes are made alternate, and the concluding +rhymes more emphatic." Compare the stanza quoted above from section +xxvii. with the transposed form: + + "I feel it when I sorrow most; + I hold it true, whate'er befall; + 'Tis better to have loved and lost + Than never to have loved at all." + +On the passage quoted from section lxxxiv. Professor Corson also +observes: "The four stanzas of which it is composed constitute but one +period, the sense being suspended till the close. The rhyme-emphasis is +so distributed that any one, hearing the poem read, would hardly be +sensible of any of the slightest checks in the continuous and even +movement of the verse.... There is no other section of _In Memoriam_ in +which the artistic motive of the stanza is so evident." (_Primer of +English Verse_, pp. 70-77.) + + +_aaba_ + + Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes entendeth, + Which now my breast, surcharg'd, to music lendeth! + To you, to you, all song of praise is due, + Only in you my song begins and endeth. + +(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Astrophel and Stella._ Song i, ab. 1580.) + +Here the third line (the same in all the stanzas) has an additional +internal rime. + + Oh, make the most of what we yet may spend, + Before we too into the dust descend; + Dust into dust, and under dust, to lie, + Sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and--sans end! + +(EDW. FITZGERALD: _Paraphrase of the Rubįiyįt of Omar Khayyam._ 1859.) + + For groves of pine on either hand, + To break the blast of winter, stand; + And further on, the hoary Channel + Tumbles a billow on chalk and sand. + +(Tennyson: _To the Rev. F. D. Maurice._ 1854.) + +This delightful stanza (used also by Tennyson in _The Daisy_) seems to +be an imitation of the well-known Alcaic stanza of Horace: + + "Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum + Soracte, nec jam sustineant onus + Silvae laborantes, geluque + Flumina constiterint acuto." + + Ah, yet would God this flesh of mine might be + Where air would wash and long leaves cover me, + Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers, + Or where the wind's feet shine along the sea. + +(SWINBURNE: _Laus Veneris._) + + +REFRAIN STANZAS + +In this group of refrain stanzas there is no attempt to make the range +of illustrations complete, but only to suggest how the refrain idea has +been variously used in forming the structure of the stanza. In some +cases, for example, it will be seen that the refrain is a mere appendage +or _coda_ to the stanza; in others it is made by rime a part of the +organized structure. + + Blow, northerne wynd, + Sent žou my suetyng! + Blow, noržern wynd, + Blou! blou! blou! + +(Song from Harleian Ms. 2253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p. +168.) + + I that in heill wes and glaidness, + Am trublit now with gret seikness, + And feblit with infirmitie; + _Timor Mortis conturbat me._ + +(WILLIAM DUNBAR: _Lament for the Makaris._ ab. 1500.) + + Now Simmer blinks on flowery braes, + And o'er the crystal streamlets plays; + Come, let us spend the lightsome days + In the birks of Aberfeldy. + +(BURNS: _The Birks of Aberfeldy._ 1787.) + + I wish I were where Helen lies; + Night and day on me she cries; + O that I were where Helen lies + On fair Kirconnell lea! + +(_Fair Helen_; old ballad.) + + O sing unto my roundelay, + O drop the briny tear with me, + Dance no more at holy-day, + Like a running river be. + My love is dead, + Gone to his death-bed, + All under the willow tree. + +(CHATTERTON: Minstrel's Roundelay from _Ęlla_. ab. 1770.) + + The twentieth year is well-nigh past, + Since first our sky was overcast; + Ah, would that this might be the last! + My Mary! + +(COWPER: _My Mary._ 1793.) + + Duncan Gray cam' here to woo-- + Ha, ha, the wooing o't! + On blithe Yule night, when we were fou-- + Ha, ha, the wooing o't! + Maggie coost her head fu' heigh, + Looked asklent and unco skeigh, + Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh; + Ha, ha, the wooing o't! + +(BURNS: _Duncan Gray._ ab. 1790.) + + My heart is wasted with my woe, + Oriana. + There is no rest for me below, + Oriana. + When the long dun wolds are ribb'd with snow, + And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow, + Oriana, + Alone I wander to and fro, + Oriana. + +(TENNYSON: _Ballad of Oriana._ ab. 1830.) + + Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, + (Toll slowly) + And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness-- + Round our restlessness His rest. + +(ELIZABETH B. BROWNING: _Rhyme of the Duchess May._ ab. 1845.) + + "Ah! what white thing at the door has cross'd, + Sister Helen? + Ah! what is this that sighs in the frost?" + "A soul that's lost as mine is lost, + Little brother!" + (O Mother, Mary Mother, + Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven!) + +(ROSSETTI: _Sister Helen._ 1870.) + + Laetabundus + Exultet fidelis chorus, + Alleluia! + Egidio psallat coetus + Iste laetus, + Alleluia! + +(ST. BERNARD: _De Nativitate Domini._) + + Sermone Marcus Tullius, + Fortuna Cesar Julius + Tibi non equantur. + Tibi summa prudentia, + Prefulgens et potentia + Celesti dono dantur. + +(From a 12th c. MS.: _Regulae de Rhythmis._ In Schipper's _Englische +Metrik_, vol. i. p. 354.) + + Quant li solleiz conviset en leon + En icel tens qu'est ortus pliadon + Perunt matin, + Une pulcellet odit molt gent plorer + Et son ami dolcement regreter, + Ex si lli dis. + +(Early French version of the _Song of Songs_, quoted in LEWIS's _Foreign +Sources of Modern English Versification_, p. 89.) + +The special form of refrain stanza appearing in the first of these +foreign specimens (the Alleluia hymn form) is generally thought to have +been the source of the "tail-rime stanza" illustrated in the other two +specimens, and in the several pages which follow. The characteristic +feature of this stanza is the presence of two short lines riming +together and serving as "tails" to the first and second parts of the +body of the stanza. The same name appears in all the languages: "versus +caudati" in the medięval Latin, "rime couée" in the French, and +"Schweifreim" in modern German. It is easy to see, what the following +specimens illustrate, how stanzas constructed on this fundamental +principle might be varied greatly in particular forms, according to the +number, length, and rime-arrangement of the longer lines. + + Men may merci have, traytour not to save, for luf ne for awe, + Atteynt of traytorie, suld haf no mercie, wiž no maner lawe. + +(ROBERT MANNING of Brunne: _Chronicle._ ab. 1330.) + + For Edward gode dede + Že Baliol did him mede + a wikked bounte. + Turne we ageyn to rede + and on our geste to spede + a Maddok žer left we. (_Ibid._) + +Manning's chronicle was a translation of the French chronicle of Pierre +de Langtoft. Although the translator designed to avoid the various +complicated measures used in the original, and kept pretty closely to +alexandrines (see p. 254, below), in the passages here represented he +followed the tail-rime of the original. In the first case the stanza +form is not represented in the manuscript, though of course implicit in +the rimes. The name of the stanza, "rime couée," appears very early in +Manning's Prologue, in the famous passage in which he expressed his +preference for metrical simplicity: + + Als žai haf wrytenn and sayd + Haf I alle in myn Inglis layd, + In symple speche as I couthe, + That is lightest in mannes mouthe. + I mad noght for no disours, + Ne for no seggers no harpours, + Bot for že luf of symple menn + That strange Inglis cann not kenn. + For many it ere that strange Inglis + In ryme wate never what it is, + And bot žai wist what it mente + Ellis me thoght it were alle shente. + + I made it not for to be praysed, + Bot at že lewed menn were aysed. + If it were made in ryme couwee, + Or in strangere or entrelace, + Žat rede Inglis it ere inowe + Žat couthe not haf coppled a kowe, + Žat outhere in couwee or in baston + Som suld haf ben fordon, + So žat fele men žat it herde + Suld not witte howe žat it ferde. + + ... And forsoth I couth noght + So strange Inglis as žai wroght, + And menn besoght me many a tyme + To turne it bot in light ryme. + žai sayd, if I in strange it turne, + To here it manyon suld skurne. + For it ere names fulle selcouthe, + žat ere not used now in mouthe. + And therfore for the comonalte, + žat blythely wild listen to me, + On light lange I it begann, + For luf of the lewed mann. + +(Hearne ed., vol. i. pp. xcix, c.) + +Lines 15-22 may be paraphrased thus: "If it were made in _rime couée_, +in _rime strangere_, or _rime entrelacée_, there are plenty of those who +read English who could not have put the tail-verses together; so that +either in the tail-verse or the _baston_ some would have been confused, +and many men that heard it would not know how it went." The "interlaced" +(alternate) rime was a familiar form. _Baston_ seems usually to be an +equivalent for "stanza" or "stave." It seems uncertain whether by _rime +strangere_ Manning had in mind any particular form of stanza or +rime-arrangement. + + Stand wel, moder, under rode, + Byholt žy sone wiž glade mode; + Blyže, moder, myht žou be! + Sone, hou shulde y blyže stonde? + Y se žin fet, y se žin honde + Nayled to že harde tre. + +(Song from Harleian MS. 3253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p. +206.) + + Listeth, lordes, in good entent, + And I wol telle verrayment + Of mirthe and of solas; + Al of a knyght was fair and gent + In bataille and in tourneyment, + His name was sir Thopas ... + + An elf-queen wol I love, y-wis, + For in this world no womman is + Worthy to be my make + In toune; + Alle othere wommen I forsake, + And to an elf-queen I me take + By dale and eek by doune! + +(CHAUCER: _Sir Thopas_, from _Canterbury Tales_. ab. 1385.) + +The tail-rime stanza had become a favorite for the metrical romances of +the fourteenth century; but Chaucer evidently saw its inappropriateness +for long narrative poems, and ridiculed it--with certain other elements +of the romances--in this _Rime of Sir Thopas_. The Host is made to +interrupt the story: + + "'Myn eres aken of thy drasty speche; + Now swiche a rym the devel I beteche! + This may wel be rym dogerel', quod he." + + My patent pardouns, ye may se, + Cum fra the Cane of Tartarei, + Weill seald with oster schellis; + Thocht ye have na contritioun, + Ye sall have full remissioun, + With help of buiks and bellis. + +(SIR DAVID LINDSAY: _Ane Satyre of the Three Estates._ ab. 1540.) + + Seinte Marie! levedi briht, + Moder thou art of muchel miht, + Quene in hevene of feire ble; + Gabriel to the he lihte, + Tho he brouhte al wid rihte + Then holi gost to lihten in the. + Godes word ful wel thou cnewe; + Ful mildeliche thereto thou bewe, + And saidest, "So it mote be!" + Thi thone was studevast ant trewe; + For the joye that to was newe, + Levedi, thou have merci of me! + +(_Quinque Gaudia._ In Mätzner's _Altenglische Sprachproben_, vol. i. p. +51.) + +Here the principle of the tail-rime is extended to four tail-verses. See +also the specimen on p. 111, below. + + All, dear Nature's children sweet, + Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet, + Blessing their sense! + Not an angel of the air, + Bird melodious or bird fair, + Be absent hence. + +(Song from _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, by Shakspere and Fletcher. pub. +1634.) + + Fair stood the wind for France, + When we our sails advance, + Nor now to prove our chance + Longer not tarry; + But put unto to the main, + At Caux, the mouth of Seine, + With all his martial train, + Landed King Harry. + +(DRAYTON: _Agincourt._ ab. 1600.) + + I am a man of war and might, + And know thus much, that I can fight, + Whether I am i' th' wrong or right, + Devoutly. + No woman under heaven I fear, + New oaths I can exactly swear, + And forty healths my brains will bear + Most stoutly. + +(SIR JOHN SUCKLING: _A Soldier._ ab. 1635.) + +The stanzas that follow show various combinations and applications of +the same principle--the use of shorter verses in connection with longer. + + A wayle whyte ase whalles bon, + A grein in golde žat goldly shon, + A tortle žat min herte is on, + In toune trewe; + Hire gladshipe nes never gon, + Whil y may glewe. + +(Song from Harleian MS. 2253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p. +161.) + + Of on that is so fayr and bri[gh]t, + _velut maris stella_, + Bri[gh]ter than the day is li[gh]t, + _parens et puella_; + Ic crie to the, thou se to me, + Levedy, preye thi sone for me, + _tam pia_, + That ic mote come to the + _Maria_. + +(_Hymn to the Virgin_, from Egerton MS. 613. In Mätzner's _Altenglische +Sprachproben_, vol. i. p. 53.) + + Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us + To see oursel's as ithers see us! + It wad frae monie a blunder free us + An' foolish notion: + What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, + An' e'en devotion! + +(BURNS: _To a Louse on a Lady's Bonnet._ 1786.) + + O goodly hand, + Wherein doth stand + My heart distract in pain; + Dear hand, alas! + In little space + My life thou dost restrain. + +(SIR THOMAS WYATT: In Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets._ pub. 1557.) + + Old Ocean's praise + Demands my lays; + A truly British theme I sing; + + A theme so great, + I dare compete, + And join with Ocean, Ocean's king. + +(EDWARD YOUNG: _Ocean, an Ode._ 1728.) + + No more, no more + This worldly shore + Upbraids me with its loud uproar! + With dreamful eyes + My spirit lies + Under the walls of Paradise! + +(THOMAS BUCHANAN READ: _Drifting._ ab. 1850.) + +In these stanzas a pair of long lines bind together the first and second +parts of the composition, just as the short lines do in the original +_rime couée_. + +Young was and is universally condemned for choosing this form of stanza +for his odes. He was led to do so by his admiration for the passage in +Dryden's _Ode for St. Cecilia's Day_, running: + + "Assumes the god, + Affects to nod, + And seems to shake the spheres." + +Here, said Young, Dryden was expressing "majesty"; hence, since he +wished his odes to be majestic, he used the short, choppy measure +throughout. (See his Introductory Essay to his Odes, in Chalmers's +_English Poets_, vol. xiii.) On the other hand, the stanza as used by +Read has been almost universally admired. + + Hail, old Patrician Trees, so great and good! + Hail, ye Plebeian Underwood! + Where the poetic birds rejoice, + And for their quiet nests and plenteous food + Pay with their grateful voice. + +(COWLEY: _Of Solitude._ ab. 1650.) + + To-night this sunset spreads two golden wings + Cleaving the western sky; + Winged too with wind it is, and winnowings + Of birds; as if the day's last hour in rings + Of strenuous flight must die. + +(ROSSETTI: _Sunset Wings._ 1881.) + + Ye dainty Nymphs, that in this blessed brook + Do bathe your breast, + Forsake your watery bowers, and hither look + At my request: + And eke you Virgins that on Parnasse dwell, + Whence floweth Helicon, the learned well, + Help me to blaze + Her worthy praise, + Which in her sex doth all excel. + +(SPENSER: _The Shepherd's Calendar, April._ 1579.) + + You, that will a wonder know, + Go with me, + Two suns in a heaven of snow + Both burning be; + All they fire, that do but eye them, + But the snow's unmelted by them. + +(CAREW: _In Praise of his Mistress._ ab. 1635.) + + Go, lovely Rose! + Tell her, that wastes her time and me, + That now she knows, + When I resemble her to thee, + How sweet and fair she seems to be. + +(WALLER: _Go, lovely Rose._ ab. 1650.) + +The use of short lines somewhat intricately introduced among longer +ones, is characteristic of the stanzas of the lyrical poets of the +first part of the seventeenth century. It may perhaps be traced in part +to the influence of Donne. + + Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles + Miles and miles + On the solitary pastures where our sheep + Half-asleep + Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop + As they crop. + +(BROWNING: _Love among the Ruins._ 1855.) + +Compare with this (although it is not divided into stanzas) Herrick's +_Thanksgiving to God_: + + Lord, thou hast given me a cell + Wherein to dwell; + A little house, whose humble roof + Is weatherproof; + Under the spars of which I lie + Both soft and dry. + + When God at first made Man, + Having a glass of blessings standing by, + Let us (said He) pour on him all we can: + Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie, + Contract into a span. + +(GEORGE HERBERT: _The Gifts of God._ 1631.) + +The following specimens illustrate various forms of stanzas +distinguished by arrangement of rime, without reference to the length of +lines: + + +_abccb_ + + In vain, through every changeful year + Did Nature lead him as before; + A primrose by a river's brim + A yellow primrose was to him, + And it was nothing more. + +(WORDSWORTH: _Peter Bell._ 1798.) + + +_ababb_ + + Survival of the fittest, adaptation, + And all their other evolution terms, + Seem to omit one small consideration, + To wit, that tumblebugs and angleworms + Have souls: there's soul in everything that squirms. + +(WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY: _The Menagerie._ 1901.) + + +_aabbb_ + + Mary mine that art Mary's Rose, + Come in to me from the garden-close. + The sun sinks fast with the rising dew, + And we marked not how the faint moon grew; + But the hidden stars are calling you. + +(ROSSETTI: _Rose Mary._ 1881.) + + +_aabcdd_ + + Hail seint michel, with the lange sper! + Fair beth thi winges: up thi scholder + Thou hast a rede kirtil a non to thi fote. + Thou ert best angle that ever god makid. + This vers is ful wel i-wrog[gh]t; + Hit is of wel furre y-brog[gh]t. + +(_Satire on the People of Kildare_, from Harleian Ms. 913, in Guest's +_English Rhythms_, Skeat ed., p. 616.) + + +_aaaabb_ + + What beauty would have lovely styled, + What manners pretty, nature mild, + What wonder perfect, all were filed + Upon record in this blest child. + And till the coming of the soul + To fetch the flesh, we keep the roll. + +(BEN JONSON: _Epitaph; Underwoods, liii._ 1616.) + + +_ababab_ + + She walks in beauty, like the night + Of cloudless climes and starry skies: + And all that's best of dark or bright + Meet in her aspect and her eyes; + Thus mellowed to that tender light + Which heaven to gaudy day denies. + +(BYRON: _She Walks in Beauty._ 1815.) + + +_ababcc_ + + I wandered lonely as a cloud + That floats on high o'er vales and hills, + When all at once I saw a crowd, + A host, of golden daffodils; + Beside the lake, beneath the trees, + Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. + +(WORDSWORTH: _I wandered lonely as a cloud._ 1804.) + + O, how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow! + Her eyes seen in her tears, tears in her eye; + Both crystals, where they view'd each other's sorrow,-- + Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry; + But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain, + Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again. + +(SHAKSPERE: _Venus and Adonis_, st. 161. 1593.) + + +_ababbcc_ ("_Rime royal_") + + Humblest of herte, hyest of reverence, + Benigne flour, coroune of vertues alle, + Sheweth unto your rial excellence + Your servaunt, if I durste me so calle, + His mortal harm, in which he is y-falle, + And noght al only for his evel fare, + But for your renoun, as he shal declare. + +(CHAUCER: _Compleynte unto Pite._ ab. 1370.) + + And on the smale grene twistis sat + The lytil suete nyghtingale, and song + So loud and clere, the ympnis consecrat + Of luvis use, now soft now lowd among, + That all the gardynis and the wallis rong + Ryght of thaire song, and on the copill next + Of thaire suete armony, and lo the text. + +(JAMES I. of Scotland: _The King's Quhair_, st. 33. ab. 1425.) + + For men have marble, women waxen, minds, + And therefore are they form'd as marble will; + The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds + Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill: + Then call them not the authors of their ill, + No more than wax shall be accounted evil, + Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil. + +(SHAKSPERE: _The Rape of Lucrece_, st. 178. 1594.) + + In a far country that I cannot name, + And on a year long ages past away, + A King there dwelt in rest and ease and fame, + And richer than the Emperor is to-day: + The very thought of what this man might say + From dusk to dawn kept many a lord awake, + For fear of him did many a great man quake. + +(WILLIAM MORRIS: _The Earthly Paradise; The Proud King._ 1868.) + +The "rime royal" stanza is one of Chaucer's contributions to English +verse, and about 14,000 lines of his poetry are in this form. Its use by +King James in the _King's Quhair_ was formerly thought to be the source +of the name; but it seems more likely that the name, like the form, was +of French origin, and is to be connected with such terms as _chant +royal_ and _ballat royal_, familiar in the nomenclature of courtly +poetry (see Schipper, vol. i. p. 426). The stanza was used by Chaucer +with marvellous skill for purposes of continuous narrative, and was a +general favorite among his imitators in the fifteenth century, being +used by Lydgate, Occleve, Hawes, Dunbar, then by Skelton, and by Barclay +in the _Ship of Fooles_. It appears popular as late as the time of +Sackville's part of the _Mirror for Magistrates_ (1563).[9] Later than +Shakspere's _Rape of Lucrece_ it is rarely found. (But see Milton's +unfinished poem on _The Passion_, where he used a form of the rime royal +with concluding alexandrine.) + +Strictly speaking, the "rime royal" is always in five-stress verse, but +in the following specimen the same rime-scheme appears in the irregular +six-or-seven-stress verse of one of the Mysteries. + + The story sheweth further, that, after man was blyste, + The Lord did create woman owte of a ribbe of man, + Which woman was deceyvyd with the Serpentes darkned myste; + By whose synn ower nature is so weake no good we can; + Wherfor they were dejectyd and caste from thence than + Unto dolloure and myseri and to traveyle and payne, + Untyll Godes spryght renuid; and so we ende certayne. + +(Prologue to Norwich Whitsun Play of the Creation and Fall. In Manly's +_Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama_, vol. i p. 5.) + + +_ababcca_ + + Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave + That child, when thou hast done with him, for me! + Let me sit all the day here, that when eve + Shall find performed thy special ministry, + And time come for departure, thou, suspending + Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending, + Another still, to quiet and retrieve. + +(BROWNING: _The Guardian Angel._ 1855.) + + +_ababccb_ + + The City is of Night; perchance of Death, + But certainly of Night; for never there + Can come the lucid morning's fragrant breath + After the dewy dawning's cold grey air; + The moon and stars may shine with scorn or pity; + The sun has never visited that city, + For it dissolveth in the daylight fair. + +(JAMES THOMSON: _The City of Dreadful Night._ 1874.) + +_abababab_ + + Trew king, that sittes in trone, + Unto the I tell my tale, + And unto the I bid a bone, + For thou ert bute of all my bale: + Als thou made midelerd and the mone, + And bestes and fowles grete and smale. + Unto me send thi socore sone, + And dresce my dedes in this dale. + +(LAURENCE MINOT: _Battle of Halidon Hill._ 1352.) + +On Minot's lyrics see ten Brink's _History of English Literature_, +Kennedy translation, vol. i. p. 323. + + +_ababbaba_ + + Since love is such that as ye wot + Cannot always be wisely used, + I say, therefore, then blame me not, + Though I therein have been abused. + For as with cause I am accused, + Guilty I grant such was my lot; + And though it cannot be excused, + Yet let such folly be forgot. + +(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _That the power of love excuseth the folly of +loving_, ab. 1550.) + + +_ababbcbc_ + + In a chirche žer i con knel + Žis ender day in on morwenynge, + Me lyked že servise wonder wel, + For ži že lengore con i lynge. + I sei[gh] a clerk a book forž bringe, + Žat prikked was in mony a plas; + Faste he sou[gh]te what he schulde synge, + And al was _Deo gracias_! + +(From the Vernon and Simeon MSS.; in _Anglia_, vii. 287.) + + This Julius to the Capitolie wente + Upon a day, as he was wont to goon, + And in the Capitolie anon him hente + This false Brutus, and his othere foon, + And stikede him with boydekins anoon + With many a wounde, and thus they lete him lye; + But never gronte he at no strook but oon, + Or elles at two, but if his storie lye. + +(CHAUCER: _The Monk's Tale_, ll. 713-720. ab. 1375.) + +This stanza is sometimes called the "_Monk's Tale_ stanza," from its use +by Chaucer in that single tale of the Canterbury group. Although it has +been little used by later poets, it may have given Spenser a suggestion +for his characteristic stanza (see below, p. 102). + + Farewell! if ever fondest prayer + For other's weal availed on high, + Mine will not all be lost in air, + But waft thy name beyond the sky. + 'Twere vain to speak, to weep, to sigh: + Oh! more than tears of blood can tell, + When rung from guilt's expiring eye, + Are in that word--Farewell!--Farewell! + +(BYRON: _Farewell, if ever fondest prayer._ 1808.) + + +_ababccdd_ + + Will no one tell me what she sings? + Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow + For old, unhappy, far-off things, + And battles long ago: + Or is it some more humble lay, + Familiar matter of to-day? + Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, + That has been, and may be again! + +(WORDSWORTH: _The Solitary Reaper._ 1803.) + + +_abababcc_ (_ottava rima_) + + She sat, and sewed, that hath done me the wrong + Whereof I plain, and have done many a day; + And, whilst she heard my plaint in piteous song, + She wished my heart the sampler, that it lay. + The blind master, whom I have served so long, + Grudging to hear that he did hear her say, + Made her own weapon do her finger bleed, + To feel if pricking were so good in deed. + +(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _Of his love that pricked her finger with a needle_, +in Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets_. pub. 1557.) + +This _ottava rima_ is a familiar Italian stanza made classic by Ariosto +and Tasso, and introduced into England by Wyatt, together with the +sonnet and other Italian forms. Professor Corson says, "Such a +rhyme-scheme, especially in the Italian, with its great similarity of +endings, is too 'monotonously iterative'; and the rhyming couplet at the +close seems, as James Russell Lowell expresses it, 'to put on the brakes +with a jar.'" (_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 89 f.) + + O! who can lead, then, a more happie life + Than he that with cleane minde, and heart sincere, + No greedy riches knowes nor bloudie strife, + No deadly fight of warlick fleete doth feare; + Ne runs in perill of foes cruell knife, + That in the sacred temples he may reare + A trophee of his glittering spoyles and treasure, + Or may abound in riches above measure. + +(SPENSER: _Virgil's Gnat_, ll. 121-128. 1591.) + + For as with equal rage, and equal might, + Two adverse winds combat, with billows proud, + And neither yield (seas, skies maintain like fight, + Wave against wave oppos'd, and cloud to cloud); + So war both sides with obstinate despite, + With like revenge; and neither party bow'd: + Fronting each other with confounding blows, + No wound one sword unto the other owes. + +(DANIEL: _History of the Civil War_, bk. vi. ab. 1600.) + + Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, + While the still morn went out with sandals gray; + He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, + With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: + And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills, + And now was dropt into the western bay: + At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue: + To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. + +(MILTON: _Lycidas_; Epilogue. 1638.) + +This is a single stave of the _ottava rima_, at the close of the varying +metrical forms of _Lycidas_. Professor Corson says: "The Elegy having +come to an end, the _ottava rima_ is employed, with an admirable +artistic effect, to mark off the Epilogue in which Milton ... speaks in +his own person." + + They looked a manly, generous generation; + Beards, shoulders, eyebrows, broad, and square, and thick, + Their accents firm and loud in conversation, + Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp, and quick, + Showed them prepared, on proper provocation, + To give the lie, pull noses, stab and kick; + And for that very reason, it is said, + They were so very courteous and well-bred. + +(JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE: _The Monks and the Giants._ 1817.) + + With every morn their love grew tenderer, + With every eve deeper and tenderer still; + He might not in house, field, or garden stir, + But her full shape would all his seeing fill; + And his continual voice was pleasanter + To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill; + Her lute-string gave an echo of his name, + She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same. + +(KEATS: _Isabella._ 1820.) + + As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow, + And wished that others held the same opinion; + They took it up when my days grew more mellow, + And other minds acknowledged my dominion: + Now my sere fancy "falls into the yellow + Leaf," and Imagination droops her pinion, + And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk + Turns what was once romantic to burlesque. + +(BYRON: _Don Juan_, canto iv. st. 3. 1821.) + +Of the _ottava rima_, as used by Frere and Byron, Austin Dobson says: +"It had already been used by Harrington, Drayton, Fairfax, and (as we +have seen) in later times by Gay; it had even been used by Frere's +contemporary, William Tennant; but to Frere belongs the honor of giving +it the special characteristics which Byron afterward popularised in +_Beppo_ and _Don Juan_. Structurally the _ottava rima_ of Frere +singularly resembles that of Byron, who admitted that _Whistlecraft_ was +his 'immediate model.' ... Byron, taking up the stanza with equal skill +and greater genius, filled it with the vigor of his personality, and +made it a measure of his own, which it has ever since been hazardous for +inferior poets to attempt." (Ward's _English Poets_, vol. iv. p. 240.) +Byron may indeed be said--in the words of the present specimen--to have +turned what was commonly a romantic stanza "to burlesque." + + +_aabaabbab_ + + O hie honour, sweit hevinlie flour degest, + Gem verteous, maist precious, gudliest. + For hie renoun thow art guerdoun conding, + Of worschip kend the glorious end and rest, + But quhome in richt na worthie wicht may lest. + Thy greit puissance may maist avance all thing, + And poverall to mekill availl sone bring. + I the require sen thow but peir art best, + That efter this in thy hie blis we ring. + +(GAWAIN DOUGLAS: _The Palace of Honour._ ab. 1500.) + + +_ababcccdd_ + + My love is like unto th' eternal fire, + And I as those which therein do remain; + Whose grievous pains is but their great desire + To see the sight which they may not attain: + So in hell's heat myself I feel to be, + That am restrained by great extremity, + The sight of her which is so dear to me. + O! puissant love! and power of great avail! + By whom hell may be felt e'er death assail! + +(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _Of the extreme torment endured by the unhappy +lover._ ab. 1550.) + + +_ababbcbcc_ ("_Spenserian stanza_") + + By this the Northerne wagoner had set + His sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre + That was in Ocean waves yet never wet, + But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre + To all that in the wide deepe wandring arre; + And chearefull Chaunticlere with his note shrill + Had warned once, that Ph[oe]bus fiery carre + In hast was climbing up the Easterne hill, + Full envious that night so long his roome did fill. + +(SPENSER: _The Faerie Queene_, bk. i. canto 2, st. 1. 1590.) + + And more to lulle him in his slumber soft, + A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe, + And ever-drizling raine upon the loft, + Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne + Of swarming Bees, did cast him in a swowne. + No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes, + As still are wont t'annoy the walled towne, + Might there be heard; but carelesse Quiet lyes + Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes. + +(SPENSER: _ib._ bk. i. canto 1, st. 41.) + +This stanza, which Spenser invented for his own use and to which his +name is always given, was apparently formed by adding an alexandrine to +the _ababbcbc_ stanza of Chaucer. In it Spenser wrote the greater part +of his poetry, and its use marks the Spenserian influence wherever +found, especially among the poets of the eighteenth century,--Thomson, +Shenstone, Beattie, and the like. + +James Russell Lowell, in his Essay on Spenser, comments as follows: "He +found the _ottava rima_ ... not roomy enough, so first ran it over into +another line, and then ran that added line over into an alexandrine, in +which the melody of one stanza seems forever longing and feeling forward +after that which is to follow.... Wave follows wave with equable +gainings and recessions, the one sliding back in fluent music to be +mingled with and carried forward by the next. In all this there is +soothingness, indeed, but no slumberous monotony; for Spenser was no +mere metrist, but a great composer. By the variety of his pauses--now at +the close of the first or second foot, now of the third, and again of +the fourth--he gives spirit and energy to a measure whose tendency it +certainly is to become languorous." (_Works_, vol. iv. pp. 328, 329.) + +See also the chapters on the Spenserian stanza in Corson's _Primer of +English Verse_, where its use for pictorial effects is interestingly +discussed. + + A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, + Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye, + And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, + Forever flushing round a summer sky: + There eke the soft delights, that witchingly + Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast, + And the calm pleasures always hovered nigh; + But whate'er smacked of noyaunce, or unrest, + Was far far off expelled from this delicious nest. + +(THOMSON: _The Castle of Indolence_, canto i. 1748.) + + Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow, + Emblem right meet of decency does yield: + Her apron dyed in grain, as blue, I trowe, + As is the hare-bell that adorns the field: + And in her hand, for sceptre, she does wield + Tway birchen sprays, with anxious fear entwined, + With dark distrust and sad repentance filled, + And stedfast hate, and sharp affliction joined, + And fury uncontrolled and chastisement unkind. + +(SHENSTONE: _The Schoolmistress._ 1742.) + +Thomson's _Castle of Indolence_, although not published till 1748, seems +to have been written and circulated before Shenstone's _Schoolmistress_. +Thomson caught the spirit of Spenser and his stanza better than any +other imitator until the days of Keats. On the revival of the stanza at +this period, see Beers's _English Romanticism in the Eighteenth +Century_, chap. iii., on "the Spenserians." Earliest of the group, +according to Mr. Gosse, was Akenside's _Virtuoso_ (1737. See _Eighteenth +Century Literature_, p. 311). + + O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! + For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent, + Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil + Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! + And oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent + From luxury's contagion, weak and vile! + Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, + A virtuous populace may rise the while, + And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle. + +(BURNS: _The Cotter's Saturday Night._ 1785.) + + I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; + A palace and a prison on each hand: + I saw from out the wave her structures rise + As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: + A thousand years their cloudy wings expand + Around me, and a dying glory smiles + O'er the far times, when many a subject land + Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles, + Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles. + +(BYRON: _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, canto iv, st. i. 1818.) + + A casement high and triple-arch'd there was, + All garlanded with carven imag'ries + Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass, + And diamonded with panes of quaint device, + Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes, + As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings; + And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, + And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, + A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings. + +(KEATS: _Eve of St. Agnes._ 1820.) + +Professor Corson remarks: "Probably no English poet who has used the +Spenserian stanza, first assimilated so fully the spirit of Spenser, ... +as did Keats; and to this fact may be partly attributed his effective +use of it as an organ for his imagination in its 'lingering, loving, +particularizing mood.'" (_Primer of English Verse_, p. 124.) + + The splendors of the firmament of time + May be eclips'd, but are extinguish'd not; + Like stars to their appointed height they climb, + And death is a low mist which cannot blot + The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought + Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, + And love and life contend in it for what + Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there + And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. + +(SHELLEY: _Adonais_, st. 44. 1821.) + +With reference to his use of this stanza Shelley remarked, in the +Preface to _The Revolt of Islam_: "I have adopted the stanza of Spenser +(a measure inexpressibly beautiful), not because I consider it a finer +model of poetical harmony than the blank verse of Shakespeare and +Milton, but because in the latter there is no shelter for mediocrity: +you must either succeed or fail.... But I was enticed also by the +brilliancy and magnificence of sound which a mind that has been +nourished upon musical thoughts can produce by a just and harmonious +arrangement of the pauses of this measure." Professor Corson (_Primer of +English Verse_, p. 112) quotes Mr. Todhunter as saying: "Compare the +impetuous rapidity and pale intensity of Shelley's verse with the +lulling harmony, the lingering cadence, the voluptuous color of +Spenser's, or with the grandiose majesty of Byron's.... In _Adonais_, +indeed, a poem on which he bestowed much labor, he handles the stanza in +a masterly manner, and endows it with an individual music beautiful and +new." + + "Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land, + "This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." + In the afternoon they came unto a land + In which it seemed always afternoon. + All round the coast the languid air did swoon, + Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. + Full-faced above the valley stood the moon; + And like a downward smoke, the slender stream + Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. + +(TENNYSON: _The Lotos-Eaters._ 1833.) + + +_abababccc_ + + A fisher boy, that never knew his peer + In dainty songs, the gentle Thomalin, + With folded arms, deep sighs, and heavy cheer, + Where hundred nymphs, and hundred muses in, + Sunk down by Chamus' brinks; with him his dear + Dear Thyrsil lay; oft times would he begin + To cure his grief, and better way advise; + But still his words, when his sad friend he spies, + Forsook his silent tongue, to speak in watry eyes. + +(PHINEAS FLETCHER: _Piscatory Eclogues._ ab. 1630.) + +Fletcher was an imitator of Spenser, and here devises a stanza differing +little from his master's. The final alexandrine is used with the same +effect. For other instances of final alexandrines, doubtless used under +the general influence of the Spenserian stanza, see the following +specimens. + + +_aabaabcc_ + + Ring out, ye crystal spheres! + Once bless our human ears, + If ye have power to touch our senses so; + And let your silver chime + Move in melodious time; + And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow; + And with your ninefold harmony, + Make up full consort to the angelic symphony. + +(MILTON: _On the Morning of Christ's Nativity._ 1629.) + + +_ababbcbcdd_ + + What? Ęlla dead? and Bertha dying too? + So fall the fairest flowrets of the plain. + Who can unfold the works that heaven can do, + Or who untwist the roll of fate in twain? + Ęlla, thy glory was thy only gain; + For that, thy pleasure and thy joy was lost. + Thy countrymen shall rear thee on the plain + A pile of stones, as any grave can boast. + Further, a just reward to thee to be, + In heaven thou sing of God, on earth we'll sing of thee. + +(CHATTERTON: _Ęlla,_ st. 147. 1768.) + +This is the ten-line "Chatterton stanza," a variant of the Spenserian +stanza, devised by Chatterton, which he claimed ante-dated Spenser by +one or two centuries. His claim for it was of course purely fictitious. + + +_aabbbcc_ + + Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, + As the swift seasons roll! + Leave thy low-vaulted past! + Let each new temple, nobler than the last, + Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, + Till thou at length art free, + Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! + +(OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES: _The Chambered Nautilus._ 1858.) + +See also the notable use of the alexandrine in Shelley's _Skylark_, p. +34, above. + + +_ababababbcbc_ + + The dubbement dere of doun and dalez, + Of wod and water and wlonke playnez, + Bylde in me blys, abated my balez, + Fordidde my stresse, dystryed my paynez. + Doun after a strem that dryghly halez, + I bowed in blys, bred-ful my braynez; + The fyrre I folghed those floty valez, + The more strenghthe of joye myn herte straynez, + As fortune fares theras ho fraynez, + Whether solace ho sende other ellez sore, + The wygh, to wham her wylle ho waynez, + Hyttez to have ay more and more. + +(_The Pearl_, st. xi. Fourteenth century.) + +Mr. Israel Gollancz says, in his Introduction to this poem: "I can point +to no direct source to which the poet of _Pearl_ was indebted for his +measure; that it ultimately belongs to Romance poetry I have little +doubt. These twelve-line verses seem to me to resemble the earliest form +of the sonnet more than anything else I have as yet discovered.... Be +this as it may, all will, I hope, recognize that there is a distinct +gain in giving to the 101 stanzas of the poem the appearance of a sonnet +sequence, marking clearly the break between the initial octave and the +closing quatrain.... The refrain, the repetition of the catch-word of +each verse, the trammels of alliteration, all seem to have offered no +difficulty to our poet; and if power over technical difficulties +constitutes in any way a poet's greatness, the author of _Pearl_, from +this point of view alone, must take high rank among English poets." +(Introduction, pp. xxiv, xxv.) + +Other examples of intricate stanza structure are found in _Sir Gawain +and the Green Knight_, supposed to be by the author of _Pearl_. See in +Part Two, p. 156. + + +_aabccbddbeebffgggf_ + + Ne mai no lewed lued libben in londe, + be he never in hyrt so haver of honde, + So lerede us biledes. + [gh]ef ich on molde mote wiž a mai, + y shal falle hem byfore & lurnen huere lay, + ant rewen alle huere redes. + ah bote y be že furme day on folde hem byfore, + ne shaly nout so skere scapen of huere score; + so grimly he on me gredes, + žat y ne mot me lede žer wiž mi lawe; + on alle maner ožes [žat] heo me wullež awe, + heore boc ase on bredes. + heo wendež bokes on brad, + ant makež men a monež a mad; + of scaže y wol me skere, + ant fleo from my fere; + ne rohte hem whet yt were, + boten heo hit had.[10] + +(Song from Harleian MS. 2253. Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p. +109.) + +This and the two following specimens, together with some included +earlier under the head of Tail-Rime, illustrate the interest in complex +lyrical measures characteristic of the period of French influence in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In 1152 Henry of Normandy (who +ascended the throne in 1154) married Eleanor of Poitou, and in her train +there came to England the great troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn. On the +poems of this troubadour and others of the same school, see ten Brink's +_English Literature_, Kennedy translation, vol. i. pp. 159-164. Other +troubadours followed, and found a home in the court of Richard the +Lion-Hearted, who himself entered the ranks of the poets. The result was +a great mass of Norman French lyrical poetry, often in intricate forms, +and a smaller mass of imitative lyrics in Middle English. As Schipper +observes, the elaborate lyrical forms were inconsistent with English +taste, and it was only the simpler ones which were widely adopted. On +the general character of the Romance stanza-forms, and their influence +in England, see Schipper, vol. i. pp. 309 ff. + + +_ababccdeed_ + + Iesu, for ži muchele miht + žou [gh]ef us of ži grace, + žat we mowe dai & nyht + ženken o ži face. + in myn herte hit dož me god, + when y ženke on iesu blod, + žat ran doun bi ys syde, + from is herte doun to is fot; + for ous he spradde is herte blod, + his wondes were so wyde. + +(Song from Harleian MS. 2253; in Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, +p. 208.) + + +_aabccbddbeeb_ + + Lenten ys come wiž love to toune, + wiž blosmen & wiž briddes roune, + žat al žis blisse bryngež; + dayes e[gh]es in žis dales, + notes suete of nyhtegales, + uch foul song singež. + že žrestelcoc him žretež oo; + away is huere wynter woo, + when woderove springež. + žis foules singež ferly fele, + ant wlytež on huere wynter wele, + žat al že wode ryngež. + +(Song from Harleian MS. 2253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p. +164.) + + +_abcbdcdceccce_ + + Trowe [gh]e, sores, and God sent an angell + And commawndyd [gh]ow [gh]owr chyld to slayn, + Be [gh]owr trowthe ys ther ony of [gh]ow + That eyther wold groche or stryve ther-ageyn? + How thyngke [gh]e now, sorys, ther-by? + I trow ther be iii or iiii or moo. + And thys women that wepe so sorowfully + Whan that hyr chyldryn dey them froo, + As nater woll and kynd,-- + Yt ys but folly, I may well awooe, + To groche a-[gh]ens God or to greve [gh]ow, + For [gh]e schall never se hym myschevyd, wyll I know, + Be lond nor watyr, have thys in mynd. + +(Epilogue of Brome Play of Abraham and Isaac. In Manly's _Specimens of +the Pre-Shaksperean Drama_, vol. i. p. 56.) + +This verse of the early Mystery Plays and connected forms of the drama +shows an extraordinary variety of measures. In general, the effort of +the writers seems to have been to show some artistic ingenuity of +structure, and at the same time keep to the free popular dialogue verse +which was associated with the plays. We find, therefore, tumbling verse, +alexandrines, septenaries, and intricate strophic forms, all commonly +written with slight regard for syllable-counting principles. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[8] There is a single well-known exception: the Anglo-Saxon poem known +as _Deor's Lament_, which is divided into irregularly varying strophes, +all ending with the same refrain. (See ten Brink's _English Literature_, +Kennedy translation, vol. i, p. 60.) See also on the strophic formation +of the First Riddle of Cynewulf, an article by W. W. Lawrence, in +_Publications of the Mod. Lang. Assoc._, N.S. vol. x. p. 247. + +[9] Gascoigne, in his _Notes of Instruction_ (1575), mentions this form +of stanza as "a royall kinde of verse, serving best for grave +discourses," a statement in which he is followed by King James in his +_Reulis and Cautelis_ (1585). Puttenham, in the _Arte of English Poesie_ +(1589), speaks of the stanza as "the chiefe of our ancient proportions +used by any rimer writing any thing of historical or grave poeme, as ye +may see in Chaucer and Lidgate." (Arber Reprint, p. 80.) + +[10] The appendage to a stanza, based on one or more short lines, is +sometimes called a "bob-wheel." See Guest's _History of English +Rhythms_, Skeat ed., pp. 621 ff., for an account of various forms of +these "wheels." + + + + +IV. TONE-QUALITY + + +The quality of the sounds of the words used in verse, although in no way +concerned in the rhythm, is an element of some importance. The +sound-quality may be used in either of two ways: as a regular +coördinating element in the structure of the verse, or as a sporadic +element in the beauty or melody of the verse. + + +A. AS A STRUCTURAL ELEMENT + +In this capacity, similar qualities of sound indicate coördinated parts +of the verse-structure, thus emphasizing the idea of similarity +(corresponding to that of symmetry in arts expressed in space) which is +at the very basis of rhythmical composition. + +Obviously, the similarity may exist between vowel sounds, consonant +sounds, or both; more specifically, it is found either in initial +consonants, in accented vowels, or in accented vowels plus final +consonants. Properly speaking, the term Rime is applicable to all three +cases; the first being distinguished as initial rime or Alliteration +(German _Anreim_ or _Stabreim_); the second as Assonance (_Stimmreim_), +the third as complete Rime (_Vollreim_). English usage commonly reserves +the term Rime for the third class. + + +i. _Assonance_ + +Assonance was the characteristic coördinating element in the verse of +the early Romance languages, the Provenēal, Old French, and Spanish. +Thus in the _Chanson de Roland_ (eleventh century) we find the verses of +each _laisse_, or strophe, bound together by assonance. Frequently this +develops into full rime by chance or convenience. The following is a +characteristic group of verses from the _Roland_: + + Li reis Marsilies esteit en Sarragoce. + Alez en est un vergier soz l'ombre; + Sor un pedron de marbre bloi se colchet: + Environ lui at plus de vint milie homes. + Il en apelet et ses dus et ses contes: + "Odez, seignor, quels pechiez nos encombret. + Li emperedre Charles de France dolce + En cest pais nos est venuz confondre." + +The following specimen of Old Spanish verse shows the nature of +assonance as regularly used in that language: + + Fablo myo Ēid bien e tan mesurado: + "Grado a ti, seńor padre, que estas en alto! + Esto me han buelto myos enemigos malos." + Alli pieussan de aguijar, alli sueltan las rriendas. + A la exida de Bivar ovieron la corneja diestra, + E entrando a Burgos ovieron la siniestra. + Meēio myo Ēid los ombros e engrameo la tiesta: + "Albricia, Albarffanez, ca echados somos de tierra!" + +(_Poema del Cid._ Twelfth century.) + + Maiden, crowned with glossy blackness, + Lithe as panther forest-roaming, + Long-armed naiad, when she dances, + On a stream of ether floating,-- + Bright, O bright Fedalma! + + Form all curves like softness drifted, + Wave-kissed marble roundly dimpling, + Far-off music slowly winged, + Gently rising, gently sinking,-- + Bright, O bright Fedalma! + +(GEORGE ELIOT: Song from _The Spanish Gypsy_, book i.) + +This song was written in avowed imitation of the Spanish verse, +illustrating its prevailingly trochaic rhythm as well as alliteration. +Elsewhere verse bound together only by assonance is almost unknown in +English poetry. In the _Contemporary Review_ for November, 1894, Mr. +William Larminie has an interesting article giving a favorable account +of the use of assonance in Celtic (Irish) verse, and proposing its +larger use in English poetry, as a relief from the--to him--almost +cloying elaborateness of rime. + +In the following specimen, assonance seems in some measure to take the +place of rime. + + Haply, the river of Time-- + As it grows, as the towns on its marge + Fling their wavering lights + On a wider, statelier stream-- + May acquire, if not the calm + Of its early mountainous shore, + Yet a solemn peace of its own. + + And the width of the waters, the hush + Of the gray expanse where he floats, + Freshening its current and spotted with foam + As it draws to the ocean, may strike + Peace to the soul of the man on its breast,-- + As the pale waste widens around him, + As the banks fade dimmer away, + As the stars come out, and the night-wind + Brings up the stream + Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea. + +(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _The Future._) + + +ii. _Alliteration_ + +Alliteration appears sporadically in the verse of all literary +languages, but as a means for the coördination of verse it is +characteristic of the primitive Germanic tongues. + + Hwęt! we nu gehyrdan, hu žęt hęlubearn + Žurh his hydercyme hals eft forgeaf, + Gefreode ond gefreožade folc under wolcnum + Męre meotudes sunu, žęt nu monna gehwylc, + Cwic žendan her wunaš, geceosan mot + Swa helle hienžu swa heofones męržu, + Swa žęt leohte leoht swa ša lažan niht, + Swa žrymmes žręce swa žystra wręce, + Swa mid dryhten dream swa mid deoflum hream, + Swa wite mid wražum swa wuldor mid arum, + Swa lif swa deaš, swa him leofre biš + To gefremmanne, ženden flęsc ond gęst + Wuniaš in worulde. Wuldor žęs age + Žrynysse žrym, žonc butan ende! + +(CYNEWULF: _Crist._ ll. 586-599. Eighth century.) + +This specimen represents the use of alliteration in the most regularly +constructed Anglo-Saxon verse. The two half-lines are united into the +long line by the same initial consonant in the important syllables. In +the first half-line the alliteration is on the two principally stressed +syllables, or on one of them alone (most frequently the first); in the +second half-line it is commonly found only on the first. Alliterating +unstressed syllables are usually regarded as merely accidental. Any +initial vowel sound alliterates with any other vowel sound. + +The most regular verse appears in Anglo-Saxon poetry of what may be +called the classical period,--700 A.D. and for a century +following,--represented by _Beowulf_ and the poems of Cynewulf. By the +time of Ęlfric, who wrote about 1000 A.D., there appear signs of a +breaking in the regular verse-form. (See Schipper, vol. i. pp. 60 ff.) +For example, two alliterative syllables often appear in the second +half-line; one half-line may be without alliteration; alliteration may +bind different long-lines together; or alliteration may be altogether +wanting. There are also additions of many light syllables, resulting +almost, as Schipper observes, in rhythmical prose. These tendencies +resulted in the wholly irregular use of alliteration appearing in much +of the verse of the early Middle English period, illustrated in the +specimens that follow. + + * * * * * + +The origins of alliteration in Germanic verse are lost in the general +mass of Germanic origins. It is almost universally regarded as a purely +native development, although M. Kawczynski (_Essai Comparatif sur +l'Origine et l'Histoire des Rythmes_; Paris, 1889) sets forth the +remarkable opinion that the Germans derived their alliteration from the +Romans. "We must remember," he says, "the schools of rhetoric existing +in Gaul in the sixth and seventh centuries, where alliteration seems to +have been held in esteem.... It became more and more frequent in the +Latin poetry of the Carlovingian period, and it will suffice to cite +here the following verses from Milo of Saint Amand: + + 'Pastores pecum primi pressique pavore + Conspicuos cives carmen caeleste canentes + Audivere astris arrectis auribus; auctor + Ad terras ...' + +It early passed to Ireland, and the Irish made use of it in their Latin +poetry and in their national poetry. The example of the Irish was +followed by the Anglo-Saxons, although these last had derived the same +rules from the Latin writers.... The Anglo-Saxons, who sent the second +series of apostles to the Germans, taught them the use of alliteration +in poetry. The Scandinavians, on their side, learned it also from the +Anglo-Saxons." This theory has found no adherents among scholars, and M. +Kawczynski's illustrations are probably most useful in emphasizing the +natural pleasure in similarity of sound found among all peoples. See +below, on the related question of the origin of end-rime. + + še leun stant on hille, and he man hunten here, + ošer šurg his nese smel, smake that he negge, + bi wilc weie so he wile to dele nišer wenden, + alle hise fet steppes after him he filleš, + drageš dust wiš his stert šer he steppeš, + ošer dust ošer deu, šat he ne cunne is finden, + driveš dun to his den šar he him bergen wille. + +(_The Bestiary_, from MS. Arundel. In Mätzner's _Altenglische +Sprachproben_, vol. i. p. 57.) + +See also the specimen from Böddeker, p. 14, above. + + Cristes milde moder, seynte Marie, + mines lives leome, mi leove lefdi, + to že ich buwe and mine kneon ich beie, + and al min heorte blod to še ich offrie. + +(_On God Ureisun of ure Lefdi._ In Morris's _Old English Homilies_, +first series, p. 191. Zupitza's _Alt-und Mittelenglisches Übungsbuch_, +p. 76.) + + Kaer Leir hehte že burh: leof heo wes žan kinge. + ža we an ure leod-quide: Leirchestre cležiaš. + [gh]eare a žan holde dawen: heo wes swiše ašel burh. + & seoššen žer seh toward: swiše muchel seorwe. + žat heo wes al for-faren: žurh žere leodene vęl. + Sixti winter hefde Leir: žis lond al to welden. + že king hefde žreo dohtren: bi his drihliche quen. + nefde he nenne sune: žer fore he warš sari. + his manscipe to holden: buten ža žreo dohtren. + ža ęldeste dohter haihte Gornoille: ža ošer Ragau. + ža žridde Cordoille. + +(LAYAMON: _Brut_, ll. 2912-2931. Madden ed., vol. i. p. 123. ab. 1200.) + +The _Brut_ of Layamon represents typically the transition period, when +alliteration and end-rime were struggling for the mastery in English +verse. Schipper points out that we find in the poem four kinds of lines: + +1. Simple alliterative lines in more or less strict adherence to the old +rules. + +2. Lines combining alliteration and rime or alliteration and assonance. + +3. Lines showing rime or assonance, without alliteration. + +4. Four-stress lines with neither rime nor alliteration. + +The present specimen shows the preference for alliteration; that on p. +127, below, represents the introduction of rime. + + In a somer seson . whan soft was the sonne, + I shope me in shroudes . as I a shepe were, + In habite as an heremite . unholy of workes, + Went wyde in this world . wondres to here. + Ac on a May mornynge . on Malverne hulles + Me byfel a ferly . of fairy me thou[gh]te; + I was wery forwandred . and went me to reste + Under a brode banke . bi a bornes side, + And as I lay and lened . and loked in the wateres, + I slombred in a slepyng . it sweyved so merye. + +(WILLIAM LANGLAND (?): _Piers the Plowman_, Prologue, ll. 1-10. B-text. +Fourteenth century.) + +_Piers the Plowman_ represents the revival of the alliterative long +line, with fairly strict adherence to the old rules, by contemporaries +of Chaucer, in the fourteenth century. For this verse, see further in +Part Two, pp. 155, 156. + + Apon the Midsumer evin, mirrest of nichtis, + I muvit furth allane, neir as midnicht wes past, + Besyd ane gudlie grene garth, full of gay flouris, + Hegeit, of ane huge hicht, with hawthorne treis; + Quhairon ane bird, on ane bransche, so birst out hir notis + That never ane blythfullar bird was on the beuche harde: + Quhat throw the sugarat sound of hir sang glaid, + And throw the savar sanative of the sueit flouris; + I drew in derne to the dyk to dirkin eftir myrthis; + The dew donkit the daill, and dynarit the foulis. + +(WILLIAM DUNBAR: _The Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo_, ll. 1-10. Ed. +Scottish Text Society, vol ii. p. 30.) + + See notes on Dunbar as a metrist, in this edition, vol. i. pp. + cxlix and clxxii, and T. F. Henderson's _Scottish Vernacular + Literature_, pp. 153-164. + +Alliteration as an organic element of verse was especially favored in +the North country, and its popularity in Scotland--illustrated in the +present specimen from Dunbar--considerably outlasted its use in England. +The famous words of Chaucer's Parson will be recalled: + + "But trusteth wel, I am a Southren man, + I can nat geste--rum, ram, ruf--by lettre." + +We find King James, as late as 1585 (_Reulis and Cautelis_), giving the +following instructions: "Let all your verse be Literall, sa far as may +be, ... bot speciallie Tumbling verse for flyting. By Literall I meane, +that the maist part of your lyne sall rynne upon a letter, as this +tumbling lyne rynnis upon F: + + _Fetching fude for to feid it fast furth of the Farie._" + +The following specimen is one of the latest examples of fairly regular +alliterative verse, written in England, that has come down to us. It is +from a ballad of the battle of Flodden Field (1513). + + Archers uttered out their arrowes, and egerlie they shotten. + They proched us with speares, and put many over, + That the blood outbrast at there broken harnish. + There was swinging out of swords, and swapping of headds; + We blanked them with bills through all their bright armor, + That all the dale dunned of their derfe strokes. + +(_Scotishe Ffielde_, from Percy's Folio MS. In FLÜGEL'S _Neuenglisches +Lesebuch_, vol. i. p. 156.) + + +iii. _Rime_ (_i.e. end-rime_) + +Full rime, or end-rime, involves the principally stressed vowel in the +riming word, and all that follows that vowel. When there is an entire +unstressed syllable following, the rime is called double, or feminine. +Triple rime is also recognized, though rare.[11] End-rime being a +stranger to the early Germanic languages, its appearance in any of them +may commonly be taken as a sign of foreign influence. In general, of +course, rime and the stanza were introduced together into English verse, +under the influence of Latin hymns and French lyrics. + +The functions of rime in English verse may perhaps be grouped under +three heads: the function of emphasis, the function of forming beautiful +or pleasurable sounds, and the function of combining or organizing the +verses. It is with reference to the first of these that Professor Corson +speaks of rime as "an enforcing agency of the individual verse." Under +the second head rime is considered simply as a form of tone-color, and +as furnishing a part of the melody of verse. The third function, by +which individual verses are bound into stanzas, is, in a sense, the most +important. + +On the subject of the ęsthetic values of rime, see the chapter on +"poetic unities" in Corson's _Primer of English Verse_, and Ehrenfeld's +_Studien zur Theorie des Reims_ (Zürich, 1897). The problem of the +relative values of rimed and unrimed verse will come up in connection +with the history of the heroic couplet and of blank verse. The objection +always urged against rime is that its demands are likely to turn the +poet aside from the normal order of his ideas. Herder, as Ehrenfeld +points out, thought that this was particularly true of English verse, +the uninflected language not providing so naturally for cases where +thought and sound are parallel. A recent protest against the tyranny of +rime is found in the article by Mr. Larminie, cited on page 115, where +it is claimed that undue attention to form is thinning out the substance +of modern poetry, and that the demands of rime should be relaxed. See +also Ben Jonson's "Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme," for a humorous complaint +against the requirements of rime upon the poet. + + The origin of rime has been a subject of prolonged controversy. See + the monograph by Ehrenfeld already cited; Meyer's _Anfang und + Ursprung der rythmischen Dichtung_ (Munich, 1884); W. Grimm's + _Geschichte des Reims_ (1851); Norden's _Antike Kunstprosa_ + (Leipzig, 1898; _Anhang ueber die Geschichte des Reims_); Kluge's + article, _Zur Geschichte des Reimes im Altgermanischen_, in Paul u. + Braune's _Beiträge_, vol. ix. p. 422; and Schipper, vol. i. pp. 34 + ff. Meyer's work is an exposition of the theory that rime was an + importation from the Orient. In like manner, it has been held by + many that the poetry of Otfried (the first regularly rimed German + verse) was produced under Latin influence wholly, and that rime was + introduced by him to the Germans (see the work by Kawczynski, cited + p. 117). Herder (see Ehrenfeld's monograph) regarded rime as a + natural growth of the instinct for symmetry in all human taste, + closely connected with dance-rhythms, all forms of parallelism, and + the like. Similarity of inflectional endings in similar clauses, he + pointed out, would naturally develop rime in any inflected + language. This view is in line with the tendency of recent opinion. + Schipper says, in effect: "Is rime to be regarded as the invention + of a special people, like the Arabian, or is it a form of art which + developed in the poetic language of the Aryan peoples, separately + in the several nations? In the opinion of the principal scholars + the latter opinion is the correct one. The chief support of this + opinion is the fact that traces of rime, in greater or less number, + appear in the oldest poetry of almost all the partially civilized + peoples. 'It is,' says C. F. Meyer, 'something inborn, original, + universally human, like poetry and music, and no more than these + the special invention of a single people or a particular time.' In + fact, traces of rime may be noticed in the poetry of the Greeks, in + Homer, Ęschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, as also in the poetry of + the Romans; in a more developed form it appears in the late middle + Latin clerical poetry. In the Celtic languages, moreover, rime is + the indispensable mark of the poetic form, even in the oldest + extant specimens. The Latin poetry just referred to gives + interesting evidence that rime is a characteristic sign of popular + poetry. While the quantitative system became dominant, with the + artistic verse-forms of the Greeks, in the Golden Age of Roman + literature, the early Saturnian verses, written in free rhythms, + already showed the popular taste for similarity of sound in the + form of alliteration; and in the post-classical time, with the fall + of the quantitative metres, rime again came to the front in songs + intended for the people. The same element was made so essential a + characteristic in the organization of verse in the medięval Latin, + that 'carmen rhythmicum' came to signify a rimed poem, and the + later Latinists used the word 'rhythmus' precisely in the sense of + 'rime.'" + + Schipper goes on to inquire whether this medięval Latin poetry was + the means of introducing rime to the Germanic peoples. Wackernagel + held it as certain that Otfried learned his rimes from Latin poems; + but as Otfried declares that his poetry is intended to take the + place of useless popular songs, it seems probable that he was not + using an innovation, and that rime was already popular in Old High + German. Indeed, it appears sporadically in the _Hildebrandslied_ + and the _Heliand_. Grimm observes that it is theoretically unlikely + that alliteration should have vanished suddenly and rime as + suddenly have taken its place. The gradual development of rime from + assonance among the Romance peoples suggests the same thing. The + early appearance of rime by the side of alliteration is illustrated + by C. F. Meyer (_Historische Studien_, Leipzig, 1851) from the + Norse _Edda_, from _Beowulf_, Cędmon, etc. In the later Anglo-Saxon + period rime was evidently securing a considerable though uncertain + hold. The Riming Poem suggests what development rime might have had + in English without the incoming of Romance influences. Grimm + observes that, while to his mind alliteration was a finer and + nobler quality than rime, there was need of a stronger + sound-likeness which should hold the attention more firmly by its + unchanging place at the end of the line. Schipper remarks, finally, + that the fact that the use of rime in connection with alliteration + was especially popular in the southern half of England, where the + Romance influence was strongest, may suggest why in the more purely + Germanic northern half alliteration remained the single support of + the poetic form well into the fifteenth century. + + The appendix to the work of Norden, cited above, is a fuller + development of ideas frequently suggested by the sporadic + appearance of rime in early Greek and Latin literature. Norden + gives many examples of this "rhetorical rime," as well as of rime + arising naturally from parallelism of sentence structure found in + primitive charms, incantations, and the like. In particular he + emphasizes the influence of the figure of _hom[oe]oteleuton_ as + used in the literary prose of the classical languages. His + conclusion is as follows: "Rime, then, was potentially as truly + present in the Greek and Latin languages, from the earliest times, + as in every other language; but in the metrical (quantitative) + poetry it had no regular place, and appeared there in general only + sporadically and by chance, being used by only a few poets as a + rhetorical ornament. It became actual by the transition from the + metrical poetry to the rhythmical (that is, the syllable-counting, + in which--in the Latin--the chief consideration is still for the + word-accent); and this transition was consummated by the aid of the + highly poetic prose, already used for centuries, which was + constructed according to the laws of rhythm, and in which the + rhetorical hom[oe]oteleuton had gained an ever-increasing + significance. In particular, rime found an entrance through sermons + composed in such prose, and delivered in a voice closely + approaching that of singing, into the hymn-poetry which was + intimately related to such sermons. From the Latin hymn-poetry it + was carried into other languages, from the ninth century onward. It + is self-evident that in these languages also rime was potentially + present before it became actual through the influence of foreign + poetry; for in this region also there operates the highest immanent + law of every being and every form of development,--that in the + whole field of life nothing absolutely new is invented, but merely + slumbering germs are awakened to active life." (_Antike + Kunstprosa_, vol. ii. pp. 867 ff.) + + Me lifes onlah. se žis leoht onwrah. + and žęt torhte geteoh. tillice onwrah. + ględ węs ic gliwum. glenged hiwum. + blissa bleoum. blostma hiwum. + Secgas mec segon. symbel ne alegon. + feorh-gife gefegon. frętwed węgon. + wic ofer wongum. wennan gongum. + lisse mid longum. leoma getongum. + +(From the "Riming Poem" of the _Codex Exoniensis_.) + +This puzzlingly early appearance of rime in Anglo-Saxon verse, in +conjunction with fairly regular alliteration, is of especial +interest.[12] "It is supposed," says Schipper, "that this new form has +for its foundation the Scandinavian _Runhenda_, and that this was known +to the Anglo-Saxons through the Old Norse poet, Egil Skalagrimsson, who +was living in England in the tenth century, and who stayed twice in +England at Athelstan's court, writing a poem in Northumbria in the same +form." He also observes that the attempt to attain something like +equality of feet and half-lines suggests the Norse models. + + Sainte Marie, Cristes bur, + Maidenes clenhad, moderes flur, + Dilie mine sinne, rixe in min mod, + Bring me to winne with self god. + +(Verses attributed to St. Godric. ab. 1100.) + +Godric, the hermit of Norfolk, lived about 1065-1170. These verses seem +to give the earliest extant appearance of end-rime in Middle English. +The Romance words in the hymn indicate the presence of French influence. +(On this hymn see article in _Englische Studien_, vol. xi. p. 401.) + + Woden hehde ža hęhste la[gh]e: an ure ęlderne dę[gh]en. + he heom wes leof: ęfne al swa heore lif. + he wes heore walden: and heom wuršscipe duden. + žene feorše dęi i žere wike: heo [gh]iven him to wuršscipe. + ža Žunre heo [gh]iven žures dęi: for ži žat heo heom helpen męi. + Freon heore lęfdi: heo [gh]iven hire fridęi. + Saturnus heo [gh]iven sętterdęi: žene Sunne heo [gh]iven sonedęi. + Monenen heo [gh]ivenen monedęi: Tidea heo [gh]even tisdęi. + žus seide Hęngest: cnihten alre hendest. + +(LAYAMON: _Brut_, ll. 13921-13938. Madden ed., vol. ii. p. 158. ab. +1200.) + +On the verse of the _Brut_ see above, p. 119. + + Ich ęm elder žen ich wes · a wintre and alore. + Ic węlde more žaune ic dude · mi wit ah to ben more. + Wel lange ic habbe child ibeon · a weorde end ech adede. + Žeh ic beo awintre eald · tu [gh]yng i eom a rede.... + Mest al žat ic habbe ydon · ys idelnesse and chilce. + Wel late ic habbe me bi žoht · bute me god do milce. + +(_Poema Morale_, ll. 1-4, 7, 8. In Zupitza's _Alt-und Mittelenglisches +Übungsbuch_, p. 58. ab. 1200.) + +The _Poema Morale_, evidently one of the most popular poems of the early +Middle English period, seems to be the earliest one of any considerable +length in which end-rime was used regularly. + +For other early examples of rime introduced into English under foreign +influence, see above, in the section on the Stanza. + + +_Double and triple rime._ + + To our theme.--The man who has stood on the Acropolis, + And looked down over Attica; or he + Who has sailed where picturesque Constantinople is, + Or seen Timbuctoo, or hath taken tea + In small-eyed China's crockery-ware metropolis, + Or sat amidst the bricks of Nineveh, + May not think much of London's first appearance-- + But ask him what he thinks of it a year hence? + +(BYRON: _Don Juan_, canto xi. st. vii.) + + 'Tis pity learned virgins ever wed, + With persons of no sort of education, + Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred, + Grow tired of scientific conversation; + I don't choose to say much upon this head, + I'm a plain man, and in a single station, + But--oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, + Inform us truly, have they not hen-pecked you all? + +(_Ib._, canto i. st. xxii.) + + So the painter Pacchiarotto + Constructed himself a grotto + In the quarter of Stalloreggi-- + As authors of note allege ye. + And on each of the whitewashed sides of it + He painted--(none far and wide so fit + As he to perform in fresco)-- + He painted nor cried _quiesco_ + Till he peopled its every square foot + With Man--from the Beggar barefoot + To the Noble in cap and feather; + All sorts and conditions together. + The Soldier in breastplate and helmet + Stood frowningly--hail fellow well met-- + By the Priest armed with bell, book, and candle. + Nor did he omit to handle + The Fair Sex, our brave distemperer: + Not merely King, Clown, Pope, Emperor-- + He diversified too his Hades + Of all forms, pinched Labor and paid Ease, + With as mixed an assemblage of Ladies. + +(BROWNING: _Pacchiarotto_, v.) + + What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all; + Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold: + When we mind labor, then only, we're too old-- + What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul? + And at last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees + (Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil), + I hope to get safely out of the turmoil + And arrive one day at the land of the Gypsies, + And find my lady, or hear the last news of her + From some old thief and son of Lucifer, + His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop, + Sunburned all over like an Ęthiop. + +(BROWNING: _The Flight of the Duchess_, xvii.) + +These passages illustrate sufficiently the grotesque effects of double +and triple rime in English verse,--effects of which Byron and Browning +are the unquestioned masters. Professor Corson observes that the double +rime is to be regarded as the means of "some special emphasis," whether +serious or humorous. More commonly the effect is humorous, of course, as +in _Don Juan_, where the rimes indicate "the lowering of the poetic +key--the reduction of true poetic seriousness." The rimes in the _Flight +of the Duchess_ Mr. Edmund Gurney has said sometimes "produce the +effect of jokes made during the performance of a symphony." The specimen +which follows illustrates the use of these double and triple rimes for a +wholly serious purpose. Professor Corson remarks that in this case the +rime serves "as a most effective foil to the melancholy theme. It is not +unlike the laughter of frenzied grief." It is interesting to note that +in the Italian language, where double rimes are almost constant, +masculine rimes are sometimes used for grotesque effect in the same way +that English poets use the feminine. + + Perishing gloomily, + Spurred by contumely, + Cold inhumanity, + Burning insanity, + Into her rest.-- + Cross her hands humbly, + As if praying dumbly, + Over her breast. + Owning her weakness, + Her evil behaviour, + And leaving, with meekness, + Her sins to her Saviour! + +(THOMAS HOOD: _The Bridge of Sighs._) + + Roll the strong stream of it + Up, till the scream of it + Wake from a dream of it + Children that sleep, + Seamen that fare for them + Forth, with a prayer for them; + Shall not God care for them, + Angels not keep? + Spare not the surges + Thy stormy scourges; + Spare us the dirges + Of wives that weep. + Turn back the waves for us: + Dig no fresh graves for us, + Wind, in the manifold gulfs of the deep. + +(SWINBURNE: _Winter in Northumberland_, xiv.) + + Into the woods my Master went, + Clean forspent, forspent. + Into the woods my Master came, + Forspent with love and shame. + But the olives they were not blind to Him, + The little gray leaves were kind to Him: + The thorn-tree had a mind to Him + When into the woods he came. + +(SIDNEY LANIER: _A Ballad of Trees and the Master._) + + +_Broken rime._ + + There first for thee my passion grew, + Sweet, sweet Matilda Pottingen! + Thou wast the daughter of my tu- + tor, law-professor at the U- + niversity of Gottingen. + + Sun, moon, and thou, vain world, adieu! + That kings and priests are plotting in; + Here doomed to starve on water gru- + el, never shall I see the U- + niversity of Gottingen. + +(GEORGE CANNING: Song in _The Rovers; Anti-Jacobin_, June 4, 1798.[13]) + + + Winter and summer, night and morn, + I languish at this table dark; + My office-window has a corn- + er looks into St. James's Park. + +(THACKERAY: Ballads, _What Makes my Heart to Thrill and Glow?_) + + +_Internal rime._ + +Internal rime may be regarded on the one side as only a matter of the +division of the verse, since if it occurs regularly at the medial +cesura, it practically breaks the verse into two parts. On the other +side, if used only sporadically, it is a matter of tone-color. It +sometimes appears, however, in forms which entitle it to recognition by +itself. The earliest of these forms is the "Leonine rime," which is said +to have taken its name from Leoninus of St. Victor, who in the twelfth +century wrote elegiacs (hexameters and pentameters) in which the +syllable preceding the cesura regularly rimed with the final syllable. +Obviously lines of this kind would easily break up into riming +half-lines. Similarly, in septenary verse internal rime was often used +together with end-rime, with a resulting resolution into short-line +stanzas riming either _aabb_ or _abab_.[14] The following specimen from +a celebrated ballad shows the popular use of a somewhat complex system +of internal rime. + + Be it right or wrong, these men among on women do complaine, + Affirming this, how that it is a labour spent in vaine, + To love them wele, for never a dele they love a man agayne. + For lete a man do what he can, ther favour to attayne, + Yet yf a newe to them pursue, ther furst trew lover than + Laboureth for nought, and from her thought he is a bannisshed man. + +(_Ye Nutbrowne Maide._ From Arnold's Chronicle, printed ab. 1502. In +Flügel's _Neuenglisches Lesebuch_, vol. i. p. 167.) + + Haill rois maist chois till clois thy fois greit micht, + Haill stone quhilk schone upon the throne of licht, + Vertew, quhais trew sweit dew ouirthrew al vice, + Was ay ilk day gar say the way of licht; + Amend, offend, and send our end ay richt. + Thow stant, ordant as sanct, of grant maist wise, + Till be supplie, and the hie gre of price. + Delite the tite me quite of site to dicht, + For I apply schortlie to thy devise. + +(GAWAIN DOUGLAS: _A ballade in the commendation of honour and verteu_; +at the end of the _Palace of Honor_.) + +Douglas, like his countryman Dunbar, was something of a metrical +virtuoso, and his use of internal rime in this ballade is one of his +most remarkable achievements. In the first stanza there are two internal +rimes in each line, in the second three, and in the third (here quoted) +four. + + I cannot eat but little meat, + My stomach is not good, + But sure I think that I can drink + With him that wears a hood. + Though I go bare, take ye no care, + I nothing am a-cold, + I stuff my skin so full within + Of jolly good ale and old. + +(Drinking Song in _Gammer Gurton's Needle_.) + + The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, + The furrow stream'd off free; + We were the first that ever burst + Into that silent sea. + +(COLERIDGE: _Rime of the Ancient Mariner._) + + The splendor falls on castle walls, + And snowy summits old in story; + The long light shakes across the lakes, + And the wild cataract leaps in glory. + +(TENNYSON: Song in _The Princess_, iv.) + + England, queen of the waves whose green inviolate girdle enrings thee + round, + Mother fair as the morning, where is now the place of thy foemen found? + Still the sea that salutes us free proclaims them stricken, acclaims + thee crowned .... + England, none that is born thy son, and lives, by grace of thy glory, + free, + Lives and yearns not at heart and burns with hope to serve as he worships + thee; + None may sing thee: the sea-wind's wing beats down our songs as it hails + the sea. + +(SWINBURNE: _The Armada_, vii.) + +Here the third and eighth syllables of each verse rime, giving the +effect of a separate melody only half heard under that of the main +rime-scheme. This is especially subtle where there is no possible pause +after the riming word, as in the "sing" of the last line quoted. + + Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever! + Let the bell toll!--a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river; + And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?--weep now or nevermore! + See on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore! + Come, let the burial rite be read--the funeral song be sung: + An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young, + A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young. + +(POE: _Lenore._) + + I did not take her by the hand, + (Though little was to understand + From touch of hand all friends might take,) + Because it should not prove a flake + Burnt in my palm to boil and ache. + + I did not listen to her voice, + (Though none had noted, where at choice + All might rejoice in listening,) + Because no such a thing should cling + In the wood's moan at evening. + +(ROSSETTI: _Penumbra._) + +(See also _Love's Nocturn_, p. 146, below.) + + +B. AS A SPORADIC ELEMENT (TONE-COLOR) + +This division includes the use made of the qualities of sound for the +purpose of adding to the melodiousness of verse, or of expressing in +some measure the ideas to be conveyed by means of the very sounds +employed. Sometimes this takes the form of alliteration, differing from +that of early English verse only in that it follows no regular +structural laws. On the other hand, it may take the form of +_onomatop[oe]ia_, the figure of speech in which sound and sense are +closely related,--as in descriptive words like _buzz_, _hiss_, _murmur_, +_splash_, and the like. The term Tone-color is formed by analogy with +the German _Klangfarbe_, an expression apparently due to the feeling +that the sound-qualities of speech have somewhat the same function as +the various colors in a picture. It is unquestionably true that the +selection of sounds, whether vowel or consonantal, has much to do with +the melodious effect of very much poetry. The poet may choose the +different sound-qualities (so far as the sense permits) just as the +musician may choose the varying qualities of the different instruments +in the orchestra or the different stops in the organ. + +Strictly speaking, this matter of Tone-color is not a part of verse-form +in the same sense as matters of rhythm, rime, and the like; for it may +appear in prose as well as in verse, and is not in any case reducible to +formal principles or laws. Yet its use in actual verse is so important, +and it is so closely related to the use of sound-quality in the form of +rime and alliteration, that it seems well to include it here.[15] + + Dr. Guest treats sounds as having in themselves the suggestion of + more or less definite ideas, this suggestiveness being explainable + by physical causes. Thus the trembling character of _l_ suggests + trepidation, as in "Double, double, toil and trouble." _R_ suggests + harsh, grating, or rattling noises; the sibilants are appropriate + to the expression of shrieks, screams, and the like; _b_ and _p_, + because of the compression of the lips, suggest muscular effort; + _st_, from a sudden stopping of the _s_, suggests fear or surprise; + _f_ and _h_ also fear, because of their whispering quality. Hollow + sounds (_au_, _ow_, _o_, and the like) suggest depth and fulness. + Guest quotes in this connection an interesting passage from Bacon's + _Natural History_ (ii. 200): "There is found a similitude between + the sound that is made by inanimate bodies, or by animate bodies + that have no voice articulate, and divers letters of articulate + voices; and commonly men have given such names to those sounds as + do allude unto the articulate letters; as trembling of hot water + hath resemblance unto the letter _l_; quenching of hot metals with + the letter _z_; snarling of dogs with the letter _r_; the noise of + screech-owls with the letter _sh_; voice of cats with the diphthong + _eu_; voice of cuckoos with the diphthong _ou_; sounds of strings + with the diphthong _ng_. + +A. W. Schlegel went even farther in suggesting a subtle symbolism in +sounds apart from descriptive qualities. Thus he regarded _a_ as +suggestive of bright red, and as symbolizing youth, joy, or brightness +(as in the words _Strahl_, _Klang_, _Glans_); _i_ as suggestive of +sky-blue, symbolic of intimacy or love; and so with other vowel sounds. +(See Ehrenfeld's monograph, p. 57.) In general it may be said that it is +dangerous to attempt to explain the special effects of tone-color in +verse, except where it is obviously descriptive, the appreciation of +such effects being a subtle and a more or less individual matter. On +this subject Mr. Gurney makes some interesting observations, in the +essays cited above. He believes that the pleasurable effect of the +sound-qualities in verse can never be dissociated from the sense of the +words; that the most melodious verse cannot be appreciated if in a +foreign language, unless read with particular expressiveness; and that +the pleasure derived from what we roughly call melodious or harmonious +verses is always due to the mystical combination of the appropriate +sound with the poetic content. + +Dr. Johnson ridiculed the idea of tone-color, as appearing in Pope's +teaching that the sound should be "an echo to the sense." See his _Life +of Pope_, and especially the _Idler_ for June 9, 1759, in which he +describes Minim the critic as reading "all our poets with particular +attention to this delicacy of versification." Such a critic discovers +wonders in these lines from _Hudibras_: + + "Honor is like the glossy bubble, + Which cost philosophers such trouble; + Where, one part crack'd, the whole does fly, + And wits are crack'd to find out why." + +"In these verses, says Minim, we have two striking accommodations of the +sound to the sense. It is impossible to utter the first two lines +emphatically without an act like that which they describe; _bubble_ and +_trouble_ causing a momentary inflation of the cheeks by the retention +of the breath, which is afterwards forcibly emitted, as in the practice +of _blowing bubbles_. But the greatest excellence is in the third line, +which is _crack'd_ in the middle to express a crack, and then shivers +into monosyllables." + +In an article on "Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature" +(originally published in the _Contemporary Review_, April, 1885; +reprinted in the Scribner edition of Stevenson's Works, vol. xxii. p. +243) Robert Louis Stevenson discussed some of the more subtle effects of +vowel and consonant color, as appearing in both prose and verse. The +combination and repetition of the consonants PVF he found to be +particularly frequent. The pervading sound-elements in the two following +passages he analyzed by means of the key-letters in the margin: + + "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan (KANDL) + A stately pleasure-dome decree, (KDLSR) + Where Alph the sacred river ran (KANDLSR) + Through caverns measureless to man, (KANLSR) + Down to a sunless sea." (NDLS) + +(COLERIDGE.) + + "But in the wind and tempest of her frown, W.P.V.F. (st) (ow) + Distinction with a loud and powerful fan, W.P.F. (st) (ow) L. + Puffing at all, winnows the light away; W.P.F.L. + And what hath mass and matter by itself W.F.L.M.A. + Lies rich in virtue and unmingled." V.L.M. + +(SHAKSPERE: _Troilus and Cressida._) + +No attempt has been made to classify the specimens that follow. Nor does +comment seem necessary, in order to make clear the particular qualities +of the sounds of the verse. + + The heraudes lefte hir priking up and doun; + Now ringen trompes loude and clarioun; + There is namore to seyn, but west and est + In goon the speres ful sadly in arest; + In goth the sharpe spore in-to the syde. + Ther seen men who can juste, and who can ryde; + Ther shiveren shaftes up-on sheeldes thikke; + He feeleth thurgh the herte-spoon the prikke. + Up springen speres twenty foot on highte; + Out goon the swerdes as the silver brighte. + The helmes they to-hewen and to-shrede; + Out brest the blood, with sterne stremes rede. + With mighty maces the bones they to-breste. + He thurgh the thikkeste of the throng gan threste. + Ther stomblen stedes stronge, and doun goth al. + +(CHAUCER: _Knight's Tale_, ll. 1741-1755.) + + And in his house heap pearls like pebble-stones, + Receive them free, and sell them by the weight; + Bags of fiery opals, sapphires, amethysts, + Jacinths, hard topaz, grass-green emeralds, + Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds, + And seld-seen costly stones of so great price, + As one of them indifferently rated, + And of a carat of this quantity, + May serve in peril of calamity. + +(MARLOWE: _The Jew of Malta_, I. i.) + + Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; + Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes; + Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, + With purple grapes, green figs and mulberries; + The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, + And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs, + And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, + To have my love to bed and to arise; + And pluck the wings from painted butterflies, + To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes: + Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies. + +(SHAKSPERE: _Midsummer Night's Dream_, III. i. 167-177.) + + Now entertain conjecture of a time + When creeping murmur and the poring dark + Fills the wide vessel of the universe. + From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, + The hum of either army stilly sounds, + That the fix'd sentinels almost receive + The secret whispers of each other's watch: + Fire answers fire; and through their paly flames + Each battle sees the other's umber'd face: + Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs + Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents + The armourers, accomplishing the knights, + With busy hammers closing rivets up, + Give dreadful note of preparation. + The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll, + And the third hour of drowsy morning name. + +(SHAKSPERE: _Henry V._, Chorus to Act IV.) + + Forthwith the sounds and seas, each creek and bay, + With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals + Of fish that, with their fins and shining scales, + Glide under the green wave in sculls that oft + Bank the mid-sea. Part, single or with mate, + Graze the sea-weed, their pasture, and through groves + Of coral stray, or, sporting with quick glance, + Show to the sun their wav'd coats dropt with gold, + Or, in their pearly shells at ease, attend + Moist nutriment, or under rocks their food + In jointed armor watch; on smooth the seal + And bended dolphins play: part, huge of bulk, + Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait, + Tempest the ocean. There leviathan, + Hugest of living creatures, on the deep + Stretch'd like a promontory, sleeps or swims, + And seems a moving land, and at his gills + Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out, a sea. + +(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, VII. 399-416.) + + Then in the key-hole turns + The intricate wards, and every bolt and bar + Of massy iron or solid rock with ease + Unfastens. On a sudden open fly, + With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, + The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate + Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook + Of Erebus. + +(_Ib._, II. 876-883.) + + Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones + Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; + Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, + When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, + Forget not: in thy book record their groans + Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold + Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that rolled + Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans + The vales redoubled to the hills, and they + To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow + O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway + The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow + A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way, + Early may fly the Babylonian woe. + +(MILTON: _Sonnet on the Late Massacre in Piedmont._) + + And when they list, their lean and flashy songs + Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; + The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, + But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, + Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; + Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw + Daily devours apace, and nothing said. + +(MILTON: _Lycidas_, ll. 123-129.) + + The soft complaining flute + In dying notes discovers + The woes of helpless lovers, + Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. + Sharp violins proclaim + Their jealous pangs and desperation, + Fury, frantic indignation, + Depth of pains and height of passion, + For the fair, disdainful dame. + +(DRYDEN: _Song for St. Cecilia's Day_, 1687.) + + Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, + And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; + But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, + The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar: + When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, + The line too labors, and the words move slow; + Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, + Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main. + +(POPE: _Essay on Criticism_, ll. 366-373.) + + Was nought around but images of rest: + Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between; + And flowery beds that slumberous influence kest, + From poppies breath'd: and beds of pleasant green, + Where never yet was creeping creature seen. + Meantime unnumber'd glittering streamlets played, + And hurled everywhere their waters' sheen; + That, as they bickered through the sunny shade, + Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made. + +(THOMSON: _Castle of Indolence_, canto i. st. 3.) + + Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane + In some untrodden region of my mind, + Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain, + Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: + Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees + Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep; + And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees, + The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep; + And in the midst of this wide quietness + A rosy sanctuary will I dress + With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain, + With buds, and bells, and stars without a name, + With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign, + Who breeding flowers will never breed the same. + +(KEATS: _Ode to Psyche._) + + Strike for the King and die! and if thou diest, + The King is King, and ever wills the highest. + Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign. + +(TENNYSON: _The Coming of Arthur._) + + He could not see the kindly human face, + Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard + The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, + The league-long roller thundering on the reef, + The moving whisper of huge trees that branch'd + And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep + Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, + As down the shore he ranged, or all day long + Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, + A shipwreck'd sailor, waiting for a sail: + No sail from day to day, but every day + The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts + Among the palms and ferns and precipices; + The blaze upon the waters to the east; + The blaze upon his island overhead; + The blaze upon the waters to the west; + Then the great stars that globed themselves in heaven, + The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again + The scarlet shafts of sunrise--but no sail. + +(TENNYSON: _Enoch Arden_, ll. 577-595.) + + But follow; let the torrent dance thee down + To find him in the valley; let the wild + Lean-headed eagles yelp alone, and leave + The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill + Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, + That like a broken purpose waste in air: + So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales + Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth + Arise to thee; the children call, and I + Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, + Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; + Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn, + The moan of doves in immemorial elms, + And murmurings of innumerable bees. + +(TENNYSON: _The Princess_, VII.) + + Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes + Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, + Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes + From out her hair: such balsam falls + Down sea-side mountain pedestals, + From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, + Spent with the vast and howling main, + To treasure half their island-gain. + +(BROWNING: _Paracelsus_, IV.) + + Good sappy bavins that kindle forthwith; + Billets that blaze substantial and slow; + Pine-stump split deftly, dry as pith; + Larch-heart that chars to a chalk-white glow; + Then up they hoist me John in a chafe, + Sling him fast like a hog to scorch, + Spit in his face, then leap back safe, + Sing 'Laudes' and bid clap-to the torch. + +(BROWNING: _The Heretic's Tragedy._) + + 'Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, + Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, + With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin. + And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, + And feels about his spine small eft-things course, + Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh:... + He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross + And recross till they weave a spider-web. + +(BROWNING: _Caliban upon Setebos._) + + Master of the murmuring courts + Where the shapes of sleep convene! + Lo! my spirit here exhorts + All the powers of thy demesne + For their aid to move my queen. + What reports + Yield thy jealous courts unseen? + + Vaporous, unaccountable, + Dreamland lies forlorn of light, + Hollow like a breathing shell. + Ah! that from all dreams I might + Choose one dream and guide its flight! + I know well + What her sleep should tell to-night. + +(ROSSETTI: _Love's Nocturn._) + + When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, + The mother of months, in meadow or plain, + Fills the shadows and windy places + With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain. + +(SWINBURNE: Chorus in _Atalanta in Calydon._) + + Till, as with clamor + Of axe and hammer, + Chained streams that stammer and struggle in straits, + Burst bonds that shiver, + And thaws deliver + The roaring river in stormy spates. + +(SWINBURNE: _Winter in Northumberland._) + + But, oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted + Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! + A savage place! as holy and enchanted + As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted + By woman wailing for her demon-lover! + And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, + As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, + A mighty fountain momently was forced: + Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst + Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, + Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail; + And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever + It flung up momently the sacred river. + Five miles meandering, with a mazy motion, + Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, + Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man, + And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean. + +(COLERIDGE: _Kubla Khan._) + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[11] "Perfect rime" is a term applied to rimes between two words +identical in form, but different in meaning. It is inadmissible in +modern English verse, although it was considered entirely proper in +Middle English times (compare Chaucer's-- + +"The holy blisful martir for to _seke_, That hem hath holpen, whan that +they were _seke_."), + +and is still common in French verse. + +Schipper gives a separate paragraph also to "unaccented rime," where the +similarity of sound belongs wholly to final, unstressed syllables. +Generally speaking, this is inadmissible in English verse. Schipper +quotes from Thomas Moore: + +"Down in yon summervale Where the rill flows, Thus said the Nightingale +To his loved Rose." + +It might be said, however, that the final syllables of "summervale" and +"nightingale" are not wholly unstressed; moreover, they are in the first +and third verses of the stanza, where rime is not indispensable. +Unaccented rime is most noticeable in some of the verse of the +transition period in the sixteenth century, when the syllable-counting +principle was so emphasized as to admit any license of accent so long as +the proper number of syllables was observed. Thus, in the verse of Wyatt +we find such rimes as "dreadeth" and "seeketh," "beginning" and +"eclipsing," etc. See p. 10, above. + +Imperfect rime, occurring where the vowel sounds are only similar, not +identical, or where the consonants following them are not identical, is +commonly regarded as an imperfection in verse form. The most common of +these imperfect rimes are in cases where the spelling would indicate +perfect rime (hence where, in many cases, the words rimed originally, +but have separated in the changes of pronunciation), such as _love_ and +_move_, _broad_ and _load_, and the like. For a defence of these "rimes +to the eye," and other imperfect rimes, with a study of their use by +English poets, see articles by Prof. A. G. Newcomer in the _Nation_ for +January 26 and February 2, 1899. + +[12] Rime also appears in a short passage in Cynewulf's _Elene_. Some +have thought it a later interpolation, but Schipper thinks it indicates +that Cynewulf was a Northumbrian. Grein believes him to have been the +author also of the Riming Poem, but, as Rieger points out, the rimes of +Cynewulf are of a much less systematic character. (On this see Wülcker's +_Grundriss zur Geschichte der Angelsächsischen Literatur_, pp. 216, +217.) + +[13] The second of these stanzas is said to have been added to Canning's +song by Willian Pitt. + +[14] See notes on the Septenary, in Part Two, p. 259. + +[15] On the subject of Tone-color in English verse, see Guest's _English +Rhythms_, chap. ii.; Lanier's _Science of English Verse_, part iii. +("Colors of English Verse"); Corson's _Primer of English Verse_ (chapter +on "Poetic Unities"); Edmund Gurney's _Tertium Quid_ (essays on "Poets, +Critics, and Class-Lists" and "The Appreciation of Poetry"); Professor +J. J. Sylvester's _Laws of Verse_ (London, 1870); G. L. Raymond's +_Poetry as a Representative Art_ and _Rhythm and Harmony in Poetry and +Music_; and Ehrenfeld's _Studien zur Theorie des Reims_. + + + + +PART TWO + + + + +I. FOUR-STRESS VERSE + + +English verse of four stresses is chiefly to be divided into two groups: +that representing the primitive Germanic tendency to emphasize the +element of accent rather than the counting of syllables, and that +produced under foreign influence, showing comparative regularity in the +number of syllables to the verse. The first group is made up of the +various descendants of the original "long line," sometimes rimed and +sometimes unrimed; the second group of forms of the familiar +octosyllabic couplet. (Of modern verse only iambic measures are included +here.) + + +A.--NON-SYLLABLE-COUNTING + +The earliest English verse, like early Germanic verse generally, is +based on the recurrence of strong accents, and is composed of a long +line made up of two short lines, or half-lines, which are bound together +by alliteration. As to the number of accents to be counted in the line, +there are two theories, the "two-accent" and the "four-accent." +According to the first, we should count two accents to the half-line, +and four to the long line; according to the second, we should count four +to the half-line and eight to the long line. The distinction is not so +marked, however, as would appear at first thought; for the two-accent +theorists recognize a considerable number of secondary accents in +addition to the principal ones, while the four-accent theorists +recognize half the accents as being commonly weaker than the other half. + + The four-accent theory is that of Lachmann, represented chiefly in + more recent scholarship by ten Brink and Kaluza. Lachmann took, as + the typical Germanic line, such a verse as this from the + _Hildebrandlied_,-- + + "Garutun se iro gušhama: gurtun sih iro suert ana;" + + but admitted that the Anglo-Saxon line was a departure from the + type in the direction of fewer accents. Ten Brink, however, found + the full number of accents in the typical Anglo-Saxon line. "It is + based upon a measure which belonged to the antiquity of all + Germanic races, namely, the line with eight emphatic syllables, + divided into equal parts by the cesura." (_English Literature_, + trans. Kennedy, vol. i. pp. 21, 22.) The principal representative + of the two-accent theory is Sievers, whose conclusions have been + pretty generally accepted by English and American scholars. He + admits that very many, perhaps most, Anglo-Saxon lines can be read + with eight accents, but shows that there is still a large + proportion (some eleven hundred in _Beowulf_) which cannot be so + read without wrenching the natural reading. On this subject, see + Westphal's _Allgemeine Metrik_, Sievers's _Altgermanische Metrik_, + Kaluza's _Der Altenglische Vers_, and the articles by Sievers, + Luick, and ten Brink in Paul's _Grundriss der Germanische + Philologie_. + +Aside from the two-part structure of the long line, the number of +accents, and the alliteration, Anglo-Saxon verse is marked by the usual +coincidence of the principal accents with long syllables. The unaccented +parts of the line vary in both the number and length of the syllables. +In general, each half-line is divided into two feet, or measures; and, +according to the structure of these feet, the ordinary half-lines of +Anglo-Saxon verse have been reduced by Sievers to five fundamental +types. + +Type A is represented by such a half-line as "stišum wordum." + +Type B inverts the rhythm of A, as in the half-line "n[=e] +wintersc[=u]r." + +Type C is characterized by the juxtaposition of the two accents, as in +the half-line "and forš gangan." + +Type D commonly has only the accented syllable in the first foot, while +the second foot is characterized by a sort of dactylic rhythm, as in the +half-lines "s[=ę]l[=i]šende" and "flet innanweard." + +Type E inverts the rhythm of D, as in the half-line "gylp-wordum +spręc."[16] + +In all the types many variations are found. The beginning of the line +may show anacrusis, and two short syllables may take the place of a long +syllable; while an indeterminate number of light syllables may often be +introduced before or after the principal accents. + + Hafaš [=u]s [=a]l[=y]fed _lucis auctor_, + žęt w[=e] m[=o]tun h[=e]r _merueri_ + g[=o]dd[=ę]dum begietan _gaudia in celo_, + ž[=ę]r w[=e] m[=o]tun _maxima regna_ + s[=e]can and gesittan _sedibus altis_, + lifgan in lisse _lucis et pacis_, + [=a]gan eardinga _almę letitę_, + br[=u]can bl[=ę]ddaga _blandem et mitem_ + ges[=e]on sigora Fr[=e]an _sine fine_, + and him lof singan _laude perenne_ + [=e]adge mid englum _Alleluia_. + +(From the Anglo-Saxon _Ph[oe]nix_. ab. 700 A.D.) + +These closing lines of the poem furnish an important opportunity to +compare the Latin half-lines with those in Anglo-Saxon. Each half seems +to be influenced by the metrical nature of the other; the Anglo-Saxon +being a little more regular in the number of syllables than usual, the +Latin less regular. Since, to the ear of the writer, the two halves of +each verse were doubtless fairly equivalent, metrically, and since each +of the Latin half-lines appears to have two accents, these combination +verses have been thought to be an argument for the "two-accent" theory +of Anglo-Saxon verse. On the other hand, the advocates of the +four-accent theory would read the Latin half-lines with four stresses +each, on the ground that nearly every syllable was stressed in the +chanting of such religious verse (_lś-cķs aśc-tór_, etc.). + +See also the specimens on pp. 13 and 14, above. + + Alle beon he bliže Žat to my song lyže: + A song ihc schal [gh]ou singe Of Mury že kinge. + King he was bi weste So longe so hit laste. + Godhild het his quen, Fairer ne mi[gh]te non ben. + He hadde a sone žat het Horn, Fairer ne mi[gh]te non beo born, + Ne no rein upon birine, Ne sunne upon bischine. + +(_King Horn_, ll. 1-12. ab. 1200-1250.) + +The metre of _King Horn_ is very irregular, and has proved somewhat +puzzling to scholars. It seems to be the direct result of the primitive +"long line" broken into two halves by internal rime. The number of +accents varies greatly: we may have verses which are easily read with +two, such as-- + + "Into schupes borde + At the furst worde." + +Yet these it is evident might also be read with three accents, as in the +following couplet also: + + "The se bigan to flowe, + And Horn child to rowe." + +According as one reads the Anglo-Saxon verse with two or four accents to +the half-line, he will regard the typical half-line of _King Horn_ as +made up of two or four accents. If the fundamental number was two, the +additional accented syllables were doubtless introduced under the +influence of the French eight-syllable couplet. It is not difficult to +see how the more regular (Latin or French) and the less regular (native) +measures might have been confused, and soon have coalesced in popular +use. Ten Brink, reading the _King Horn_ lines with four accents, speaks +of them as "formed entirely on the Teutonic principle, with two accents +upon the sonorous close of the verse, so that it appears to be an +organic continuation of the chief form in Layamon and in Ęlfred's +_Proverbs_. This circumstance makes the poem exceptional among the early +English romances." He also speaks of "an unmistakably strophic +construction in the text as we have it." (_English Literature_, Kennedy +translation, vol. i. p. 227.) + + Anon out of že north est že noys bigynes: + When bože brežes con blowe upon blo watteres, + Ro[gh] rakkes per ros with rudnyng anunder, + Že see sou[gh]ed ful sore, gret selly to here, + Že wyndes on že wonne water so wrastel togeder, + Žat že wawes ful wode waltered so hi[gh]e + And efte busched to že abyme, žat breed fysches, + Durst nowhere for ro[gh] arest at že bothem. + When že breth and že brok and že bote metten, + Hit watz a ioyles gyn, žat Ionas watz inne; + For hit reled on roun upon že ro[gh]e yžes. + +(_Patience_, ll. 137-147. ab. 1375.) + + Til že kny[gh]t com hym-self, kachande his blonk, + Sy[gh] hym byde at že bay, his burne[gh] bysyde, + He ly[gh]tes luflych adoun, leve[gh] his corsour, + Brayde[gh] out a bry[gh]t bront, & bigly forth stryde[gh], + Founde[gh] fast žur[gh] the forž, žer že felle byde, + Že wylde wat[gh] war of že wy[gh]e with weppen in honde. + Hef hy[gh]ly že here, so hetterly he fnast, + Žat fele ferde for že freke[gh], lest felle hym že worre + Že swyn sette[gh] hym out on že segge even, + Žat že burne & že bor were bože upon hepe[gh], + In že wy[gh]t-est of že water, že worre had žat ožer; + For že mon merkke[gh] hym wel, as žay mette fyrst, + Set sadly že scharp in že slot even, + Hit hym up to že hult, žat že hert schyndered, + & he [gh]arrande hym [gh]elde, & [gh]edoun že water, ful tyt; + A hundreth hounde[gh] hym hent, + Žat bremely con hym bite, + Burne[gh] him bro[gh]t to bent, + & dogge[gh] to dethe endite. + +(_Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight_, strophe xviii. ab. 1375.) + +These two specimens, both doubtless the work of the same author (to whom +are also attributed the _Pearl_ and _Cleanness_), represent the +patriotic revival of the alliterative long line by contemporaries of +Chaucer in the latter half of the fourteenth century. In _Sir Gawayne_ +the rimeless long line is gathered into strophes, each of which +concludes with four riming lines. (See above, p. 109.) + + For analysis of this revived alliterative verse, see a valuable + article by Dr. Luick, _Die Englische Stabreimzeile im 14n, 15n, und + 16n Jahrhundert_, in _Anglia_, vol. xi. pp. 392 and 553. Luick + analyzes not only the poems of the "Pearl poet," but also the _Troy + Book_, the _Alexander Fragments_, _William of Palerne_, _Joseph of + Arimathea_, _Morte Arthure_, and minor poems. He finds the _Troy + Book_ the most regular alliterative poem of Middle English, but in + all of the group a general tendency to preserve not only the early + laws of alliteration but also the "five types" of Sievers's + Anglo-Saxon metrics. Dr. Luick attributes the final decline of the + old measure in large degree to the falling away of the final + syllables in _-e_, etc.; without these numerous feminine endings + the primitive "long line" was impossible. This he regards as + regrettable, since the old alliterative verse, "growing up on + native soil with the language itself," represented the natural + accent-relations of the Germanic languages, especially the + recognition of two principal degrees of accent; whereas the modern + rimed verse requires the reduction of this to a uniform "tick-tack" + of alternating stress and non-stress. + + He put on his back a good plate-jack, + And on his head a cap of steel, + With sword and buckler by his side; + O gin he did not become them weel! + +(_Ballad of Bewick and Grahame_. In GUMMERE'S _English Ballads_, p. +176.) + +The regular stanza of the old ballads was of this four-stress type, with +extra light syllables admitted anywhere yet not in great numbers. More +commonly, however, the fourth stress was lost from the second and fourth +lines. (See p. 264, below.) + + I thanke hym full thraly, and sir, I saie hym the same, + But what marvelous materes dyd this myron ther mell? + For all the lordis langage his lipps, sir, wer lame, + For any spirringes in that space no speche walde he spell. + +(_York Mystery Plays: The Trial before Pilate_. Ed. L. T. SMITH, p. +322.) + + As Gammer Gurton, with manye a wyde styche, + Sat pesynge and patching of Hodg her mans briche, + By chance or misfortune, as shee her geare tost, + In Hodge lether bryches her needle shee lost. + +(_Gammer Gurton's Needle_, Prologue. 1566.) + +In these specimens we have the later descendant of the long line as used +in the early drama of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,--the +"tumbling verse," regular in rhythm and rime, but indifferent to the +number of syllables.[17] Sometimes, where most regular, as in lines 2-4 +of the second specimen, the measure approximates closely to regular +four-stress anapestic. + + The time was once, and may againe retorne, + (For ought may happen that hath bene beforne), + When shepheards had none inheritaunce, + Ne of land, nor fee in sufferaunce, + But what might arise of the bare sheepe, + (Were it more or lesse) which they did keepe. + Well ywis was it with shepheards thoe: + Nought having, nought feared they to forgoe; + For Pan himselfe was their inheritaunce, + And little them served for their mayntenaunce. + The shepheards God so wel them guided, + That of nought they were unprovided; + Butter enough, honye, milke, and whay, + And their flockes' fleeces them to araye. + +(SPENSER: _The Shepherd's Calendar, May._ 1579.) + +Spenser's use of the tumbling verse in the _Shepherd's Calendar_ was a +part of his imitation of older forms for the sake of an uncultivated, +bucolic effect. In his hands the irregular measure showed a tendency to +reduce itself to regular ten-syllable lines, like the first two of the +present specimen, which, by themselves, might easily be read as +decasyllabic iambics. On this, see further under Five-Stress Verse. +Spenser was perhaps the last cultivated poet to use the irregular +measure, until we come to modern imitators of the early popular poetry. +The following specimen is of this class. + + It was up in the morn we rose betimes + From the hall-floor hard by the row of limes. + It was but John the Red and I, + And we were the brethren of Gregory; + And Gregory the Wright was one + Of the valiant men beneath the sun, + And what he bade us that we did, + For ne'er he kept his counsel hid. + So out we went, and the clattering latch + Woke up the swallows under the thatch. + It was dark in the porch, but our scythes we felt, + And thrust the whetstone under the belt. + Through the cold garden boughs we went + Where the tumbling roses shed their scent. + Then out a-gates and away we strode + O'er the dewy straws on the dusty road, + And there was the mead by the town-reeve's close + Where the hedge was sweet with the wilding rose. + +(WILLIAM MORRIS: _The Folk-Mote by the River._ In _Poems by the Way_. +1896.) + + +B.--SYLLABLE-COUNTING (OCTOSYLLABIC COUPLET) + +The more regular four-stress verse, in rimed couplets showing a tendency +to be octosyllabic, we have seen to be generally attributed to the +influence of the French octosyllabics, which were in common use in late +medięval French poetry, such as that of Wace and Chrestien de Troyes. + + According to Stengel (in Gröber's _Grundriss der Romanischen + Philologie_), this octosyllabic French verse goes back to a lost + vulgar Latin verse; this view is opposed by Dr. C. M. Lewis, in his + _Foreign Sources of Modern English Versification_ (Yale Studies in + English, 1898), who finds its origin in the tetrameter of the Latin + hymns. Dr. Lewis also attributes to this Latin verse more direct + influence on English verse than is commonly assumed. Thus he finds + in it, rather than in the French octosyllabics, the model of the + verse of the _Pater Noster_, quoted below. The argument is briefly + this: the Latin verse was both accentual and syllabic; the French + verse was syllabic but not accentual; that of the _Pater Noster_ is + accentual but not syllabic; hence it is more nearly like the Latin + than the French. A stanza of the Latin tetrameter, cited by Dr. + Lewis from the hymn _Aurora lucis rutilat_, is as follows: + + "Tristes erat apostoli + de nece sui Domini, + quem p[oe]na mortis crudeli + servi damnarunt impii." + + Compare these lines from the _Brut_ of Wace: + + "Adunt apela Cordeille + qui esteit sa plus joes ne fille; + pur ce que il l'aveit plus chiere + que Ragaü ne la premiere + quida que el e cuneüst + que plus chier des al tres l'eüst. + Cordeil le out bien escuté + et bien out en sun cuer noté + cument ses deus sorurs parloėnt, + cument lur pere losengoėnt." + + The last four verses of this passage are cited by Schipper as + illustrating the regular iambic character of the French + octosyllabics; but Dr. Lewis regards the measure as purely + syllabic, with no regard for alternation of accents, and instances + the earlier lines of the passage as being quite as nearly anapestic + as iambic. (See Schipper, vol. i. p. 107, and Lewis's monograph, as + cited above, pp. 73 ff. See also Crow: _Zur Geschichte des Kurzen + Reimpaares in Mittel Englisch._) Dr. Lewis's conclusion is: "We may + therefore sum up the whole history of our octosyllabic verse in + this way: we borrowed its number of accents from the Latin, but + owing to the vitality of our own native traditions we at first + borrowed nothing further; the syllabic character of the verse (so + far as it has been imported at all), came in only gradually, + against stubborn resistance; and it came not directly from the + Latin, but indirectly, through the French" (pp. 97, 98). Some of + these statements are open to question; but however we may interpret + the French verse of Wace and his contemporaries, it is obvious that + in English the influence of the Latin and the French poetry would + very naturally be fused, with no necessarily clear conception of + definite verse-structure. Whether under French or Latin influence, + however, the new tendency was for the more accurate counting of + syllables. We may see some suggestion of this in the verses of St. + Godric, quoted on p. 126, above, although they are not regularly + iambic. The poem on the "Eleven Pains of Hell" (in the _Old English + Miscellany_) shows the French influence clearly marked by the + language of its opening verses: + + "Ici comencent les unze peynes + De enfern, les queus seynt pool v[ist]." + + Ure feder žet in heovene is, + Žet is al sož ful iwis! + Weo moten to theor weordes iseon, + Žet to live and to saule gode beon, + Žet weo beon swa his sunes iborene, + Žet he beo feder and we him icorene, + Žet we don alle his ibeden + And his wille for to reden. + +(_The Pater Noster_, ab. 1175. In Morris's _Old English Homilies_, p. +55.) + +This poem is sometimes said to show the first appearance of the +octosyllabic couplet in English. It suggests the struggle between native +indifference to syllable-counting and imitation of the greater +regularity of its models. As Dr. Morris says of the next specimen: "The +essence of the system of versification which the poet has adopted is, +briefly, that every line shall have four accented syllables in it, the +unaccented syllables being left in some measure, as it were, to take +care of themselves." But this does not altogether do justice to the new +regularity. Schipper says that of the first 100 lines of the poem 20 are +perfectly regular. (See his notes in vol. i. p. 109.) In the following +specimens we may trace the gradual growth of skill and accuracy. + + šo herde Abraham stevene fro gode, + newe tiding and selkuš bode: + 'tac šin sune Ysaac in hond + and far wiš him to sišhinges lond. + and šor ša salt him offren me, + on an hil, šor ic sal taunen še. + +(_Genesis and Exodus_, ll. 1285-1290. ab. 1250-1300.) + + "Abid! abid!" the ule seide. + "Thu gest al to mid swikelede; + All thine wordes thu bi-leist, + That hit thincth soth al that thu seist; + Alle thine wordes both i-sliked, + An so bi-semed and bi-liked, + That alle tho that hi avoth, + Hi weneth that thu segge soth." + +(_The Owl and the Nightingale_, ll. 835-842. Thirteenth century.) + + Quhen žis wes said, žai went žare way, + and till že toun soyn cumin ar thai + sa prevely bot noys making, + žat nane persavit žair cummyng. + žai scalit throu že toune in hy + and brak up dures sturdely + and slew all, žat žai mycht ourtak; + and žai, žat na defens mycht mak, + fall pitwisly couth rair and cry, + and žai slew žame dispitwisly. + +(BARBOUR: _Bruce_, v. 89-98. ab. 1375.) + + [Gh]yf žou ever žurghe folye + Dydyst ou[gh]t do nygromauncye. + Or to the devyl dedyst sacryfyse + žurghe wychcraftys asyse, + Or any man [gh]af že mede + For to reyse že devyl yn dede, + For to telle, or for to wrey, + žynge žat was don awey; + [gh]yf žou have do any of žys, + žou hast synnede and do a mys, + And žou art wuržy to be shent + žurghe žys yche commaundement.[18] + +(ROBERT MANNING of Brunne: _Handlyng Synne_, ll. 339-350. ab. 1300.) + + Herknet to me, gode men, + Wives, maydnes, and alle men, + Of a tale žat ich you wile telle, + Wo so it wile here, and žer-to duelle. + Že tale is of Havelok i-maked; + Wil he was litel he yede ful naked: + Havelok was a ful god gome, + He was ful god in everi trome, + He was že wicteste man at nede, + Žat žurte riden on ani stede. + Žat ye mowen nou y-here, + And že tale ye mowen y-lere. + At the beginning of ure tale, + Fil me a cuppe of ful god ale; + And y wile drinken her y spelle, + Žat Crist us shilde alle fro helle! + +(_Lay of Havelok the Dane._ ll. 1-16. ab. 1300.) + +For lays and romances, both French and English, the four-stress couplet +was an easy and favorite form. Compare the remarks of ten Brink: "We see +how the short couplet, which is the standing form of the court-romance, +was not only transmitted to it from the legendary, didactic, and +historical poems, but was also suggested to it by those songs to which +it was indebted for its own subject-matter. Other tokens indicate that a +short strophe composed of eight-syllabled lines, with single or +alternating rhymes, was a favorite form for many subjects in this +_jongleur_ poetry.... The simple form of the short couplet offered to +the romance-poet no scope to compete in metrical technique with the +skilled court-lyrists. He could prove his art only within a limited +portion of this field: in the treatment of the _enjambement_ and +particularly of rhyme. The poet strove not only to form pure rhymes, but +often to carry them forward with more syllables than were essential, and +he was fond of all sorts of grammatical devices in rhyme." (_English +Literature_, Kennedy trans., vol. i. pp. 174, 175.) + + The world stant ever upon debate, + So may be siker none estate; + Now here, now there, now to, now fro, + Now up, now down, the world goth so, + And ever hath done and ever shal; + Wherof I finde in special + A tale writen in the bible, + Which must nedes be credible, + And that as in conclusion + Saith, that upon division + Stant, why no worldes thing may laste, + Til it be drive to the laste, + And fro the firste regne of all + Unto this day how so befall + Of that the regnes be mevable, + The man him self hath be coupable, + Whiche of his propre governaunce + Fortuneth al the worldes chaunce. + +(JOHN GOWER: Prologue to _Confessio Amantis_. Ed. PAULI, vol. i. pp. 22, +23. ab. 1390.) + + O god of science and of light, + Apollo, through thy grete might, + This litel laste bok thou gye! + Nat that I wilne, for maistrye, + Here art poetical be shewed; + But, for the rym is light and lewed, + Yit make hit sumwhat agreable, + Though som vers faile in a sillable; + And that I do no diligence + To shewe craft, but o sentence. + And if, divyne vertu, thou + Wilt helpe me to shewe now + That in myn hede y-marked is-- + Lo, that is for to menen this, + The Hous of Fame to descryve-- + Thou shalt see me go, as blyve, + Unto the nexte laure I see, + And kisse hit, for hit is thy tree. + +(CHAUCER: _House of Fame_, ll. 1091-1108. ab. 1385.) + +It was Gower and Chaucer, in the fourteenth century, who brought the use +of the eight-syllable couplet to the point of accuracy and perfection. +Gower made it the vehicle of the interminable narrative of the +_Confessio Amantis_, using it with regularity but with great monotony. +Chaucer transformed it into a much more flexible form (with freedom of +cesura, _enjambement_, and inversions), using it in about 3500 lines of +his poetry (excluding the translation of the _Roman de la Rose_), but +early leaving it for the decasyllabic verse. In modern English poetry +this short couplet has rarely been used for continuous narrative of a +serious character, except by Byron and Wordsworth. + + But let my due feet never fail + To walk the studious cloister's pale, + And love the high embowed roof, + With antique pillars massy proof, + And storied windows richly dight, + Casting a dim religious light. + There let the pealing organ blow, + To the full-voiced choir below, + In service high, and anthems clear, + As may with sweetness, through mine ear, + Dissolve me into ecstasies, + And bring all heaven before my eyes. + +(MILTON: _Il Penseroso_, ll. 155-166. 1634.) + + A sect whose chief devotion lies + In odd, perverse antipathies, + In falling out with that or this + And finding something still amiss; + More peevish, cross, and splenetic + Than dog distract or monkey sick: + That with more care keep holyday + The wrong, than others the right way; + Compound for sins they are inclined to + By damning those they have no mind to.... + Rather than fail they will defy + That which they love most tenderly; + Quarrel with mince-pies, and disparage + Their best and dearest friend plum-porridge, + Fat pig and goose itself oppose, + And blaspheme custard through the nose. + +(SAMUEL BUTLER: _Hudibras_, Part I. 1663.) + +Butler made the octosyllabic couplet so entirely his own, for the +purposes of his jogging satiric verse, that ever since it has frequently +been called "Hudibrastic." The ingenuity of his rimes added not a little +to its effectiveness. In the _Spectator_ (No. 249) Addison said that +burlesque poetry runs best "in doggrel like that of _Hudibras_, ... when +a hero is to be pulled down and degraded;" otherwise in the heroic +measure. He speaks also of "the generality" of Butler's readers as being +"wonderfully pleased with the double rhymes." + + How deep yon azure dyes the sky, + Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lie, + While through their ranks in silver pride + The nether crescent seems to glide! + The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe, + The lake is smooth and clear beneath, + Where once again the spangled show + Descends to meet our eyes below. + The grounds which on the right aspire, + In dimness from the view retire: + The left presents a place of graves, + Whose wall the silent water laves. + That steeple guides thy doubtful sight + Among the livid gleams of night. + There pass, with melancholy state, + By all the solemn heaps of fate, + And think, as softly-sad you tread + Above the venerable dead, + 'Time was, like thee they life possest, + And time shalt be, that thou shalt rest.' + +(THOMAS PARNELL: _A Night-Piece on Death_, ab. 1715.) + +Mr. Gosse speaks of Parnell's employment of the octosyllabic couplet in +this poem as "wonderfully subtle and harmonious." (_Eighteenth Century +Literature_, p. 137.) + + A Hare who, in a civil way, + Complied with everything, like Gay, + Was known by all the bestial train + Who haunt the wood, or graze the plain. + Her care was never to offend, + And every creature was her friend. + As forth she went at early dawn, + To taste the dew-besprinkled lawn, + Behind she hears the hunter's cries, + And from the deep-mouthed thunder flies: + She starts, she stops, she pants for breath; + She hears the near advance of death; + She doubles, to mislead the hound, + And measures back her mazy round: + Till, fainting in the public way, + Half dead with fear she gasping lay. + +(JOHN GAY: _The Hare and Many Friends_, in _Fables_. 1727.) + +Gay's use of the short couplet in his _Fables_ sometimes shows it at its +best for narrative purposes. + + My female friends, whose tender hearts + Have better learned to act their parts, + Receive the news in doleful dumps: + 'The Dean is dead: (Pray what is trumps?) + Then, Lord have mercy on his soul! + (Ladies, I'll venture for the vole.) + Six Deans, they say, must bear the pall: + (I wish I knew what king to call). + Madam, your husband will attend + The funeral of so good a friend? + No, madam, 'tis a shocking sight: + And he's engaged to-morrow night: + My Lady Club will take it ill, + If he should fail her at quadrille. + He loved the Dean--(I lead a heart) + But dearest friends, they say, must part. + His time was come: he ran his race; + We hope he's in a better place.' + +(SWIFT: _On the Death of Dr. Swift._ 1731.) + +Swift made use of the octosyllabic couplet in nearly all his verse, and +with no little vigor and originality. Mr. Gosse remarks: "His lines fall +like well-directed blows of the flail, and he gives the octosyllabic +measure, which he is accustomed to choose on account of the Hudibrastic +opportunities it offers, a character which is entirely his own." +(_Eighteenth Century Literature_, p. 153.) + + Ye forms divine, ye laureat band, + That near her inmost altar stand! + Now soothe her to her blissful train + Blithe concord's social form to gain; + Concord, whose myrtle wand can steep + Even anger's bloodshot eyes in sleep; + Before whose breathing bosom's balm + Rage drops his steel, and storms grow calm; + Her let our sires and matrons hoar + Welcome to Britain's ravaged shore; + Our youths, enamored of the fair, + Play with the tangles of her hair, + Till, in one loud applauding sound, + The nations shout to her around,-- + O how supremely thou art blest, + Thou, lady, thou shalt rule the West! + +(COLLINS: _Ode to Liberty._ 1746.) + + When chapman billies leave the street, + And drouthy neibors, neibors meet; + As market days are wearing late, + And folk begin to tak the gate, + While we sit bousing at the nappy, + An' getting fou and unco happy, + We think na on the lang Scots miles, + The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles, + That lie between us and our hame, + Where sits our sulky, sullen dame, + Gathering her brows like gathering storm, + Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. + +(BURNS: _Tam O'Shanter_, ll. 1-12. 1790.) + + They chain'd us each to a column stone, + And we were three--yet, each alone; + We could not move a single pace, + We could not see each other's face, + But with that pale and livid light + That made us strangers in our sight: + And thus together--yet apart, + Fetter'd in hand, but joined in heart, + 'Twas still some solace, in the dearth + Of the pure elements of earth, + To hearken to each other's speech, + And each turn comforter to each, + With some new hope, or legend old, + Or song heroically bold. + +(BYRON: _The Prisoner of Chillon_, iii. 1816.) + + A mortal song we sing, by dower + Encouraged of celestial power; + Power which the viewless Spirit shed + By whom we first were visited; + Whose voice we heard, whose hand and wings + Swept like a breeze the conscious strings, + When, left in solitude, erewhile + We stood before this ruined Pile, + And, quitting unsubstantial dreams, + Sang in this Presence kindred themes. + +(WORDSWORTH: _White Doe of Rylstone_, canto vii. ll. 282-291. 1815.) + + Ill fared it then with Roderick Dhu, + That on the field his targe he threw, + Whose brazen studs and tough bull-hide + Had death so often dash'd aside; + For, train'd abroad his arms to wield, + Fitz-James's blade was sword and shield.... + Three times in closing strife they stood, + And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood; + No stinted draught, no scanty tide, + The gushing flood the tartans dyed. + Fierce Roderick felt the fatal drain, + And shower'd his blows like wintry rain; + And, as firm rock, or castle-roof, + Against the winter shower is proof, + The foe, invulnerable still, + Foil'd his wild rage by steady skill; + Till, at advantage ta'en, his brand + Forced Roderick's weapon from his hand, + And backward borne upon the lea, + Brought the proud Chieftain to his knee. + +(SCOTT: _The Lady of the Lake_, canto v. st. xv. 1810.) + + How this their joy fulfilled might move + The world around I know not well; + But yet this idle dream doth tell + That no more silent was the place, + That new joy lit up every face, + That joyous lovers kissed and clung, + E'en as these twain, that songs were sung + From mouth to mouth in rose-bowers, + Where hand in hand and crowned with flowers, + Folk praised the Lover and Beloved + That such long years, such pain had proved; + But soft, they say, their joyance was + When midst them soon the twain did pass, + Hand locked in hand, heart kissing heart, + No more this side of death to part-- + No more, no more--full soft I say + Their greetings were that happy day, + As though in pensive semblance clad; + For fear their faces over-glad + This certain thing should seem to hide, + That love can ne'er be satisfied. + +(WILLIAM MORRIS: _The Earthly Paradise_; _The Land East of the Sun_. +1870.) + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[16] For Sievers's analysis of Anglo-Saxon verse into these types, see +his articles in Paul and Braune's _Beiträge_, vols. x. and xii.; and the +brief statement in the Appendix to Bright's _Anglo-Saxon Reader_, from +which the examples just quoted are taken. + +[17] The term "tumbling verse," used for obvious reasons, appears at +least as early as 1585, when King James, in his _Reulis and Cautelis_ +for Scotch Poetry, said: "For flyting, or Invectives, use this kynde of +verse following, callit Rouncefallis, or Tumbling verse: + +'In the hinder end of harvest upon Alhallow ene, Quhen our gude +nichtbors rydis (nou gif I reid richt) Some bucklit on a benwod, and +some on a bene, Ay trott and into troupes fra the twylicht.'" + +And again: "Ye man observe that thir Tumbling verse flowis not on that +fassoun, as utheris dois. For all utheris keipis the reule quhilk I gave +before, To wit, the first fute short the secound lang, and sa furth. +Quhair as thir hes twa short, and ane lang throuch all the lyne, quhen +they keip ordour: albeit the maist part of thame be out of ordour, and +keipis na kynde nor reule of Flowing, and for that cause are callit +Tumbling verse." + +(Arber Reprint, pp. 68, 63, 64.) + +See further on the persistent use of this rough measure in English, side +by side with the more regular syllable-counting verse, Schipper's +observations and examples in the _Grundriss der Englische Metrik_, pp. +109 ff. As a modern example Schipper cites one of Thackeray's ballads: + +"This Mary was pore and in misery once, And she came to Mrs. Roney it's +more than twelve monce. She adn't got no bed, nor no dinner nor no tea, +And kind Mrs. Roney gave Mary all three." + + + +[18] This poem of Robert Manning's was a translation of a Norman French +work, Waddington's _Manuel des Pechiez_. The following is the original +of the passage here reproduced: + +"Si vus unques par folye Entremeissez de nigremancie, Ou feites al +deable sacrifise, Ou enchantement par fol aprise; Ou, a gent de tiel +mester Ren donastes pur lur jugler, Ou pur demander la verite De chose +qe vous fut a dire,-- Fet avez apertement Encuntre ceo commandement; Ceo +est grant mescreaunceie, Duter de ceo, ne devez mie." + +(Furnivall ed. of Manning, p. 12. ll. 1078-1089.) + + + + +II. FIVE-STRESS VERSE + + +The five-stress or decasyllabic verse (iambic pentameter) is so much +more widely used in modern English poetry than any other verse-form, +that its history is of special interest. It is curious that a form so +completely adopted as the favorite of English verse should be borrowed +rather than native; but, the syllable-counting principle once being +admitted, there is nothing in five-stress verse inconsistent with native +English tendencies. A very great part of such verse has really only four +full accents, and this we have seen to be the number of accents in the +native English verse. On this point, see further remarks in connection +with the specimen from Spenser, p. 180 below. + +This verse appears in two great divisions, rimed (the decasyllabic +couplet) and unrimed (blank verse). The rimed form was the earlier, the +unrimed being merely a modification of it under the influence of other +unrimed metres. + + +A.--THE DECASYLLABIC COUPLET + + Lutel wot hit anymon, + hou love hym havež ybounde, + Žat for us ože rode ron, + ant boht us wiž is wounde. + Že love of hym us havež ymaked sounde, + ant ycast že grimly gost to grounde. + Ever & oo, nyht & day, he havež us in is žohte, + He nul nout leose žat he so deore bohte. + + + * * * * * + + His deope wounde bledež fast, + of hem we ohte munne! + He haž ous out of helle ycast, + ybroht us out of sunne; + ffor love of us his wonges waxež žunne, + His herte blod he [gh]af for al mon kunne. + Ever & oo, etc. + +(Song from Harleian MS. 2253. In BÖDDEKER'S _Altenglische Dichtungen_, +p. 231.) + +This early religious lyric is of interest as containing the first known +use of the five-stress couplet in English. Here it is only in a few +lines that the couplet occurs, and so sporadic an occurrence should +perhaps be regarded as due to nothing more than chance. See Schipper, +vol. i. p. 439, and ten Brink's _Chaucer's Sprache und Verskunst_, p. +173 f. Ten Brink calls attention to another fairly regular five-stress +verse, found on p. 253 of Wright's _Political Songs_: + + "For miht is riht, the loud is laweless."[19] + + And, as for me, though that my wit be lyte, + On bokes for to rede I me delyte, + And in myn herte have hem in reverence; + And to hem yeve swich lust and swich credence, + That ther is wel unethe game noon + That from my bokes make me too goon, + But hit be other up-on the haly-day, + Or elles in the joly tyme of May; + Whan that I here the smale foules singe, + And that the floures ginne for to springe, + Farwel my studie, as lasting that sesoun! + Now have I therto this condicioun + That, of alle the floures in the mede, + Than love I most these floures whyte and rede, + Swiche as men callen daysies in our toun. + To them have I so greet affeccioun. + +(CHAUCER: _Legend of Good Women_, Prologue, ll. 29-44. Text A. ab. +1385.) + + A good man was ther of religioun, + And was a povre Persoun of a toun; + But riche he was of holy thoght and werk. + He was also a lerned man, a clerk, + That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche; + His parisshens devoutly wolde he teche. + Benigne he was, and wonder diligent, + And in adversitee ful pacient;... + He wayted after no pompe and reverence, + Ne maked him a spyced conscience, + But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, + He taughte, and first he folwed it himselve. + +(CHAUCER: Prologue to _Canterbury Tales_, ll. 477-484, 525-528. ab. +1385.) + +With Chaucer we have the first deliberate use of the five-stress +couplet, in continuous verse, known to English poetry. His earliest use +of the pentameter line was in the _Compleynt to Pitee_ (perhaps written +about 1371), in the "rime royal" stanza; his earliest use of the +pentameter couplet was in the _Legend of Good Women_, usually dated +1385. From that time the measure became almost his only instrument, and +we find altogether in his poetry some 16,000 lines in the couplet, +besides some 14,000 more in rime royal. Too much praise cannot be given +Chaucer's use of the couplet. Although it was an experiment in English +verse, it has perhaps hardly been used since his time with greater +skill. He used a variety of cesuras (see ten Brink's monograph for the +enumeration of them), a very large number of feminine endings (such as +the still pronounced final-_e_ and similar syllables easily provided), +free inversions in the first foot and elsewhere, and many run-on lines +(in a typical 100 lines some 16 run-on lines and 7 run-on couplets +appearing). The total effect is one of combined freedom and mastery, of +fluent conversational style yet within the limits of guarded artistic +form. "Much more regularly than the French and Provenēals, and yet +without pedantic stiffness, he made his verse advance with a sort of +iambic gait, and he was therefore able to give up and exchange for a +freer arrangement the immovable cesura, which these poets had always +made to coincide with a foot-ending." (Ten Brink, in _English +Literature_, Kennedy trans., vol. ii. p. 48.) On Chaucer's verse, see, +besides the monograph of ten Brink already cited, Lounsbury's _Studies +in Chaucer_, vol. iii. pp. 297 ff., and Schipper, vol. i. pp. 442 ff. + + The common assumption is, that Chaucer borrowed the pentameter + couplet directly from French poetry. On the history of this in + France, see Stengel, in Gröber's _Grundriss der Romanischen + Philologie_.[20] The decasyllabic verse was fairly common in France + in the fourteenth century (being called "_vers commun_" according to + Stengel); but in the form of the couplet it was not. Professor + Skeat says: "To say that it [Chaucer's couplet] was derived from the + French ten-syllable verse is not a complete solution of the mystery; + for nearly all such verse is commonly either in stanzas, or else a + great number of successive lines are rimed together; and these, I + believe, are rather scarce. After some search I have, however, + fortunately lighted upon a very interesting specimen, among the + poems of Guillaume de Machault, a French writer whom Chaucer is + known to have imitated, and who died in 1377. In the edition of + Machault's poems edited by Tarbé, Reims and Paris, 1849, p. 89, + there is a poem of exactly this character, of no great length, but + fortunately dated; for its title is 'Complainte écrite aprčs la + bataille de Poitiers et avant le sičge de Reims par les Anglais' + (1356-1358). The first four lines run thus: + + "'A toy, Henry, dous amis, me complain, + Pour ce que ne cueur ne mont ne plein; + Car a piet suy, sans cheval et sans selle, + Et si n'ay mais esmeraude, ne belle.' + + ... Now as Chaucer was taken prisoner in France in 1359, he had an + excellent opportunity for making himself acquainted with this poem, + and with others, possibly, in a similar metre, which have not come + down to us." (_The Prioress's Tale_, Introduction, pp. xix, xx.) + Paris has shown that the real date of the poem in question was + 1340; the title quoted by Skeat is Tarbé's modern French caption. + Professor Kittredge has called my attention to the fact that there + is another poem of Machault's in the same metre (P. Paris's edition + of _Voir-Dit_, p. 56), and also a poem by Froissart, the "Orloge + Amoureus." + + Ten Brink calls attention to the possibility of the influence upon + Chaucer's couplet of the Italian hendecasyllabic verse. The + _Compleynte to Pitee_, it is true, was written probably before the + Italian journey of 1372-1373; but in Italy the "full significance" + of the metre may have become clear to Chaucer. "After that journey + the heroic verse appears almost exclusively as his poetic + instrument.... Of still greater significance is the fact that + Chaucer's heroic verse differs from the French decasyllabic in all + the particulars in which the Italian hendecasyllabic departs from + the common source, and approaches the verse of Dante and Boccaccio + as closely as the metre of a Germanic language can approach a + Romance metre. It may be added also that the heroic verse in the + _Compleynte to Pitee_ stands nearer the French decasyllabic than + that of the _Troilus_ or the _Canterbury Tales_." + + Dr. Lewis, on the other hand, in _The Foreign Sources of English + Versification_, would minimize the foreign sources of Chaucer's + couplet. Not only the unaccentual character of the French verse is + opposed to the theory of the French source, but also, he believes, + the fixed cesura. "In the English verse there is no such thing: + indeed there is no cesura at all, in the French sense of the + word.... Schipper relegates to a foot-note the suggestion that our + heroic verse may have originated in a different way, either through + an abridgment of the alexandrine or through an extension of the + four-foot line. This is of course more nearly the true view, but it + is entirely immaterial which of the last two explanations we hit + upon. Accentual verses of four, six, and seven feet were already + familiar long before Chaucer's time. They exhibited a more or less + regular alternation of arsis and thesis. To devise a verse which + should be essentially the same in principle, but should have five + accents instead of four, six, or seven, was a task that Chaucer's + genius might well achieve unaided" (pp. 98, 99). + + It is quite possible that a combination of all these views may be + nearest the truth. The objection to the French influence on the + ground of the syllabic (non-accentual) quality of the French verse + does not seem to be serious, since any imitation of French verse by + an Englishman would be likely to take on the accentual form; and, + that once done, the need for the fixed cesura would vanish. But it + is worth while to emphasize the fact that the genius of English + verse was not so averse to the formation of a decasyllabic + five-stress line as to make it a serious innovation. This view is + further emphasized by the next specimen. + + Is not thilke the mery moneth of May, + When love-lads masken in fresh aray? + How falles it, then, we no merrier bene, + Ylike as others, girt in gawdy greene? + Our bloncket liveryes bene all to sadde + For thilke same season, when all is ycladd + With pleasaunce: the grownd with grasse, the Woods + With greene leaves, the bushes with bloosming buds. + ... Tho to the greene Wood they speeden hem all, + To fetchen home May with their musicall: + And home they bringen in a royall throne, + Crowned as king: and his Queene attone + Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend + A fayre flocke of Faeries, and a fresh bend + Of lovely Nymphs. (O that I were there, + To helpen the Ladyes their Maybush beare!) + Ah! Piers, bene not thy teeth on edge, to thinke + +(SPENSER: _The Shepherd's Calendar, May_. 1579.) + +This specimen is properly not in five-stress verse, but in irregular +four-stress ("tumbling verse"); compare the specimen on p. 158, above. +We have a close approach, however, to the regular five-stress verse, in +such lines as the fourth, fifth, eleventh, thirteenth, and seventeenth. +On this and similar passages in the _Shepherd's Calendar_, as +illustrating the close relation between the native measure and the newer +one, see an article by Professor Gummere, in the _American Journal of +Philology_, vol. vii. pp. 53ff. Other verses cited by Dr. Gummere are: + + "Whose way is wildernesse, whose ynne Penaunce." + + "And dirks the beauty of my blossomes rownd." + + "That oft the blood springeth from woundes wyde." + + "There at the dore he cast me downe hys pack." + +It is pointed out that the regular five-stress line, when having--as +very frequently--only four full stresses (two or three light syllables +coming together, especially at the pause), can hardly be distinguished +from certain forms of the native four-stress verse. See also the +Eclogues for February and August, in the _Shepherd's Calendar_. Dr. +Gummere's conclusion is, that "practically all the elements of +Anglo-Saxon verse are preserved in our modern poetry, though in +different combinations, with changed proportional importance." + + But the false Fox most kindly played his part; + For whatsoever mother-wit or art + Could work, he put in proof: no practice sly, + No counterpoint of cunning policy, + No reach, no breach, that might him profit bring, + But he the same did to his purpose wring.... + He fed his cubs with fat of all the soil, + And with the sweet of others' sweating toil; + He crammed them with crumbs of benefices, + And fill'd their mouths with meeds of malefices. + ... No statute so established might be, + Nor ordinance so needful, but that he + Would violate, though not with violence, + Yet under color of the confidence + The which the Ape repos'd in him alone, + And reckon'd him the kingdom's corner-stone. + +(SPENSER: _Mother Hubbard's Tale_, ll. 1137-1166. 1591.) + +Spenser's use of the heroic couplet for the _Mother Hubbard's Tale_ is +the earliest instance of its adoption in English for satirical verse,--a +purpose for which its later history showed it to be peculiarly well +fitted. + + Upon her head she wore a myrtle wreath, + From whence her veil reach'd to the ground beneath: + Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves, + Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives: + Many would praise the sweet smell as she past, + When 'twas the odor which her breath forth cast; + And there for honey bees have sought in vain, + And, beat from thence, have lighted there again. + About her neck hung chains of pebble-stone, + Which, lighten'd by her neck, like diamonds shone. + +(MARLOWE: _Hero and Leander_, ll. 17-26. ab. 1590, pub. 1598.) + + Too popular is tragic poesy, + Straining his tip-toes for a farthing fee, + And doth beside on rimeless numbers tread; + Unbid iambics flow from careless head. + Some braver brain in high heroic rhymes + Compileth worm-eat stories of old times: + And he, like some imperious Maronist, + Conjures the Muses that they him assist. + Then strives he to bombast his feeble lines + With far-fetch'd phrase.-- ... + Painters and poets, hold your ancient right: + Write what you will, and write not what you might: + Their limits be their list, their reason will. + But if some painter in presuming skill + Should paint the stars in centre of the earth, + Could ye forbear some smiles, and taunting mirth? + +(JOSEPH HALL: _Virgidemiarum Libri VI._, bk. i. satire 4. 1597.) + +Joseph Hall was the most vigorous satirist of the group of Elizabethans +who, in the last decade of the sixteenth century, were imitating the +satires of Horace, Juvenal, and Persius. Hall's satires have a curiously +eighteenth-century flavor, and his couplets are frequently very similar +to those of the age of Pope. Thus Thomas Warton (in his _History of +English Poetry_) observed of Hall that "the fabric of the couplets +approaches to the modern standard;" and Anderson, who edited the +_British Poets_ in 1795, said: "Many of his lines would do honor to the +most harmonious of our modern poets. The sense has generally such a +pause, and will admit of such a punctuation at the close of the second +line, as if it were calculated for a modern ear." On the verse of these +Elizabethan satirists in general, see _The Rise of Formal Satire in +England_, by the present editor (_Publications of the Univ. of Penna_.). + +On the other hand, the verse of the satires of John Donne, from which +the following specimen is taken, is the roughest and most difficult of +all the satires of the group. The reputation of Donne's satires for +metrical ruggedness has affected unjustly that of his other poetry and +that of the Elizabethan satires in general. Dryden said: "Would not +Donne's Satires, which abound with so much wit, appear more charming if +he had taken care of his words and of his numbers?" (_Essay on Satire._) +And Pope "versified" two of them, so as to bring them into a form +pleasing to the ear of his age. + + Therefore I suffered this: towards me did run + A thing more strange than on Nile's slime the sun + E'er bred, or all which into Noah's ark came: + A thing which would have posed Adam to name; + Stranger than seven antiquaries' studies, + Than Afric's monsters, Guiana's rarities;... + Sleeveless his jerkin was, and it had been + Velvet, but 'twas now (so much ground was seen) + Become tufftaffaty; and our children shall + See it plain rash awhile, then nought at all. + This thing hath travelled, and faith, speaks all tongues, + And only knoweth what to all states belongs. + +(JOHN DONNE: _Satire iv._ ll. 17 ff. ab. 1593.) + + This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons peas, + And utters it again when God doth please. + He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares + At wakes, and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs; + And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know, + Have not the grace to grace it with such show. + This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve. + Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve. + He can carve too, and lisp: why, this is he + That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy; + This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice, + That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice + In honorable terms: nay, he can sing + A mean most meanly, and, in ushering, + Mend him who can: the ladies call him sweet; + The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet. + +(SHAKSPERE: _Love's Labor's Lost_, V. ii. 315-330. ab. 1590.) + +The use of rimed couplets in Shakspere's dramas is especially +characteristic of his earlier work. In this play, _Love's Labor's Lost_, +Dowden says, "there are about two rhymed lines to every one of blank +verse" (_Shakspere Primer_, p. 44). In the late plays, on the other +hand, rime disappears almost altogether. It will be observed that while +Shakspere's heroic verse is usually fairly regular, with not very many +run-on lines, it yet differs in quality from that of satires. The +dramatic use moulds it into different cadences, and the single couplet +is, perhaps, less noticeably the unit of the verse. + + Shepherd, I pray thee stay. Where hast thou been? + Or whither goest thou? Here be woods as green + As any; air likewise as fresh and sweet + As where smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet + Face of the curled streams; with flowers as many + As the young spring gives, and as choice as any; + Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells, + Arbors o'ergrown with woodbines, caves, and dells; + Choose where thou wilt, whilst I sit by and sing, + Or gather rushes, to make many a ring + For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love,-- + How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove, + First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes + She took eternal fire that never dies; + How she conveyed him softly in a sleep, + His temples bound with poppy, to the steep + Head of old Latmus, where she stoops each night, + Gilding the mountain with her brother's light, + To kiss her sweetest. + +(FLETCHER: _The Faithful Shepherdess_, I. iii. ab. 1610.) + +Fletcher uses the couplet in this drama with a freedom hardly found +elsewhere until the time of Keats; see the remark of Symonds, quoted p. +210, below. + + If Rome so great, and in her wisest age, + Fear'd not to boast the glories of her stage, + As skilful Roscius, and grave Ęsop, men, + Yet crown'd with honors, as with riches, then; + Who had no less a trumpet of their name + Than Cicero, whose every breath was fame: + How can so great example die in me, + That, Allen, I should pause to publish thee? + Who both their graces in thyself hast more + Outstript, than they did all that went before: + And present worth in all dost so contract, + As others speak, but only thou dost act. + Wear this renown. 'Tis just, that who did give + So many poets life, by one should live. + +(BEN JONSON: _Epigram LXXXIX, to Edward Allen._ 1616.) + +Jonson is thought by some to have been the founder of the classical +school of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which made the +heroic couplet peculiarly its own. See on this subject an article by +Prof. F. E. Schelling, "Ben Jonson and the Classical School," in the +_Publications of the Modern Language Association_, n. s. vol. vi. p. +221. Professor Schelling finds in Jonson's verse all the characteristics +of the later couplet of Waller and Dryden: end-stopped lines and +couplets, a preference for medial cesura, and an antithetical structure +of the verse. "No better specimen of Jonson's antithetical manner could +be found," he says further, than the Epigram here quoted. So far as this +antithetical quality of Jonson's verse is concerned, Professor +Schelling's view cannot be questioned; but that Jonson shows any +singular preference for end-stopped lines and couplets may be seriously +questioned. + + These mighty peers placed in the gilded barge, + Proud with the burden of so brave a charge, + With painted oars the youths begin to sweep + Neptune's smooth face, and cleave the yielding deep; + Which soon becomes the seat of sudden war + Between the wind and tide that fiercely jar. + As when a sort of lusty shepherds try + Their force at football, care of victory + Makes them salute so rudely breast to breast, + That their encounters seem too rough for jest; + They ply their feet, and still the restless ball, + Tossed to and fro, is urged by them all: + So fares the doubtful barge 'twixt tide and winds, + And like effect of their contention finds. + +(WALLER: _Of the Danger his Majesty [being Prince] escaped in the Road +at St. Andrews._ 1623?) + + Such is the mould that the blest tenant feeds + On precious fruits, and pays his rent in weeds; + With candied plantains, and the juicy pine, + On choicest melons and sweet grapes they dine, + And with potatoes fat their wanton swine; + Nature these cates with such a lavish hand + Pours out among them, that our coarser land + Tastes of that bounty, and does cloth return, + Which not for warmth but ornament is worn; + For the kind spring, which but salutes us here, + Inhabits there and courts them all the year; + Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live, + At once they promise what at once they give; + So sweet the air, so moderate the clime, + None sickly lives, or dies before his time.... + O how I long my careless limbs to lay + Under the plantain's shade, and all the day + With amorous airs my fancy entertain, + Invoke the Muses, and improve my vein! + +(WALLER: _The Battle of the Summer Islands_, canto i. 1638.) + +Edmund Waller is the chief representative of the early classical poetry +of the seventeenth century, and of the polishing and regulating of the +couplet which prepared the way for the verse of Dryden and Pope. The +dominant characteristic of this verse is its avoidance of _enjambement_, +or run-on lines, still more of run-on couplets. The growing precision of +French verse at the same time was perhaps influential in England. +Malherbe, who was at the French court after 1605, set rules for more +regular verse, and forbade, among other things, the use of run-on +lines--a precept which held good in French poetry until the nineteenth +century. The influence of Waller in England was, for a considerable +period, hardly less than that of Malherbe in France. Dryden said that +"the excellence and dignity" of rime "were never known till Mr. Waller +taught it; he first made writing easily an art; first showed us to +conclude the sense most commonly in distichs, which, in the verse of +those before him, runs on for so many lines together that the reader is +out of breath to overtake it. This sweetness of Mr. Waller's lyric poesy +was afterward followed, in the epic, by Sir John Denham, in his +_Cooper's Hill_." (Epistle Dedicatory of _The Rival Ladies_.) In another +place Dryden observed that only Waller, in English, had surpassed +Spenser in the harmony of his verse. Dryden's view was later echoed by +Pope, who exhorted his readers to + + "praise the easy vigor of a line + Where Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness join." + +(_Essay on Criticism_, l. 360.) + +But the most remarkable praise of Waller is found in the Preface to his +posthumous poems, 1690, generally attributed to Bishop Atterbury. "He +was indeed the parent of English verse, and the first that shewed us our +tongue had beauty and numbers in it.... The tongue came into his hands +like a rough diamond; he polished it first, and to that degree that all +artists since him have admired the workmanship, without pretending to +mend it.... He undoubtedly stands first in the list of refiners, and for +aught I know, last, too; for I question whether in Charles the Second's +reign English did not come to its full perfection; and whether it has +not had its Augustan Age, as well as the Latin.... We are no less +beholding to him for the new turn of verse, which he brought in, and the +improvement he made in our numbers. Before his time men rhymed, indeed, +and that was all: as for the harmony of measure, and that dance of words +which good ears are so much pleased with, they knew nothing of it. Their +poetry then was made up almost entirely of monosyllables, which, when +they come together in any cluster, are certainly the most harsh, +untunable things in the world. If any man doubts of this, let him read +ten lines in Donne, and he'll quickly be convinced. Besides, their +verses ran all into one another, and hung together, throughout a whole +copy, like the _hook't atoms_ that compose a body in Des Cartes. There +was no distinction of parts, no regular stops, nothing for the ear to +rest upon. But as soon as the copy began, down it went like a larum, +incessantly; and the reader was sure to be out of breath before he got +to the end of it. So that really verse in those days was but downright +prose, tagged with rhymes. Mr. Waller removed all these faults, brought +in more polysyllables and smoother measures, bound up his thoughts +better and in a cadence more agreeable to the nature of the verse he +wrote in: so that wherever the natural stops of that were, he contrived +the little breakings of his sense so as to fall in with 'em. And for +that reason, since the stress of our verse lies commonly upon the last +syllable, you'll hardly ever find him using a word of no force +there."[21] Waller's editor thus clearly discerns the very +characteristics of his verse which are avoided by the master-poets--the +coincidence of phrase-pauses and verse-pauses, and regularity in the +placing of stress. + +The most important discussion of the influence of Waller on English +poetry, and on the heroic couplet in particular, is found in Mr. Gosse's +book, _From Shakespeare to Pope_. Mr. Gosse regards Waller as inventing +for himself the couplet of the classical school; "master," in 1623, of +such verse as "was not imitated by a single poet for nearly twenty +years" (p. 50). This view is criticised in an interesting article by Dr. +Henry Wood, in the _American Journal of Philology_, vol. xi. p. 55. +While Mr. Gosse places Waller's earliest couplets in 1621 and 1623, Dr. +Wood would date them as late as 1626, and shows that Waller wrote +nothing else until 1635. Meantime had appeared (the first volume at +least as early as 1623) the translation of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, by +George Sandys, in which, says Wood, all the characteristics of Waller's +verse appear. "At all events," is his conclusion, "it was Sandys, and +not Waller, who at the beginning of the third decade of the century, +first of all Englishmen, made a uniform practice of writing in heroic +couplets, which are, on the whole, in accord with the French rule, and +which, for exactness of construction, and for harmonious sification, go +far towards satisfying the demands of the later 'classical' school in +England." Dr. Wood emphasizes the probable influence of the French poets +on these early heroic couplets, calling attention to the fact that +Sandys was in France in 1610. There is no evidence, however, that he was +there for more than a few days, _en route_ to more eastern countries. +Waller was not in France till 1643. The whole question of the influence +of French poetry in England before the Restoration still remains to be +carefully investigated. Meantime, the cautious student will hesitate to +put too much stress on any single point of departure for the new style +of versification. Many influences must have combined to make it popular. +We have seen Professor Schelling emphasizing the influence of Jonson; he +also very justly points out "that it is a mistake to consider that the +Elizabethans often practised the couplet with the freedom, not to say +license, that characterizes its nineteenth century use in the hands of +such poets as Keats." Compare the couplets of even so romantic a poet as +Marlowe, in the specimen given above from _Hero and Leander_. And even +Mr. Gosse, in partial divergence from the doctrines of _From Shakespeare +to Pope_, says of the satiric verse of the Elizabethan Rowlands: "There +are lines in this passage which Pope would not have disdained to use. It +might, indeed, be employed as against that old heresy, not even yet +entirely discarded, that smoothness of heroic verse was the invention of +Waller. As a matter of fact, this, as well as all other branches of the +universal art of poetry, was understood by the great Elizabethan +masters; and if they did not frequently employ it, it was because they +left to such humbler writers as Rowlands an instrument incapable of +those noble and audacious harmonies on which they chiefly prided +themselves." (Introduction to the _Works of Rowlands_, Hunterian Club +ed., p. 16.) + +A tribute to the incoming influence of the couplet is cited by Dr. Wood +from the poems of Sir John Beaumont (1582-1627). In his verses _To His +Late Majesty, concerning the True Forme of English Poetry_, Beaumont +said: + + "In every language now in Europe spoke + By nations which the Roman empire broke, + The rellish of the Muse consists in rime, + One verse must meete another like a chime.... + In many changes these may be exprest, + But those that joyne most simply run the best: + Their forme surpassing farre the fetter'd staves, + Vaine care, and needlesse repetition saves." + +(CHALMER'S _English Poets_, vol. vi. p. 31.)[22] + + Rough Boreas in Ęolian prison laid, + And those dry blasts which gathered clouds invade, + Outflies the South with dropping wings; who shrouds + His terrible aspect in pitchy clouds. + His white hair streams, his swol'n beard big with showers; + Mists bind his brows, rain from his bosom pours. + As with his hands the hanging clouds he crushed, + They roared, and down in showers together rushed. + All-colored Iris, Juno's messenger, + To weeping clouds doth nourishment confer. + The corn is lodged, the husbandmen despair, + Their long year's labor lost, with all their care. + Jove, not content with his ethereal rages, + His brother's auxiliaric floods engages. + +(GEORGE SANDYS: _Ovid's Metamorphoses_, bk. i. 1621.) + +On the significance of Sandys's verse, see preceding notes on Waller, +and the note on its possible relation to Pope, p. 201 below. + + My eye, descending from the hill, surveys + Where Thames amongst the wanton valleys strays; + Thames, the most loved of all the Ocean's sons + By his old sire, to his embraces runs, + Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, + Like mortal life to meet eternity.... + No unexpected inundations spoil + The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil, + But godlike his unwearied bounty flows, + First loves to do, then loves the good he does; + Nor are his blessings to his banks confined, + But free and common as the sea or wind.... + O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream + My great example, as it is my theme! + Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull, + Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full. + +(SIR JOHN DENHAM: _Cooper's Hill_. 1642.) + +"Denham," says Mr. Gosse, "was the first writer to adopt the precise +manner of versification introduced by Waller." (Ward's _English Poets_, +vol. ii. p. 279.) On his praise by Dryden and Pope, see notes on p. 188 +above. The last four lines of the specimen here given have been +universally admired. + + But say, what is't that binds your hands? does fear + From such a glorious action you deter? + Or is't religion? But you sure disclaim + That frivolous pretence, that empty name; + Mere bugbear word, devis'd by us to scare + The senseless rout to slavishness and fear, + Ne'er known to awe the brave, and those that dare. + Such weak and feeble things may serve for checks + To rein and curb base-mettled heretics, ... + Such whom fond in-bred honesty befools, + Or that old musty piece, the Bible, gulls. + +(JOHN OLDHAM: _Satires upon the Jesuits_, Sat. i. 1679.) + +"Oldham was the first," says Mr. Gosse, "to liberate himself, in the use +of the distich, from this under-current of a stanza, and to write heroic +verse straight on, couplet by couplet, ascending by steady strides and +not by irregular leaps. (Any one who will venture to read Oldham's +disagreeable _Satire upon the Jesuits_, written in 1679, will see the +truth of this remark, and note the effect that its versification had +upon that series of Dryden's satires which immediately followed it.) In +Pope's best satires we see this art carried to its final perfection; +after his time the connecting link between couplet and couplet became +lost, and at last in the decline poems became, as some one has said, +mere cases of lancets lying side by side. But in Dryden's day the +connection was still only too obvious, and it strikes me that it may +have been from a consciousness of this defect, that Dryden adopted that +triplet, with a final alexandrine, which he is so fond of introducing." +(_From Shakespeare to Pope_, p. 201.) + + Of these the false Achitophel was first, + A name to all succeeding ages curst: + For close designs and crooked counsels fit, + Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit, + Restless, unfixed in principles and place, + In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace; + A fiery soul, which, working out its way, + Fretted the pigmy body to decay, + And o'er-informed the tenement of clay. + A daring pilot in extremity, + Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high, + He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit, + Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit. + Great wits are sure to madness near allied, + And thin partitions do their bounds divide; + Else, why should he, with wealth and honor blest, + Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? + Punish a body which he could not please, + Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?... + In friendship false, implacable in hate, + Resolved to ruin or to rule the state; + To compass this the triple bond he broke, + The pillars of the public safety shook, + And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke; + Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting fame, + Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name. + +(DRYDEN: _Absalom and Achitophel_, part I. ll. 150-179. 1681.) + +Dryden was the first great English poet after Chaucer to make the heroic +couplet his chief vehicle of expression, and he put far more variety and +vigor into it than had been achieved by his nearer predecessors. As Pope +said: + + "Waller was smooth, but Dryden taught to join + The varying verse, the full resounding line, + The long majestic march, the energy divine." + +(_Epistle ii._, 267.) + +And Gray, some years later, symbolized Dryden's couplet in these fine +lines of the _Progress of Poesy_: + + "Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car, + Wide o'er the fields of glory bear + Two coursers of ethereal race, + With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace." + +On Dryden's development of the couplet, see especially Saintsbury's +_Life of Dryden_ (English Men of Letters Series), pp. 17, 171. "The +whole structure of the decasyllabic line before the middle of the +seventeenth century was ill calculated for the perfecting of the +couplet. Accustomed either to the stately plainness of blank verse, or +to the elaborate intricacies of the stanza, writers had got into the +habit of communicating to their verse a slow and somewhat languid +movement." (p. 17.) "In versification the great achievement of Dryden +was the alteration of what may be called the balance of the line, +causing it to run more quickly, and to strike its rhymes with a sharper +and less prolonged sound. One obvious means of obtaining this was, as a +matter of course, the isolation of the couplet, and the avoidance of +overlapping the different lines one upon the other. The effect of this +overlapping, by depriving the eye and voice of the expectation of rest +at the end of each couplet, is always one of two things. Either the +lines are converted into a sort of rhythmic prose, made musical by the +rhymes rather than divided by them, or else a considerable pause is +invited at the end of each, or of most lines, and the cadence of the +whole becomes comparatively slow and languid. Both these forms, as may +be seen in the works of Mr. Morris, as well as in the older writers, are +excellently suited for narration of some considerable length. They are +less well suited for satire, for argument, and for the moral reflections +which the age of Dryden loved. He therefore set himself to elaborate the +couplet with its sharp point, its quick delivery, and the pistol-like +detonation of its rhyme. But there is an obvious objection, or rather +there are several obvious objections which present themselves to the +couplet. It was natural that to one accustomed to the more varied range +of the older rhythm and metre, there might seem to be a danger of the +snip-snap monotony into which, as we know, it did actually fall when it +passed out of the hands of its first great practitioners. There might +also be a fear that it would not always be possible to compress the +sense of a complete clause within the narrow limits of twenty syllables. +To meet these difficulties Dryden resorted to three mechanical +devices--the hemistich, the alexandrine, and the triplet, all three of +which could be used indifferently to eke out the space or to give +variety of sound.... In poetry proper the hemistich is anything but +pleasing, and Dryden, becoming convinced of the fact, almost discarded +it. The alexandrine and the triplet he always continued to use." (pp. +171, 172.) + + Do you remember, when their tasks were done, + How all the youth did to our cottage run? + While winter winds were whistling loud without, + Our cheerful hearth was circled round about: + With strokes in ashes, maids their lovers drew; + And still you fell to me, and I to you.... + I know too well when first my love began, + When at our wake you for the chaplet ran: + Then I was made the lady of the May, + And, with the garland, at the goal did stay: + Still, as you ran, I kept you full in view; + I hoped, and wished, and ran, methought, for you. + As you came near, I hastily did rise, + And stretched my arm outright, that held the prize. + The custom was to kiss whom I should crown; + You kneeled, and in my lap your head laid down: + I blushed, and blushed, and did the kiss delay; + At last my subjects forced me to obey: + But, when I gave the crown, and then the kiss, + I scarce had breath to say, Take that,--and this. + +(DRYDEN: _Marriage ą la Mode_, II, i. 1672.) + +The use of the heroic couplet in the drama marks its effort to conquer +the last citadel of English poetry; an attempt which, under the +leadership of Dryden, seemed to succeed, but soon gave way to better +judgment. Dryden favored the experiment in the Preface to _The Rival +Ladies_ (1663), and inserted a few couplets in that play. Etheredge +accepted the suggestion, and put the serious parts of _The Comical +Revenge_ (largely prose) into couplets, in 1664. In the same year _The +Indian Queen_ (by Dryden and Sir Robert Howard) appeared in heroic +verse, and the fashion soon became so general that in the _Essay on +Heroic Plays_, prefixed to _The Conquest of Granada_ (1672), Dryden +could say: "Whether Heroic Verse ought to be admitted into serious +plays, is not now to be disputed: 'tis already in possession of the +stage; and I dare confidently affirm, that very few tragedies, in this +age, shall be received without it." Only six years later, however, in +1678, he returned to blank verse in _All for Love_, saying: "I have +disencumbered myself from rhyme. Not that I condemn my former way, but +that this is more proper to my present purpose." In all about five +plays of Dryden's are in couplets; after 1678 he rarely returned to rime +for the drama. As Atterbury said in his Preface to Waller's poems: +"'Twas the strength of his genius that first brought it into credit in +plays; and 'tis the force of his example that has thrown it out again." +"The fashion of rhyme in the drama, then, to be exact," says Mr. Gosse, +"flourished from 1664 until ... 1678." Some justification for its use is +to be found in the wretched condition into which blank verse had fallen. +"The blank iambics of the romantic dramatists had become so execrably +weak and distended, the whole movement of dramatic verse had grown so +flaccid, that a little restraint in the severe limits of rhyme was +absolutely necessary." (Gosse, in _Seventeenth Century Studies_, p. +264.) + +The present specimen is from a play in which the couplet was used but +slightly; but it shows Dryden's use of it at its best. In the drama, as +already remarked, the couplet is naturally less epigrammatic and pointed +than in didactic and satiric verse. + + For the arguments with which Dryden defended the use of rime in the + drama, see the Preface to _The Rival Ladies_, the _Essay of Heroic + Plays_, the _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, and the _Defence of an Essay + of Dramatic Poesy_. "In the quickness of reparties (which in + discoursive scenes fall very often), it has so particular a grace, + and is so aptly suited to them, that the sudden smartness of the + answer, and the sweetness of the rhyme, set off the beauty of each + other. But that benefit which I consider most in it, because I have + not seldom found it, is, that it bounds and circumscribes the + fancy." (_Essays of Dryden_, ed. W. P. Ker, vol. i. p. 8.) In the + _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, Crites, representing Sir Robert Howard, + opposes the use of rime on the ground of Aristotle's dictum that + tragedy is best written in the kind of verse which is nearest + prose. A play being an imitation of Nature, "the nearer anything + comes to the imitation of it, the more it pleases." Neander, + representing Dryden, answers that this line of argument will + equally forbid blank verse. Blank verse is "properly but measured + prose"; and rime may be "made as natural as blank verse, by the + well placing of the words, etc." "But I need not go so far to prove + that rhyme, as it succeeds to all other offices of Greek and Latin + verse, so especially to this of plays, since the custom of all + nations at this day confirms it, all the French, Italian, and + Spanish tragedies are generally writ in it; and sure the universal + consent of the most civilized parts of the world ought in this, as + it doth in other customs, to include the rest." (_Ibid._ p. 98.) + Again, while a play is a representation of Nature, it is "Nature + wrought up to an higher pitch"; and for this purpose "heroic rhyme + is nearest Nature, as being the noblest kind of modern verse." (pp. + 100, 101.) In the _Essay of Heroic Plays_ Dryden again summarizes + the case for the other side by saying that "all the arguments which + are formed against it can amount to no more than this, that it is + not so near conversation as prose, and therefore not so natural. + But it is very clear to all who understand Poetry, that serious + plays ought not to imitate conversation too nearly." If, therefore, + we begin to leave the mere "imitation of ordinary converse," we + should go on consistently to "the last perfection of Art. It was + only custom which cozened us so long; we thought, because + Shakespeare and Fletcher went no farther, that there the pillars of + poetry were to be erected; that, because they excellently described + passion without rhyme, therefore rhyme was not capable of + describing it. But time has now convinced most men of that error." + (_Ibid._ pp. 148, 149.) + + Dryden was of course quite right in objecting to the claim that + imaginative poetry ought to seek the form closest to the language + of real life. The real question is whether rimed verse is a more + imaginative and highly poetic form than blank verse; modern opinion + would unanimously answer in the negative. + + It strikes a modern reader as curious that Dryden and his + contemporaries should have advocated the use of rime in tragedy + rather than in comedy; but we have the clew to their feeling in the + saying that "_serious plays_ ought not to imitate conversation too + nearly." In the Restoration period the comedy was thought of as a + realistic representation of life; hence its characters should speak + in natural prose, as they have continued to do, for the most part, + ever since. The tragedy or heroic play, on the other hand, was in + the region of artistic convention, much farther removed from + reality; hence its language was to be "raised above the life." This + distinction between the range of comedy and that of tragedy, which + would have seemed strange to the Elizabethans, explains the widely + diverging lines which we find the two forms of the drama following + from the time of the Restoration. + + On the verse of Dryden's rimed plays, see Schipper, vol. ii. p. + 214, and O. Speerschneider's _Metrische Untersuchungen über den + heroischen Vers in John Drydens Dramen_ (Halle, 1897). + + But O, my muse, what numbers wilt thou find + To sing the furious troops in battle join'd! + Methinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound, + The victor's shouts and dying groans confound, + The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies, + And all the thunder of the battle rise. + 'Twas then great Marlbro's mighty soul was prov'd, + That, in the shock of charging hosts unmov'd, + Amidst confusion, horror, and despair, + Examin'd all the dreadful scenes of war.... + So, when an angel by divine command + With rising tempests shakes a guilty land, + Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past, + Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; + And pleas'd th' Almighty's orders to perform, + Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm. + +(ADDISON: _The Campaign_. 1704.) + + But most by numbers judge a poet's song, + And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong: + In the bright Muse, tho' thousand charms conspire, + Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire; + Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear, + Not mend their minds; as some to church repair, + Not for the doctrine, but the music there. + These equal syllables alone require, + Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire; + While expletives their feeble aid do join; + And ten low words oft creep in one dull line; + While they ring round the same unvaried chimes, + With sure return of still expected rhymes; + Where'er you find 'the cooling western breeze,' + In the next line, it 'whispers through the trees'; + If crystal streams 'with pleasing murmurs creep,' + The reader's threaten'd (not in vain) with 'sleep': + Then, at the last and only couplet fraught + With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, + A needless alexandrine ends the song, + That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. + Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know + What's roundly smooth, or languishingly slow; + And praise the easy vigor of a line + Where Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness join. + +(POPE: _Essay on Criticism_, ll. 337-361. 1711.) + + Why boast we, Glaucus, our extended reign + Where Xanthus' streams enrich the Lycian plain, + Our numerous herds that range the fruitful field, + And hills where vines their purple harvest yield, + Our foaming bowls with purer nectar crowned, + Our feasts enhanced with music's sprightly sound? + Why on those shores are we with joy surveyed, + Admired as heroes, and as gods obeyed; + Unless great acts superior merit prove, + And vindicate the bounteous powers above? + 'Tis ours, the dignity they give to grace; + The first in valor, as the first in place: + That when with wondering eyes our martial bands + Behold our deeds transcending our commands, + Such, they may cry, deserve the sovereign state, + Whom those that envy dare not imitate! + Could all our care elude the gloomy grave, + Which claims no less the fearful than the brave, + For lust of fame I should not vainly dare + In fighting fields, nor urge the soul to war. + But since, alas! ignoble age must come, + Disease, and death's inexorable doom; + The life which others pay let us bestow, + And give to fame what we to nature owe; + Brave though we fall, and honored if we live, + Or let us glory gain, or glory give! + +(POPE: _Iliad_, bk. xii.) + +Pope's couplet, while less vigorous and varied than Dryden's, has been +generally considered the most perfect development of the typical measure +of the classical school. Mr. Courthope thinks that in this speech from +the _Iliad_, Pope "perhaps attains the highest level of which the heroic +couplet is capable." (_Works of Pope_, vol. v. p. 167.) + + "What he learned from Dryden," Mr. Courthope says in another place, + "was the art of expressing the social and conversational idiom of + the language in a metrical form. His conception of metrical harmony + was, however, altogether different from his professed master's, and + rather resembled that of Sandys, whose translation of Ovid's + _Metamorphoses_ he told Spence he had read when very young, and + with the greatest delight. He explains the system in a letter to + Cromwell, dated November 25, 1710. + + "'(1) As to the hiatus, it is certainly to be avoided as often as + possible; but on the other hand, since the reason of it is only for + the sake of the numbers, so if, to avoid it, we incur another fault + against their smoothness, methinks the very end of that nicety is + destroyed.... + + "'(2) I would except against the use of all expletives in verse, as + _do_ before verbs plural, or even the frequent use of _did_ or + _does_ to change the termination of the rhyme.... + + "'(3) Monosyllable lines, unless very artfully managed, are stiff, + languishing, and hard. + + "'(4) The repeating the same rhymes within four or six lines of + each other, which tire the ear with too much of the like sound. + + "'(5) The too frequent use of alexandrines, which are never + graceful, but where there is some majesty added to the verse by + them, or when there cannot be found a word in them but what is + absolutely needful. + + "'(6) Every nice ear must, I believe, have observed that in any + smooth English verse of ten syllables, there is naturally a pause + either at the fourth, fifth, or sixth syllables.... Now I fancy + that, to preserve an exact harmony and variety, none of these + pauses should be continued above three lines together, without the + interposition of another; else it will be apt to weary the ear with + one continued tone.'" + + (_Ibid._ pp. 20, 21.) + + Here are implied all the characteristics of the Popean couplet. The + cesura is to vary, but not from a fundamentally medial position. + The avoidance of _enjambement_ is not mentioned, doubtless because + it is assumed as an essential of couplets professing any degree of + correctness. + +Mr. Andrew Lang protests against the monotony of the verse of Pope's +_Iliad_ in some lines which cleverly adopt the same sort of measure: + + My childhood fled your couplet's clarion tone, + And sought for Homer in the prose of Bohn. + Still through the dust of that dim prose appears + The flight of arrows and the sheen of spears; + Still we may trace what hearts heroic feel, + And hear the bronze that hurtles on the steel! + But ah, your Iliad seems a half-pretence, + Where wits, not heroes, prove their skill in fence, + And great Achilles' eloquence doth show + As if no centaur trained him, but Boileau! + Again, your verse is orderly,--and more,-- + "The waves behind impel the waves before"; + Monotonously musical they glide, + Till couplet unto couplet hath replied. + But turn to Homer! How his verses sweep! + Surge answers surge and deep doth call on deep; + This line in foam and thunder issues forth, + Spurred by the West or smitten by the North, + Sombre in all its sullen deeps, and all + Clear at the crest, and foaming to the fall; + The next with silver murmur dies away, + Like tides that falter to Calypso's Bay! + +(ANDREW LANG: _Letters to Dead Authors; Pope_.) + +Compare with this the equally clever defence of Pope's verse by Mr. +Dobson: + + Suppose you say your Worst of Pope, declare + His Jewels Paste, his Nature a Parterre, + His Art but Artifice--I ask once more + Where have you seen such Artifice before? + Where have you seen a Parterre better grac'd, + Or gems that glitter like his Gems of Paste? + Where can you show, among your Names of Note, + So much to copy and so much to quote? + And where, in Fine, in all our English Verse, + A Style more trenchant and a Sense more terse? + So I, that love the old Augustan Days + Of formal Courtesies and formal Phrase; + That like along the finish'd line to feel + The Ruffle's Flutter and the Flash of Steel; + That like my Couplet as compact as clear; + That like my Satire sparkling tho' severe, + Unmix'd with Bathos and unmarr'd by Trope, + I fling my Cap for Polish--and for POPE![23] + +(AUSTIN DOBSON: _Dialogue to the Memory of Mr. Alexander Pope_.) + + Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close + Up yonder hill the village murmur rose; + There, as I passed with careless steps and slow, + The mingling notes came softened from below; + The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung, + The sober herd that lowed to meet their young; + The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, + The playful children just let loose from school; + The watchdog's voice that bayed the whispering wind, + And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind; + These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, + And filled each pause the nightingale had made. + But now the sounds of population fail, + No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, + No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread, + For all the bloomy flush of life is fled. + +(GOLDSMITH: _The Deserted Village_. 1770.) + +"The heroic couplet," says Mr. Gosse, "was never employed, even by Pope +himself, with more melody than by Goldsmith in this poem." (_Eighteenth +Century Literature_, p. 320.) Its use at this time, when the revival of +blank verse by Thomson and others had seriously affected the prestige of +the couplet, was a sign of Goldsmith's reactionary tendency toward the +school of Pope. His dislike of blank verse he expressed in his early +work on the _Present State of Polite Learning_, saying that it might be +reckoned among "several disagreeable instances of pedantry" lately +proceeding "from a desire in the critic of grafting the spirit of +ancient languages upon the English." (_Works_, Globe ed., p. 439.) This +opinion was of course shared by Goldsmith's friend, Dr. Johnson, whose +two important poems (_London_ and _The Vanity of Human Wishes_) stand +with the two of Goldsmith as the last notable pieces of English poetry +of the classical school. While Johnson admitted that he could not "wish +that Milton had been a rhymer," yet he never lost an opportunity to +speak contemptuously of blank verse as a poetic form, and quoted +approvingly the saying of a critic that it "seems to be verse only to +the eye." (_Life of Milton._) + + In front of these came Addison. In him + Humor, in holiday and sightly trim, + Sublimity and Attic taste combined + To polish, furnish, and delight the mind. + Then Pope, as harmony itself exact, + In verse well-disciplined, complete, compact, + Gave virtue and morality a grace + That, quite eclipsing pleasure's painted face, + Levied a tax of wonder and applause, + Even on the fools that trampled on their laws. + But he (his musical finesse was such, + So nice his ear, so delicate his touch) + Made poetry a mere mechanic art, + And every warbler has his tune by heart. + Nature imparting her satiric gift, + Her serious mirth, to Arbuthnot and Swift, + With droll sobriety they raised a smile + At folly's cost, themselves unmoved the while. + That constellation set, the world in vain + Must hope to look upon their like again. + +(COWPER: _Table Talk_. 1782.) + + Behold! in various throngs the scribbling crew, + For notice eager, pass in long review: + Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace, + And rhyme and blank maintain an equal race; + Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on ode; + And tales of terror jostle on the road; + Immeasurable measures move along; + For simpering folly loves a varied song, + To strange mysterious dulness still the friend, + Admires the strain she cannot comprehend. + Thus Lays of Minstrels--may they be the last!-- + On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast; + While mountain spirits prate to river sprites, + That dames may listen to the sound at nights; + And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner's brood, + Decoy young border-nobles through the wood, + And skip at every step, Lord knows how high, + And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why. + +(BYRON: _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. 1809.) + + View now the winter storm! above, one cloud, + Black and unbroken, all the skies o'ershroud: + The unwieldy porpoise through the day before + Had rolled in view of boding men on shore; + And sometimes hid and sometimes showed his form, + Dark as the cloud and furious as the storm. + All where the eye delights yet dreads to roam, + The breaking billows cast the flying foam + Upon the billows rising--all the deep + Is restless change; the waves so swelled and steep, + Breaking and sinking, and the sunken swells, + Nor one, one moment, in its station dwells.... + Darkness begins to reign; the louder wind + Appals the weak and awes the firmer mind; + But frights not him whom evening and the spray + In part conceal--yon prowler on his way. + Lo, he has something seen; he runs apace, + As if he feared companion in the chase; + He sees his prize, and now he turns again, + Slowly and sorrowing--"Was your search in vain?" + Gruffly he answers, "'Tis a sorry sight! + A seaman's body: there'll be more to-night!" + +(CRABBE: _The Borough_, letter i. 1810.) + +Crabbe's poems are the latest to use the strict Popean couplet for +narrative and descriptive purposes, and his couplets have a certain +characteristic reticence and vigor. Professor Woodberry praises them in +an interesting passage on "the old heroic rhymed couplet, that simplest +form of English verse music, which could rise, nevertheless, to the +almost lyric loftiness of the last lines of the _Dunciad_; so supple and +flexible; made for easy simile and compact metaphor; lending itself so +perfectly to the sudden flash of wit or turn of humor; the natural shell +of an epigram; compelling the poet to practice all the virtues of +brevity; checking the wandering fancy, and repressing the secondary +thought; requiring in a masterly use of it the employment of more mental +powers than any other metrical form; despised and neglected now because +the literature which is embodied in it is despised and neglected, yet +the best metrical form which intelligence, as distinct from poetical +feeling, can employ." (_Makers of Literature_, p. 104.) + + The flower-beds all were liberal of delight: + Roses in heaps were there, both red and white, + Lilies angelical, and gorgeous glooms + Of wall-flowers, and blue hyacinths, and blooms + Hanging thick clusters from light boughs; in short, + All the sweet cups to which the bees resort; + With plots of grass, and leafier walks between + Of red geraniums, and of jessamine, + And orange, whose warm leaves so finely suit, + And look as if they shade a golden fruit; + And midst the flowers, turfed round beneath a shade + Of darksome pines, a babbling fountain played, + And 'twixt their shafts you saw the water bright, + Which through the tops glimmered with showering light. + +(LEIGH HUNT: _The Story of Rimini_. 1816.) + +Of this poem Mr. C. H. Herford says: "_The Story of Rimini_ is the +starting-point of that free or Chaucerian treatment of the heroic +couplet, and of the colloquial style, eschewing epigram and full of +familiar turns, which Shelley in _Julian and Maddalo_ and Keats in +_Lamia_ made classical." (_Age of Wordsworth_, p. 83.) The treatment of +the couplet is still characterized by but slight use of run-on lines, +and a preference for the medial cesura; but on the other hand there is a +large degree of freedom in the inversion of accents and other +alterations of the regular stress. Compare the last line of the present +specimen, and such other lines as + + "Of crimson cloths hanging a hand of snow." + "Some, with a drag, dangling from the cap's crest." + "'Who's there?' said that sweet voice, kindly and clear." + "The other with the tears streaming down both his cheeks." + +The last of these lines, an alexandrine, is also characteristic. Hunt +imitated Dryden in the use of both alexandrine and triplet. Of the +latter he said: "I confess I like the very bracket that marks out the +triplet to the reader's eye, and prepares him for the music of it. It +has a look like the bridge of a lute." (Preface to _Works_, 1832.) Mr. +A. J. Kent, in an article in the _Fortnightly Review_, says of Leigh +Hunt that "he became the greatest master since the days of Dryden" of +the heroic couplet. (1881, p. 224.) + + A thing of beauty is a joy forever: + Its loveliness increases; it will never + Pass into nothingness; but still will keep + A bower quiet for us, and a sleep + Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. + Therefore, on every morrow are we wreathing + A flowery band to bind us to the earth, + Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth + Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, + Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways + Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, + Some shape of beauty moves away the pall + From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, + Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon + For simple sheep; and such are daffodils + With the green world they live in; and clear rills + That for themselves a cooling covert make + 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, + Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: + And such too is the grandeur of the dooms + We have imagined for the mighty dead; + All lovely tales that we have heard or read: + An endless fountain of immortal drink, + Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. + +(KEATS: _Endymion_, ll. 1-24. 1818.) + +In the couplet of Keats, and of a number of his successors, we have a +really different measure from the "heroic couplet" proper. The +individual line and the couplet alike cease to be prominent units of +the verse. The effect is therefore closely allied to that of blank +verse; the rimes, not being emphasized by marked pauses, serving rather +as means of tone color than as organizers of the verse. See Mr. +Saintsbury's remarks (quoted in the notes on Dryden, p. 195, above), on +"lines made musical by the rhymes rather than divided by them." In like +manner Mr. Symonds says that "the couplets of Marlowe, Fletcher, +Shelley, and Keats follow the laws of blank verse, and add rhyme--that +is to say, their periods and pauses are entirely determined by the +sense." (_Blank Verse_, p. 66.) This is true of the couplets of Shelley +and Keats, and to a less degree of those of Fletcher's _Faithful +Shepherdess_, but will hardly apply to Marlowe, nor, as we have seen, to +the Elizabethans in general.[24] + + There was a Being whom my spirit oft + Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft, + In the clear golden prime of my youth's dawn. + Upon the fairy isles of sunny lawn, + Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves + Of divine sleep, and on the air-like waves + Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor + Paved her light steps;--on an imagined shore, + Under the gray beak of some promontory + She met me, robed in such exceeding glory, + That I beheld her not. + +(SHELLEY: _Epipsychidion_, ll. 190-200. 1821.) + +Shelley carries the free treatment of this measure to the utmost limit. +The couplet is not felt to be of significance, and many lines are so +irregular in stress as to make scansion difficult. Compare this +passage: + + "The ringdove in the embowering ivy yet + Keeps up her love-lament; and the owls flit + Round the evening tower; and the young stars glance + Between the quick bats in their twilight dance."[25] + + The woods were long austere with snow: at last + Pink leaflets budded on the beech, and fast + Larches, scattered through pine-tree solitudes, + Brightened, 'as in the slumbrous heart o' the woods + Our buried year, a witch, grew young again + To placid incantations, and that stain + About were from her caldron, green smoke blent + With those black pines'--so Eglamor gave vent + To a chance fancy. When a just rebuke + From his companion; brother Naddo shook + The solemnest of brows; 'Beware,' he said, + 'Of setting up conceits in nature's stead.' + +(BROWNING: _Sordello_, ii. 1-12. 1840.) + + Above the stem a gilded swallow shone, + Wrought with straight wings and eyes of glittering stone + As flying sunward oversea, to bear + Green summer with it through the singing air. + And on the deck between the rowers at dawn, + As the bright sail with brightening wind was drawn, + Sat with full face against the strengthening light + Iseult, more fair than foam or dawn was white. + Her gaze was glad past love's own singing of, + And her face lovely past desire of love. + Past thought and speech her maiden motions were, + And a more golden sunrise was her hair. + The very veil of her bright flesh was made + As of light woven and moonbeam-colored shade + More fine than moonbeams; white her eyelids shone + As snow sun-stricken that endures the sun, + And through their curled and colored clouds of deep + Luminous lashes, thick as dreams in sleep, + Shone as the sea's depth swallowing up the sky's + The springs of unimaginable eyes. + +(SWINBURNE: _Tristram of Lyonesse; the Sailing of the Swallow_.) + + The huge high presence, red as earth's first race, + Reared like a reed the might up of his mace, + And smote: but lightly Tristram swerved, and drove + Right in on him, whose void stroke only clove + Air, and fell wide, thundering athwart: and he + Sent forth a stormier cry than wind or sea + When midnight takes the tempest for her lord; + And all the glen's throat seemed as hell's that roared; + But high like heaven's light over hell shone Tristram's sword, + Falling, and bright as storm shows God's bare brand + Flashed, as it shore sheer off the huge right hand + Whose strength was as the shadow of death on all that land. + +(_Ibid._: _The Last Pilgrimage_.) + +It will be noticed that in Swinburne's use of the couplet the single +line is even less the unit of measure than in Keats and Shelley; the +periods correspond closely to those in the blank verse of Milton and +Tennyson. Compare the specimens of blank verse on pp. 230 and 245. The +second specimen shows the occasional use of the triplet and +alexandrine. + + So stood she murmuring, till a rippling sound + She heard, that grew until she turned her round + And saw her other sisters of the deep + Her song had called while Hylas yet did sleep, + Come swimming in a long line up the stream, + And their white dripping arms and shoulders gleam + Above the dark grey water as they went, + And still before them a great ripple sent. + But when they saw her, toward the bank they drew, + And landing, felt the grass and flowers blue + Against their unused feet; then in a ring + Stood gazing with wide eyes, and wondering + At all his beauty they desired so much. + And then with gentle hands began to touch + His hair, his hands, his closed eyes; and at last + Their eager naked arms about him cast, + And bore him, sleeping still, as by some spell, + Unto the depths where they were wont to dwell; + Then softly down the reedy bank they slid, + And with small noise the gurgling river hid + The flushed nymphs and the heedless sleeping man. + +(WILLIAM MORRIS: _Life and Death of Jason_, iv. 621-641. 1867.) + + +B.--BLANK VERSE + +Unrimed five-stress verse early became the accepted form for English +dramatic poetry, and in the modern English period has become the +favorite form for long continuous poems, narrative and reflective as +well. In general, as will appear from the specimens, it is marked not +only by the absence of rime but by a prevalent freedom of structure +rarely found in the couplet. + +The impetus toward the writing of blank verse seems to have been given +by the influence of classical humanism, the representatives of which +grew sceptical as to the use of rime, on the ground that it was not +found in classical poetry. In Italy Giovanni Trissino wrote his +_Sophonisbe_ and _Italia Liberata_ (1515-1548) in rimeless verses, and +was looked upon as the inventor of _versi sciolti_, _i.e._ verses +"freed" from rime. (See Schipper, vol. ii. p. 4.) See also below, in the +notes on Surrey, and later under Imitations of Classical Verse, for +notes on the same movement. + +On the nature of English blank verse, see J. A. Symonds's _Blank Verse_ +(1895), a reprint of essays in the Appendix to his _Sketches and Studies +in Southern Europe_. In his _Chapters on English Metre_ (chap. iv.), Mr. +J. B. Mayor criticises what he calls Mr. Symonds's "ęsthetic +intuitivism." + +On the early history of English blank verse, see the article by Schröer, +_Anfänge des Blankverses in England, Anglia_, vol. iv. p. 1, and Mr. G. +C. Macaulay's _Francis Beaumont_, pp. 39-49. + +Of Mr. Symonds's remarks on the general nature of blank verse the +following are especially interesting: "English blank verse is perhaps +more various and plastic than any other national metre. It is capable of +being used for the most commonplace and the most sublime utterances.... +Originally instituted for the drama, it received in Milton's hands an +epical treatment, and has by authors of our own day been used for +idyllic and even for lyrical compositions. Plato mentions a Greek +musical instrument called _panharmonion_, which was adapted to express +the different modes and systems of melodious utterance. This name might +be applied to our blank verse; there is no harmony of sound, no dignity +of movement, no swiftness, no subtlety of languid sweetness, no brevity, +no force of emphasis, beyond its scope." (_Blank Verse_, pp. 16, 17.) + +"It seems adapted specially for thought in evolution; it requires +progression and sustained effort. As a consequence of this, its melody +is determined by the sense which it contains, and depends more upon +proportion and harmony of sounds than upon recurrences and regularities +of structure.... Another point about blank verse is that it admits of no +mediocrity; it must be either clay or gold.... Hence, we find that blank +verse has been the metre of genius, that it is only used successfully +by indubitable poets, and that it is no favorite in a mean, contracted, +and unimaginative age. The freedom of the renaissance created it in +England. The freedom of our century has reproduced it. Blank verse is a +type and symbol of our national literary spirit--uncontrolled by +precedent or rule, inclined to extravagance, yet reaching perfection at +intervals by an inner force and _vivida vis_ of native inspiration." +(_Ibid._ pp. 70-72.) + +The earliest use of the term "blank verse," noted in the _New English +Dictionary_, is in Nash's Preface to Greene's _Menaphon_, 1589: "the +swelling bumbast of bragging blanke verse." Some ten years later +Shakspere used it in _Much Ado about Nothing_, V. ii., where Benedick +speaks of those heroes "whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of +blank verse," but will not rime easily. In Chapman's _All Fools_ (1605) +the young gallant, in describing his manifold accomplishments, says he +could write + + "Sonnets in Dozens, or your Quatorzains + In any rhyme, Masculine, Feminine, + Or Sdruciolla, or couplets, or Blank Verse." + +_Sdruciolla_ is the Italian term for triple-rimed endings. + + Forthwith Fame flieth through the great Libyan towns: + A mischief Fame, there is none else so swift; + That moving grows, and flitting gathers force: + First small for dread, soon after climbs the skies, + Stayeth on earth, and hides her head in clouds. + Whom our mother the Earth, tempted by wrath + Of gods, begat: the last sister, they write, + To C[oe]us, and to Enceladus eke: + Speedy of foot, of wing likewise as swift, + A monster huge, and dreadful to descrive. + In every plume that on her body sticks,-- + A thing in deed much marvelous to hear,-- + As many waker eyes lurk underneath, + So many mouths to speak, and listening ears. + By night she flies amid the cloudy sky, + Shrieking, by the dark shadow of the earth, + Ne doth decline to the sweet sleep her eyes: + By day she sits to mark on the house top, + Or turrets high, and the great towns affrays; + As mindful of ill and lies as blazing truth. + +(EARL OF SURREY: _Ęneid_, book IV. 223-242. ab. 1540. pub. 1557.) + +Surrey's translation of two books of the _Ęneid_ may have been suggested +by the translation (1541) made by Francesco Maria Molza, attributed at +the time to Cardinal Ippolito de Medici. This was in Italian unrimed +verse. (See Henry Morley's _First Sketch of English Literature_, p. 294, +and his _English Writers_, vol. viii. p. 61.) The verse of Surrey, like +Wyatt's, shows a somewhat mechanical adherence to the syllable-counting +principle, in contrast to regard for accents.[26] Thus we find such +lines as: + + "Each palace, and sacred porch of the gods." + "By the divine science of Minerva." + +There is a fairly free use of run-on lines; according to Schipper, 35 in +the first 250 of the translation. Nevertheless, the general effect is +monotonous and lacking in flexibility. + + O Jove, how are these people's hearts abused! + What blind fury thus headlong carries them, + That, though so many books, so many rolls + Of ancient time record what grievous plagues + Light on these rebels aye, and though so oft + Their ears have heard their aged fathers tell + What just reward these traitors still receive,-- + Yea, though themselves have seen deep death and blood + By strangling cord and slaughter of the sword + To such assigned, yet can they not beware, + Yet cannot stay their lewd rebellious hands, + But, suff'ring too foul reason to distain + Their wretched minds, forget their loyal heart, + Reject all truth, and rise against their prince? + +(SACKVILLE and NORTON: _Gorboduc, or Ferrex and Porrex_, V. ii. 1-14. +1565.) + +This tragedy, although Dryden curiously instanced it in defence of the +use of rime on the stage, was the earliest English drama in blank verse. +The metre is decidedly more monotonous than Surrey's, and gives little +hint of the possibilities of the measure for dramatic expression. In +general, the early experiments in blank verse suggest--what they must +often have seemed to their writers--the mere use of the decasyllabic +couplet deprived of its rime. Nevertheless, as Mr. Symonds remarks of a +passage in _Gorboduc_, "we yet may trace variety and emphasis in the +pauses of these lines beyond what would at that epoch have been possible +in sequences of rhymed couplets." (_Blank Verse_, p. 20.) + +For a specimen of the blank verse of Gascoigne's _Steel Glass_ (1576, +the earliest didactic poem in English blank verse), see p. 18, above. + + Paris, King Priam's son, thou art arraigned of partiality, + Of sentence partial and unjust, for that without indifferency, + Beyond desert or merit far, as thine accusers say, + From them, to Lady Venus here, thou gavest the prize away: + What is thine answer? + +_Paris's oration to the Council of the Gods:_ + + Sacred and just, thou great and dreadful Jove, + And you thrice-reverend powers, whom love nor hate + May wrest awry; if this, to me a man, + This fortune fatal be, that I must plead + For safe excusal of my guiltless thought, + The honor more makes my mishap the less, + That I a man must plead before the gods, + Gracious forbearers of the world's amiss, + For her, whose beauty how it hath enticed, + This heavenly senate may with me aver. + +(GEORGE PEELE: _The Arraignment of Paris_, IV. i. 61-75. 1584.) + +This specimen shows the new measure introduced into the drama in +connection with the earlier rimed septenary. Peele's verse in general is +characterized by sweetness and fluency, but there is still no hint of +the possibilities of the unrimed decasyllabics. + +Schröer, in the article cited from _Anglia_, enumerates the following +additional specimens of blank verse before the appearance of Marlowe's +_Tamburlaine_; Grimald's _Death of Zoroas_ and _Death of Cicero_, in +Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets_, 1557; _Jocasta_, by Gascoigne and +Kinwelmarshe, 1566; Turberville's translation of Ovid's _Heroical +Epistles_, 1567; Spenser's unrimed sonnets, in Van der Noodt's _Theatre +for Worldlings_, 1569; Barnaby Rich's _Don Simonides_, 1584; parts of +Lyly's _Woman in the Moon_, 1584; Greene's "Description of Silvestro's +Lady," in _Morando_, 1587; _The Misfortunes of Arthur_, 1587;--the last +two appearing probably in the same year with _Tamburlaine_, whether +earlier or later is uncertain. Most of these specimens are short, and +all are comparatively unimportant. + + Now clear the triple region of the air, + And let the Majesty of Heaven behold + Their scourge and terror tread on emperors. + Smile stars, that reigned at my nativity, + And dim the brightness of your neighbor lamps! + Disdain to borrow light of Cynthia! + For I, the chiefest lamp of all the earth, + First rising in the East with mild aspect, + But fixed now in the Meridian line, + Will send up fire to your turning spheres, + And cause the sun to borrow light of you. + My sword struck fire from his coat of steel + Even in Bithynia, when I took this Turk; + As when a fiery exhalation, + Wrapt in the bowels of a freezing cloud + Fighting for passage, makes the welkin crack, + And casts a flash of lightning to the earth. + +(MARLOWE: _Tamburlaine_, Part I, IV. ii. 30-46. pub. 1590.) + + Ah, Faustus, + Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, + And then thou must be damned perpetually! + Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of Heaven, + That time may cease, and midnight never come; + Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make + Perpetual day; or let this hour be but + A year, a month, a week, a natural day, + That Faustus may repent and save his soul! + _O lente, lente, currite noctis equi!_ + The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, + The Devil will come, and Faustus must be damned. + O, I'll leap up to my God! Who pulls me down? + See, see where Christ's blood streams in the firmament! + One drop would save my soul--half a drop: ah, my Christ! + Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ![27] + Yet will I call on him: O spare me, Lucifer! + +(MARLOWE: _Doctor Faustus_, sc. xvi. ll. 65-81. Printed 1604; written +before 1593.) + +Marlowe is universally and rightly regarded as the first English poet +who used blank verse with the hand of a master, and showed its +possibilities. With him it became practically a new measure. Mr. Symonds +says: "He found the ten-syllabled heroic line monotonous, monosyllabic, +and divided into five feet of tolerably regular alternate short and +long. He left it various in form and structure, sometimes redundant by a +syllable, sometimes deficient, enriched with unexpected emphases and +changes in the beat. He found no sequence or attempt at periods; one +line succeeded another with insipid regularity, and all were made after +the same model. He grouped his verse according to the sense, obeying an +internal law of melody, and allowing the thought contained in his words +to dominate their form.... Used in this fashion, blank verse became a +Proteus. It resembled music, which requires regular time and rhythm; +but, by the employment of phrase, induces a higher kind of melody to +rise above the common and despotic beat of time.... It is true that, +like all great poets, he left his own peculiar imprint on it, and that +his metre is marked by an almost extravagant exuberance, impetuosity, +and height of coloring." (_Blank Verse_, pp. 22-27.) In the earlier +verse of _Tamburlaine_, while showing these new qualities of a metrical +master, Marlowe yet kept pretty closely to the individual, end-stopped +line; in his later verse, as illustrated in the fragmentary text of +_Faustus_, he seems to have attained much more freedom, resembling that +of the later plays of Shakspere.[28] + + Is it mine eye, or Valentinus' praise, + Her true perfection, or my false transgression, + That makes me, reasonless, to reason thus? + She's fair, and so is Julia that I love,-- + That I did love, for now my love is thawed, + Which, like a waxen image 'gainst a fire, + Bears no impression of the thing it was. + Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold, + And that I love him not, as I was wont: + O! but I love his lady too too much; + And that's the reason I love him so little. + How shall I dote on her with more advice, + That thus without advice begin to love her?... + If I can check my erring love, I will; + If not, to compass her I'll use my skill. + +(SHAKSPERE: _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, II. iv. 196-208; 213, 214. ab. +1590.) + + Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; + To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; + This sensible warm motion to become + A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit + To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside + In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice; + To be imprisoned in the viewless winds, + And blown with restless violence about + The pendant world; or to be worse than worst + Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts + Imagine howling,--'tis too horrible! + The weariest and most loathed worldly life, + That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment + Can lay on nature, is a paradise + To what we fear of death. + +(SHAKSPERE: _Measure for Measure_, III. i. 118-132. ab. 1603.) + +This Mr. Symonds cites as "a single instance of the elasticity, +self-restraint, and freshness of the Shaksperian blank verse; of its +freedom from Marlowe's turgidity, or Fletcher's languor, or Milton's +involution; of its ringing sound and lucid vigor.... It illustrates the +freedom from adventitious ornament and the organic continuity of +Shakspere's versification, while it also exhibits his power of varying +his cadences and suiting them to the dramatic utterance of his +characters." (_Blank Verse_, p. 31.) + + Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves; + And ye that on the sands with printless foot + Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him + When he comes back; you demi-puppets, that + By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make, + Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime + Is to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoice + To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid + (Weak masters though ye be) I have bedimm'd + The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds, + And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault + Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder + Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak + With his own bolt: the strong-bas'd promontory + Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up + The pine and cedar: graves, at my command, + Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let them forth + By my so potent art. + +(SHAKSPERE: _The Tempest_, V. i. 33-50. ab. 1610.) + +No attempt can be made to represent adequately the blank verse of +Shakspere. The specimens, chosen respectively from his earlier, middle, +and later periods, illustrate the trend of development of his verse. In +the earlier period it was characterized by the slight use of feminine +endings and _enjambement_; in the later by marked preference for both, +and by general freedom and flexibility. In other words, Shakspere's own +development represents, in a sort of miniature, that of the history of +dramatic blank verse. According to Furnivall's tables, the proportion of +run-on lines to end-stopped lines in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_ is +one in ten, while in _The Tempest_ it is one in three. The increased use +of "light" and "weak" endings is closely analogous. Professor Wendell +says of the verse of _Cymbeline_: "End-stopped lines are so deliberately +avoided that one feels a sense of relief when a speech and a line end +together. Such a phrase as + + 'How slow his soul sail'd on, how swift his ship' + +is deliberately made, not a single line, but two half-lines. Several +times, in the broken dialogue, one has literally to count the syllables +before the metrical regularity of the verse appears.... Clearly this +puzzling style is decadent; the distinction between verse and prose is +breaking down." (_William Shakspere_, p. 357.)[29] + + I, that did help + To fell the lofty cedar of the world + Germanicus; that at one stroke cut down + Drusus, that upright elm; withered his vine; + Laid Silius and Sabinus, two strong oaks, + Flat on the earth; besides those other shrubs, + Cordus and Sosia, Claudia Pulchra, + Furnius and Gallus, which I have grubbed up; + And since, have set my axe so strong and deep + Into the root of spreading Agrippine; + Lopt off and scattered her proud branches, Nero, + Drusus; and Caius too, although replanted. + If you will, Destinies, that after all, + I faint now ere I touch my period, + You are but cruel; and I already have done + Things great enough. All Rome hath been my slave; + The senate sate an idle looker-on, + And witness of my power; when I have blushed + More to command than it to suffer: all + The fathers have sat ready and prepared, + To give me empire, temples, or their throats, + When I would ask 'em; and, what crowns the top, + Rome, senate, people, all the world have seen + Jove but my equal; Cęsar but my second. + 'Tis then your malice, Fates, who, but your own, + Envy and fear to have any power long known. + +(BEN JONSON: _Sejanus_, V. iv. 1603.) + +Jonson's blank verse, says Mr. Symonds, is that "of a scholar--pointed, +polished, and free from the lyricisms of his age. It lacks harmony and +is often labored; but vigorous and solid it never fails to be." He also +instances the opening lines of the _Sad Shepherd_ as exceptional in +their "delicate music." Beaumont's verse is in many ways similar in +structure to Jonson's, yet commonly more melodious. + + "He is all + (As he stands now) but the mere name of Cęsar, + And should the Emperor enforce him lesser, + Not coming from himself, it were more dangerous: + He is honest, and will hear you. Doubts are scattered, + And almost come to growth in every household; + Yet, in my foolish judgment, were this mastered, + The people, that are now but rage, and his, + Might be again obedience. You shall know me + When Rome is fair again; till when, I love you." + No name! This may be cunning; yet it seems not, + For there is nothing in it but is certain, + Besides my safety. Had not good Germanicus, + That was as loyal and as straight as he is, + If not prevented by Tiberius, + Been by the soldiers forced their emperor? + He had, and 'tis my wisdom to remember it: + And was not Corbulo (even that Corbulo, + That ever fortunate and living Roman, + That broke the heart-strings of the Parthians, + And brought Arsaces' line upon their knees, + Chained to the awe of Rome), because he was thought + (And but in wine once) fit to make a Cęsar, + Cut off by Nero? I must seek my safety; + For 'tis the same again, if not beyond it. + +(FLETCHER: _Valentinian_, IV. i. ab. 1615.) + + I can but grieve my ignorance: + Repentance, some say too, is the best sacrifice; + For sure, sir, if my chance had been so happy + (As I confess I was mine own destroyer) + As to have arrived at you, I will not prophesy, + But certain, as I think, I should have pleased you; + Have made you as much wonder at my courtesy, + My love and duty, as I have disheartened you. + Some hours we have of youth, and some of folly; + And being free-born maids, we take a liberty, + And, to maintain that, sometimes we strain highly.... + A sullen woman fear, that talks not to you; + She has a sad and darkened soul, loves dully; + A merry and a free wench, give her liberty, + Believe her, in the lightest form she appears to you, + Believe her excellent, though she despise you; + Let but these fits and flashes pass, she will show to you + As jewels rubbed from dust, or gold new burnished. + +(FLETCHER: _The Wild-Goose Chase_, IV. i. 1621.) + +The verse of Fletcher is highly individual among the Jacobean +dramatists, though in a sense typical of the breaking down of blank +verse, in the direction of prose, which was going on at this period. The +distinguishing feature of Fletcher's verse is the constant use of +feminine endings, and the extension of these to triple and even +quadruple endings, by the addition of one or more syllables. +Twelve-syllable lines (not alexandrines, but ordinary lines with triple +endings) are not at all uncommon; and the additional syllable or +syllables may even be emphatic. In general the tendency was in the +direction of the freedom of conversational prose. Such a line as + + "Methinks you are infinitely bound to her for her journey" + +would not be recognized, standing by itself, as a five-stress iambic +verse; properly read, however, it takes its place without difficulty in +the scheme of the metre.[30] + + Whatever ails me, now a-late especially, + I can as well be hanged as refrain seeing her; + Some twenty times a day, nay, not so little, + Do I force errands, frame ways and excuses, + To come into her sight; and I've small reason for't, + And less encouragement, for she baits me still + Every time worse than other; does profess herself + The cruellest enemy to my face in town; + At no hand can abide the sight of me, + As if danger or ill luck hung in my looks. + I must confess my face is bad enough, + But I know far worse has better fortune, + And not endur'd alone, but doted on; + And yet such pick-hair'd faces, chins like witches', + Here and there five hairs whispering in a corner, + As if they grew in fear of one another, + Wrinkles like troughs, where swine-deformity swills + The tears of perjury, that lie there like wash + Fallen from the slimy and dishonest eye; + Yet such a one plucks sweets without restraint. + +(THOMAS MIDDLETON: _The Changeling_, II. i. ab. 1623.) + +Middleton carried on the work of fitting blank verse for plausibly +conversational, as distinguished from poetic, effects. Often his lines +are more difficult to scan than Fletcher's, and still less seek +melodiousness for its own sake. Characteristic specimens are verses like +these: + + "I doubt I'm too quick of apprehension now." + "With which one gentleman, far in debt, has courted her." + "To call for, 'fore me, and thou look'st half ill indeed." + + What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut + With diamonds? or to be smothered + With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls? + I know death hath ten thousand several doors + For men to take their exits; and 'tis found + They go on such strange geometrical hinges, + You may open them both ways; any way, for Heaven sake, + So I were out of your whispering. Tell my brothers + That I perceive death, now I am well awake, + Best gift is they can give or I can take.... + --Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength + Must pull down Heaven upon me:-- + Yet stay; Heaven-gates are not so highly arched + As princes' palaces; they that enter there + Must go upon their knees.--Come, violent death, + Serve for mandragora to make me sleep!-- + Go tell my brothers, when I am laid out, + They then may feed in quiet. + +(JOHN WEBSTER: _The Duchess of Malfi_, IV. ii. 1623.) + +"Webster," says Mr. Symonds, "used his metre as the most delicate and +responsive instrument for all varieties of dramatic expression.... +Scansion in the verse of Webster is subordinate to the purpose of the +speaker." (_Blank Verse_, pp. 45-47.) He also calls attention to such +remarkable lines as-- + + "Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young." + "Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out." + + Are you not frightened with the imprecations + And curses of whole families, made wretched + By your sinister practices?-- + --Yes, as rocks are, + When foamy billows split themselves against + Their flinty ribs; or as the moon is moved, + When wolves, with hunger pined, howl at her brightness. + I am of a solid temper, and, like these, + Steer on, a constant course: with mine own sword, + If called into the field, I can make that right + Which fearful enemies murmured at as wrong. + Now, for these other piddling complaints + Breathed out in bitterness; as when they call me + Extortioner, tyrant, cormorant, or intruder + On my poor neighbor's right, or grand incloser + Of what was common, to my private use; + Nay, when my ears are pierced with widows' cries, + And undone orphans wash with tears my threshold, + I only think what 'tis to have my daughter + Right honorable; and 'tis a powerful charm + Makes me insensible of remorse, or pity, + Or the least sting of conscience. + +(PHILIP MASSINGER: _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, IV. i. 1633.) + +Massinger's verse is more regular than that of Fletcher and others, in +the matter of extra final syllables and the like, but free and flexible +in the use of run-on lines and generally progressive movement.[31] It is +an error to assume that there was no good blank verse written in this +period when the drama in general is said to have been in a state of +"decadence." The verse of Ford, for example, is noticeably strong and +restrained (compare the remark of Mr. Symonds, on its "glittering +regularity"). On the other hand, one may see the dramas of Richard Brome +for specimens of the decadent metre at its worst. Brome wrote comedies +both in prose and verse, and there is little difference between the two +forms in his hands. See also the crude and lax verse of some of the +early plays of Dryden, illustrated on p. 234 below. It was verse of this +kind which, as Mr. Gosse observes, justified the introduction of the +heroic couplet in all its strictness. + + All in a moment through the gloom were seen + Ten thousand banners rise into the air + With orient colors waving: with them rose + A forest huge of spears: and thronging helms + Appear'd, and serried shields in thick array + Of depth immeasurable: anon they move + In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood + Of flutes and soft recorders; such as rais'd + To height of noblest temper heroes old + Arming to battle, and in stead of rage + Deliberate valor breath'd, firm and unmov'd + With dread of death to flight or foul retreat, + Nor wanting power to mitigate and swage + With solemn touches, troubl'd thoughts, and chase + Anguish and doubt and fear and sorrow and pain + From mortal or immortal minds.... + ... And now his heart + Distends with pride, and hardening in his strength + Glories: for never since created man + Met such embodied force, as nam'd with these + Could merit more than that small infantry + Warr'd on by cranes: though all the giant brood + Of Phlegra with th' heroic race were joined + That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side + Mixed with auxiliar gods; and what resounds + In fable or romance of Uther's son + Begirt with British and Armoric knights; + And all who since, baptiz'd or infidel, + Jousted in Aspramont or Montalban, + Damasco, or Morocco, or Trebizond, + Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore + When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell + By Fontarabbia. + +(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, Book I. ll. 544-559; 571-587. 1667.) + + With head a while inclined, + And eyes fast fixed, he stood, as one who prayed, + Or some great matter in his mind revolved: + At last, with head erect, thus cried aloud:-- + "Hitherto, Lords, what your commands imposed + I have performed, as reason was, obeying, + Not without wonder or delight beheld; + Now, of my own accord, such other trial + I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater, + As with amaze shall strike all who behold." + This uttered, straining all his nerves he bowed; + As with the force of winds and waters pent + When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars, + With horrible convulsion to and fro + He tugged, he shook, till down they came, and drew + The whole roof after them with burst of thunder + Upon the heads of all who sat beneath. + +(MILTON: _Samson Agonistes_, ll. 1636-1652. 1671.) + +The blank verse of Milton is characterized by greater freedom and +flexibility than that of any earlier poet. The single line practically +ceases to be the unit of the verse, which is divided rather into +metrical paragraphs, or, as some would even call them, stanzas. +Professor Corson quotes an interesting passage from a letter of +Coleridge, giving an account of a conversation in which Wordsworth +expressed his view of this sort of blank verse. "My friend gave his +definition and notion of harmonious verse, that it consisted (the +English iambic blank verse above all) in the apt arrangement of pauses +and cadences, and the sweep of whole paragraphs, + + with many a winding bout + Of linked sweetness long drawn out, + +and not in the even flow, much less in the prominence or antithetic +vigor of single lines, which were indeed injurious to the total effect, +except where they were introduced for some specific purpose." (Corson's +_Primer of English Verse_, p. 218.) In like manner Mr. Symonds says: +"The most sonorous passages begin and end with interrupted lines, +including in one organic structure, periods, parentheses, and paragraphs +of fluent melody.... In these structures there are many pauses which +enable the ear and voice to rest themselves, but none are perfect, none +satisfy the want created by the opening hemistich, until the final and +deliberate close is reached." (_Blank Verse_ pp. 56, 57.) + +In Milton's own prefatory note to _Paradise Lost_, he called his blank +verse "English heroic verse without rime." Rime he spoke of as "the +invention of a barbarous age, ... graced indeed since by the use of some +famous modern poets,"--not least among them, he might have said, being +John Milton himself. He described also the special character of his +verse in saying that "true musical delight ... consists only in apt +numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out +from one verse into another,"--that is, by _enjambement_. "This neglect +then of rime so little is to be taken for a defect, ... that it rather +is to be esteemed an example set, the first in English, of ancient +liberty recovered to heroic poem from the troublesome and modern bondage +of riming."[32] + +It appears from this note that Milton regarded his heroic blank verse as +a different measure from the familiar dramatic blank verse. The latter +he used in _Samson Agonistes_, the verse-structure of which will be seen +to differ from that of _Paradise Lost_; the most salient distinction is +the more frequent use of feminine endings. Mr. Symonds remarks +interestingly on the "difference between Shaksperian and Miltonic, +between dramatic and epical blank verse. The one is simple in +construction and progressive, the other is complex and stationary.... +The one exhibits a thought, in the process of formation, developing +itself from the excited fancy of the speaker. The other presents to us +an image crystallized and perfect in the poet's mind; the one is in +time, the other in space--the one is a growing and the other a complete +organism.... The one, if we may play upon a fancy, resembles Music, and +the other Architecture." (_Blank Verse_, p. 58.) + + Methinks I do not want + That huge long train of fawning followers, + That swept a furlong after me. + 'Tis true I am alone; + So was the godhead, ere he made the world, + And better served himself than served by nature. + And yet I have a soul + Above this humble fate. I could command, + Love to do good, give largely to true merit, + All that a king should do; but though these are not + My province, I have scene enough within + To exercise my virtue. + All that a heart, so fixed as mine, can move, + Is, that my niggard fortune starves my love. + +(DRYDEN: _Marriage ą la Mode_, III. i. 1672.) + + She lay, and leaned her cheek upon her hand, + And cast a look so languishingly sweet, + As if, secure of all beholders' hearts, + Neglecting, she could take them: boys, like Cupids, + Stood fanning, with their painted wings, the winds + That played about her face: but if she smiled, + A darting glory seemed to blaze abroad, + That men's desiring eyes were never wearied, + But hung upon the object. To soft flutes + The silver oars kept time; and while they played, + The hearing gave new pleasure to the sight, + And both to thought. 'Twas heaven, or somewhat more; + +(DRYDEN: _All for Love_, III. i. 1678.) + +The first of these specimens of Dryden's blank verse illustrates the +loose form of it found in many of the comedies, ill distinguished from +prose and used interchangeably with prose, as in the case of the late +Jacobean dramatists. It was with _All for Love_ that Dryden dropped the +use of the rimed couplet in tragedy, and turned his hand toward the +construction of really noble blank verse. This play was professedly an +imitation of Shakspere, and the passage here quoted is a paraphrase of +one in _Antony and Cleopatra_, II. ii. Shakspere's blank verse doubtless +exerted a good influence on the quality of Dryden's. "From this time +on," says Mr. Gosse, "Dryden's blank verse was more severe than any +which had been used, except by Milton, since Ben Jonson." (_Eighteenth +Century Literature_, p. 14.) + + Then hear me, bounteous Heaven! + Pour down your blessings on this beauteous head, + Where everlasting sweets are always springing: + With a continual-giving hand, let peace, + Honor, and safety always hover round her; + Feed her with plenty; let her eyes ne'er see + A sight of sorrow, nor her heart know mourning: + Crown all her days with joy, her nights with rest + Harmless as her own thoughts, and prop her virtue + To bear the loss of one that too much loved; + And comfort her with patience in our parting.... + --Then hear me too, just Heaven! + Pour down your curses on this wretched head, + With never-ceasing vengeance; let despair, + Danger, or infamy, nay, all surround me. + Starve me with wantings; let my eyes ne'er see + A sight of comfort, nor my heart know peace; + But dash my days with sorrow, nights with horrors + Wild as my own thoughts now, and let loose fury + To make me mad enough for what I lose, + If I must lose him--if I must! I will not. + +(THOMAS OTWAY: _Venice Preserved_, V. ii. 1682.) + +This play was one of those marking the return of the serious drama to +blank verse, after the brief domination of the couplet on the stage. +While Otway's verse is not as good as Dryden's best, it is of fairly +even merit, and shows that something had been learned from the practice +of the couplet. + + Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought! + Through what variety of untried being, + Through what new scenes and changes must we pass! + The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me; + But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it. + Here will I hold. If there's a power above us + (And that there is all nature cries aloud + Through all her works), he must delight in virtue; + And that which he delights in must be happy.... + ... The soul, secured in her existence, smiles + At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. + The stars shall fade away, the sun himself + Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, + But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, + Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, + The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds. + +(ADDISON: _Cato_, V. i. ll. 10-18; 25-31. 1713.) + + Tell us, ye dead! will none of you, in pity + To those you left behind, disclose the secret? + Oh! that some courteous ghost would blab it out,-- + What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be. + I've heard that souls departed have sometimes + Forewarn'd men of their death. 'Twas kindly done + To knock, and give the alarum. But what means + This stinted charity? 'Tis but lame kindness + That does its work by halves. Why might you not + Tell us what 'tis to die? Do the strict laws + Of your society forbid your speaking + Upon a point so nice? I'll ask no more: + Sullen, like lamps in sepulchres, your shine + Enlightens but yourselves. Well, 'tis no matter; + A very little time will clear up all + And make us learn'd as you are, and as close. + +(ROBERT BLAIR: _The Grave_. 1743.) + +This poem was one of those connected with the revival of blank verse, +for didactic poetry, near the middle of the eighteenth century. Of +Blair's verse Mr. Saintsbury says that it "is by no means to be +despised. Technically its only fault is the use and abuse of the +redundant syllable. The quality ... is in every respect rather moulded +upon dramatic than upon purely poetical models, and he shows little +trace of imitation either of Milton, or of his contemporary, Thomson." +(Ward's _English Poets_, vol. iii. p. 217.) + + Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends, + At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes + Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day + With a continual flow. The cherished fields + Put on their winter-robe of purest white. + 'Tis brightness all; save where the new snow melts + Along the mazy current. Low the woods + Bow their hoar head; and, ere the languid sun + Faint from the west emits his evening ray, + Earth's universal face, deep-hid and chill, + Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide + The works of man. Drooping, the laborer-ox + Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands + The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven, + Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around + The winnowing store, and claim the little boon + Which Providence assigns them. One alone, + The redbreast, sacred to the household gods, + Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky, + In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves + His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man + His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first + Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights + On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor, + Eyes all the smiling family askance, + And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is-- + Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs + Attract his slender feet. + +(THOMSON: _The Seasons; Winter_. 1726.) + +Thomson's _Seasons_ was undoubtedly the most influential of the poems of +the blank-verse revival of this period. Saintsbury says: "His blank +verse in especial cannot receive too much commendation. With that of +Milton, and that of the present Poet Laureate [Tennyson], it must rank +as one of the chief original models of the metre to be found in English +poetry." (Ward's _English Poets_, vol. iii. p. 169.) + +Other influential poems of the same period, written in blank verse, were +Glover's _Leonidas_ (1737), Young's _Night Thoughts_ (1742-1744), and +Akenside's _Pleasures of the Imagination_ (1744). Much earlier than +these had come the curious poem of John Philips on _Cider_ (1708). +Philips is praised by Thomson as the successor of Milton in some lines +of _Autumn_: + + "Philips, Pomona's bard, the second thou + Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfetter'd verse + With British freedom sing the British song." + +In general, the blank verse of all these poets shows the influence of +the couplet and lacks flexibility. Thus Mr. Symonds says: "The use of +the couplet had unfitted poets for its composition. Their acquired +canons of regularity, when applied to loose and flowing metre, led them +astray.... Hence it followed, that when blank verse began again to be +written, it found itself very much at the point where it had stood +before the appearance of Marlowe. Even Thomson ... wrote stiff and +languid blank verse with monosyllabic terminations and monotonous +cadences--a pedestrian style." (_Blank Verse_, pp. 61, 62.)[33] + + Here unmolested, through whatever sign + The sun proceeds, I wander; neither mist, + Nor freezing sky nor sultry, checking me, + Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy. + Even in the spring and playtime of the year, + That calls the unwonted villager abroad + With all her little ones, a sportive train, + To gather kingcups in the yellow mead, + And prink their hair with daisies, or to pick + A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook, + These shades are all my own. The timorous hare, + Grown so familiar with her frequent guest, + Scarce shuns me; and the stockdove unalarmed + Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends + His long love-ditty for my near approach. + Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm + That age or injury has hollowed deep, + Where on his bed of wool and matted leaves + He has outslept the winter, ventures forth + To frisk awhile, and bask in the warm sun, + The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play. + He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird, + Ascends the neighboring beech; there whisks his brush, + And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud, + With all the prettiness of feigned alarm, + And anger insignificantly fierce. + +(COWPER: _The Task_, book VI. ll. 295-320. 1785.) + +"The blank verse of Cowper's _Task_ is admirably adapted to the theme," +says Professor Corson. "Cowper saw farther than any one before him had +seen, into the secrets of the elaborate music of Milton's blank verse, +and availed himself of those secrets to some extent--to as far an extent +as the simplicity of his themes demanded." (_Primer of English Verse_, +p. 221.) Professor Ward speaks, however, of the "lumbering movement" of +Cowper's blank verse as being in contrast to "the neatness and ease of +his rhymed couplets." (_English Poets_, vol. iii. p. 432.) Cowper prided +himself, not without reason, on the individuality of his blank verse. In +a letter to the Rev. John Newton (Dec. 11, 1784) he said: "Milton's +manner was peculiar. So is Thomson's. He that should write like either +of them, would, in my judgment, deserve the name of a copyist, but not +of a poet.... Blank verse is susceptible of a much greater +diversification of manner than verse in rhyme: and why the modern +writers of it have all thought proper to cast their numbers alike, I +know not." In another letter (to Lady Hesketh, March 20, 1786) Cowper +reveals his careful study of Milton's verse: "When the sense requires +it, or when for the sake of avoiding a monotonous cadence of the lines, +of which there is always danger in so long a work, it shall appear to be +prudent, I still leave a verse behind me that has some uneasiness in its +formation. It is not possible to read _Paradise Lost_, with an ear for +harmony, without being sensible of the great advantage which Milton drew +from such a management.... Uncritical readers find that they perform a +long journey through several hundred pages perhaps without weariness; +they find the numbers harmonious, but are not aware of the art by which +that harmony is brought to pass, much less suspect that a violation of +all harmony on some occasions is the very thing to which they are not a +little indebted for their gratification." + + Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, + Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, + Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene + Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast-- + Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou + That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low + In adoration, upward from thy base + Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, + Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, + To rise before me--Rise, O ever rise, + Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth! + Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills, + Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven, + Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, + And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, + Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God. + +(COLERIDGE: _Hymn before Sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni_, ll. 70-85. +1802.) + + It was a den where no insulting light + Could glimmer on their tears; where their own groans + They felt, but heard not, for the solid roar + Of thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse, + Pouring a constant bulk, uncertain where. + Crag jutting forth to crag, and rocks that seem'd + Ever as if just rising from a sleep, + Forehead to forehead held their monstrous horns; + And thus in thousand hugest phantasies + Made a fit roofing to this nest of woe. + Instead of thrones, hard flint they sat upon, + Couches of rugged stone, and slaty ridge + Stubborn'd with iron. All were not assembled: + Some chain'd in torture, and some wandering. + C[oe]us, and Gyges, and Briareus, + Typhon, and Dolor, and Porphyrion, + With many more, the brawniest in assault, + Were pent in regions of laborious breath; + Dungeon'd in opaque element, to keep + Their clenched teeth still clench'd, and all their limbs + Lock'd up like veins of metal, crampt and screw'd; + Without a motion, save of their big hearts + Heaving in pain, and horribly convuls'd + With sanguine feverous boiling gurge of pulse. + +(KEATS: _Hyperion_, book II. 1820.) + +"In Keats at last," says Mr. Symonds, "we find again that inner music +which is the soul of true blank verse.... His _Hyperion_ is sung, not +written.... Its music is fluid, bound by no external measurement of +feet, but determined by the sense and intonation of the poet's thought, +while like the crotalos of the Athenian flute-player, the decasyllabic +beat maintains an uninterrupted undercurrent of regular pulsations." +(_Blank Verse_, p. 64.) + + I have learned + To look on nature, not as in the hour + Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes + The still, sad music of humanity, + Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power + To chasten and subdue. And I have felt + A presence that disturbs me with the joy + Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime + Of something far more deeply interfused, + Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, + And the round ocean and the living air, + And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: + A motion and a spirit, that impels + All thinking things, all objects of all thought, + And rolls through all things. + +(WORDSWORTH: _Lines Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey_. 1798.) + + Let not high verse, mourning the memory + Of that which is no more, or painting's woe + Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery + Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence, + And all the shows o' the world, are frail and vain + To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade. + It is a woe 'too deep for tears,' when all + Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit, + Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves + Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans, + The passionate tumult of a clinging hope; + But pale despair and cold tranquillity, + Nature's vast frame, the web of human things, + Birth and the grave, that are not as they were. + +(SHELLEY: _Alastor_, ll. 707-720. 1815.) + + The old order changeth, yielding place to new, + And God fulfils himself in many ways, + Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. + Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? + I have lived my life, and that which I have done + May He within himself make pure! but thou, + If thou shouldst never see my face again, + Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer + Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice + Rise like a fountain for me night and day. + For what are men better than sheep or goats + That nourish a blind life within the brain, + If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer + Both for themselves and those who call them friend? + For so the whole round earth is every way + Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. + But now farewell. I am going a long way + With these thou seest--if indeed I go + (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)-- + To the island-valley of Avilion; + Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, + Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies + Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns + And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, + Where I will heal me of my grievous wound. + +(TENNYSON: _Idylls of the King; The Passing of Arthur_. 1869.) + + But that large-moulded man, + His visage all agrin as at a wake, + Made at me thro' the press, and, staggering back + With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came + As comes a pillar of electric cloud, + Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains, + And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes + On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits, + And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth + Reels, and the herdsmen cry; for everything + Gave way before him: only Florian, he + That loved me closer than his own right eye, + Thrust in between; but Arac rode him down: + And Cyril seeing it, push'd against the Prince, + With Psyche's color round his helmet, tough, + Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms; + But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote + And threw him: last I spurr'd; I felt my veins + Stretch with fierce heat; a moment hand to hand, + And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung, + Till I struck out and shouted; the blade glanc'd; + I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth + Flow'd from me; darkness closed me; and I fell. + +(TENNYSON: _The Princess_, v. 1847.) + + She knew me, and acknowledg'd me her heir, + Pray'd me to keep her debts, and keep the Faith; + Then claspt the cross, and pass'd away in peace. + I left her lying still and beautiful, + More beautiful than in life. Why would you vex yourself, + Poor sister? Sir, I swear I have no heart + To be your queen. To reign is restless fence, + Tierce, quart, and trickery. Peace is with the dead. + Her life was winter, for her spring was nipt; + And she loved much: pray God she be forgiven. + +(TENNYSON: _Queen Mary_, V. v. 1875.) + + Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, + That brings our friends up from the underworld, + Sad as the last which reddens over one + That sinks with all we love below the verge; + So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. + + Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns + The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds + To dying ears, when unto dying eyes + The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; + So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. + +(TENNYSON: _The Princess_, iv.; "Tears, Idle Tears." 1847.) + +The blank verse of Tennyson is probably to be regarded as the most +masterly found among modern poets.[34] Its flexibility is almost +infinite, yet never unmelodious. The last of the specimens just quoted +illustrates his use of blank verse for short lyrical poems,--an unusual +and notable achievement. Perhaps only Collins's _Ode to Evening_ can be +compared with his success in this direction, and Collins used a more +elaborate strophe to fill, in part, the place of rime. Of the unrimed +lyrics in _The Princess_, Mr. Symonds says that they "are perfect +specimens of most melodious and complete minstrelsy in words." In the +"Tears, Idle Tears," he goes on to say, the verse "is divided into +periods of five lines, each of which terminates with the words 'days +that are no more.' This recurrence of sound and meaning is a substitute +for rhyme, and suggests rhyme so persuasively that it is impossible to +call the poem mere blank verse." See also the specimens on p. 144 above. + +In the case of both Tennyson and Browning the student should compare the +form of the narrative blank verse on the one hand with that of the +dramatic on the other. Yet in a sense all Browning's blank verse is +dramatic. It is no less flexible than Tennyson's, but (as in most of +Browning's poetry) sacrifices more of melody in adapting itself to the +thought. + + To live, and see her learn, and learn by her, + Out of the low obscure and petty world-- + Or only see one purpose and one will + Evolve themselves i' the world, change wrong to right: + To have to do with nothing but the true, + The good, the eternal--and these, not alone, + In the main current of the general life, + But small experiences of every day, + Concerns of the particular hearth and home: + To learn not only by a comet's rush + But a rose's birth,--not by the grandeur, God, + But the comfort, Christ. All this, how far away! + Mere delectation, meet for a minute's dream!-- + Just as a drudging student trims his lamp, + Opens his Plutarch, puts him in the place + Of Roman, Grecian; draws the patch'd gown close, + Dreams, "Thus should I fight, save or rule the world!" + Then smilingly, contentedly, awakes + To the old solitary nothingness. + So I, from such communion, pass content.-- + O great, just, good God! Miserable me! + +(BROWNING: _The Ring and the Book; Caponsacchi_. 1868.) + +_The Ring and the Book_ Professor Corson calls "the greatest achievement +of the century ... in the effective use of blank verse in the treatment +of a great subject.... Its blank verse, while having a most complex +variety of character, is the most dramatic blank verse since the +Elizabethan era.... One reads it without a sense almost of there being +anything artificial in the construction of the language; ... one gets +the impression that the poet thought and felt spontaneously in blank +verse." (_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 224, 225.) + + This eve's the time, + This eve intense with yon first trembling star + We seem to pant and reach; scarce aught between + The earth that rises and the heaven that bends; + All nature self-abandoned, every tree + Flung as it will, pursuing its own thoughts + And fixed so, every flower and every weed, + No pride, no shame, no victory, no defeat; + All under God, each measured by itself. + These statues round us stand abrupt, distinct, + The strong in strength, the weak in weakness fixed, + The Muse forever wedded to her lyre, + Nymph to her fawn, and Silence to her rose: + See God's approval on his universe! + Let us do so--aspire to live as these + In harmony with truth, ourselves being true! + Take the first way, and let the second come! + +(BROWNING: _In a Balcony_. 1855.) + + The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think? + So, the All-Great were the All-Loving too-- + So, through the thunder comes a human voice + Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here! + Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself! + Thou hast no power nor may'st conceive of mine, + But love I gave thee, with myself to love, + And thou must love me who have died for thee." + The madman saith He said so: it is strange. + +(BROWNING: _Epistle of Karshish_. 1855.) + + God's works--paint any one, and count it crime + To let a truth slip. Don't object, "His works + Are here already; nature is complete: + Suppose you reproduce her--(which you can't) + There's no advantage! you must beat her, then." + For, don't you mark? we're made so that we love + First when we see them painted, things we have passed + Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; + And so they are better, painted--better to us, + Which is the same thing. Art was given for that; + God uses us to help each other so, + Lending our minds out. + +(BROWNING: _Fra Lippo Lippi_. 1855.) + +Of some of Browning's blank verse Mr. Mayor observes: "The extreme +harshness of many of these lines is almost a match for anything in +Surrey, only what in Surrey is helplessness seems the perversity of +strength in Browning.... The Aristophanic vein in Browning is +continually leading him to trample under foot the dignity of verse and +to shock the uninitiated reader by colloquial familiarities, 'thumps +upon the back,' such as the poet Cowper resented; yet no one can be more +impressive than he is when he surrenders himself to the pure spirit of +poetry, and flows onward in a stream of glorious music, such as that in +which Balaustion pictures Athens overwhelmed by an advance of the sea +(_Aristophanes' Apology_, p. 2)." (_Chapters on English Metre_, 2d ed., +pp. 216, 217.) + + But the majestic river floated on, + Out of the mist and hum of that low land, + Into the frosty starlight, and there mov'd, + Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian waste, + Under the solitary moon: he flow'd + Right for the Polar Star, past Orgunje, + Brimming, and bright, and large: then sands begin + To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, + And split his currents; that for many a league + The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along + Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles-- + Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had + In his high mountain cradle in Pamere, + A foil'd, circuitous wanderer:--till at last + The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide + His luminous home of waters opens, bright + And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bath'd stars + Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea. + +(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _Sohrab and Rustum_. 1853.) + + Here is the place: but read it low and sweet. + Put out the lamp! + --The glimmering page is clear. + "Now on that day it chanced that Launcelot, + Thinking to find the King, found Guenevere + Alone; and when he saw her whom he loved, + Whom he had met too late, yet loved the more; + Such was the tumult at his heart that he + Could speak not, for her husband was his friend, + His dear familiar friend: and they two held + No secret from each other until now; + But were like brothers born"--my voice breaks off. + Read you a little on. + --"And Guenevere, + Turning, beheld him suddenly whom she + Loved in her thought, and even from that hour + When first she saw him; for by day, by night, + Though lying by her husband's side, did she + Weary for Launcelot, and knew full well + How ill that love, and yet that love how deep!" + I cannot see--the page is dim: read you. + --"Now they two were alone, yet could not speak; + But heard the beating of each other's hearts. + He knew himself a traitor but to stay, + Yet could not stir: she pale and yet more pale + Grew till she could no more, but smiled on him. + Then when he saw that wished smile, he came + Near to her and still near, and trembled; then + Her lips all trembling kissed." + --Ah, Launcelot! + +(STEPHEN PHILLIPS: _Paolo and Francesca_, III. iii. 1901.) + +The blank verse of Stephen Phillips is the most important--one may say +perhaps the only important--that has been written since Tennyson's; and +it is of especial interest as forming an actual revival of the form on +the English stage. Aside from the dramas, it is seen at its best in +_Marpessa_. Imitating Milton, and at the same time handling the measure +with original force, Mr. Phillips introduces unusual cadences, for which +he has been severely reproached by the critics. Such lines as the +following are typical of these variations from the normal rhythm: + + "O all fresh out of beautiful sunlight." + "Agamemnon bowed over, and from his wheel." + "And to dispel shadows and shadowy fear." + "My bloom faded, and waning light of eyes." + +For a criticism of Mr. Phillips's verse, see Mr. William Archer's _Poets +of the Younger Generation_, pp. 313-327. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[19] One may easily find other instances of the sporadic appearance of +the same measure in the midst of irregular "long lines" or rough +alexandrines and septenaries. Compare, for example, the following, from +early plays in Manly's _Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama_: + +"To be alone, nor very convenyent." "Ye shall not touche yt, for that I +forbede." "But ye shuld be as godes resydent." "And many a chaumbyr thou +xalt have therinne." "In this flood spylt is many a mannys blood." +"Therfore be we now cast in ryght grett care." + +The context of many of these lines shows that they were intended to be +read as four-stress rather than five-stress; but such examples serve to +make clear how easily English rhythm would fall into the decasyllabic +line. + +[20] See also an account of Zarncke's monograph (1865) _Ueber den +fünffussiger Iambus_, in Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, +Postscript. + +[21] See the entire Preface in Chalmers's _English Poets_, vol. viii. p. +32, and in the Appendix to Gosse's _From Shakespeare to Pope_. For an +analysis of Waller's verse with reference to this Preface, see "A Note +upon Waller's Distich," by H. C. Beeching, in the Furnivall _Miscellany_ +(1901), p. 4. + +[22] Beaumont's own verse is of no little interest, and Mr. Gosse, in a +recent letter to the present editor, observes that he finds in Beaumont, +"far more definitely than in George Sandys, the principal precursor of +Waller." + +[23] See also the verses of Oliver Wendell Holmes on _The Strong Heroic +Line_ (in Stedman's _American Anthology_, p. 161), where he says: + +"Nor let the rhymester of the hour deride The straight-backed measure +with its stately stride: It gave the mighty voice of Dryden scope; It +sheathed the steel-bright epigrams of Pope; In Goldsmith's verse it +learned a sweeter strain; Byron and Campbell wore its clanking chain; I +smile to listen while the critic's scorn Flouts the proud purple kings +have nobly worn." + + + +[24] On the verse of Keats in general, see the remarks of Mr. Robert +Bridges in his Introduction to the Muses' Library edition of Keats. + +[25] On Shelley's metres, see Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, 2d +ed., chap. xiv. + +[26] On the verse of Surrey in general, see W. J. Courthope, in his +_History of English Poetry_, vol. ii. pp. 92-96. Mr. Courthope speaks +highly of Surrey as a metrist, in particular attributing to him certain +reforms in the handling of English verse: the attempt to use five +perfect iambic feet to the line, the harmonious placing of the cesura, +the avoidance of rime on weak syllables, the preservation of the accent +on the even-numbered syllables. (To some of these reforms, as has been +indicated, there are not a few exceptions.) In like manner ten Brink +observes that Surrey "is more successful than Wyatt in adapting foreign +rules to the rhythmical accent of the English language, and thus he is +in reality the founder of the New-English metrical system." (_English +Literature_, Kennedy trans., vol. iii. p. 243.) + +On the blank verse of Surrey, see also an article by Prof. O. J. +Emerson, in _Modern Language Notes_, vol. iv. col. 466, and Mayor's +_Chapters on English Metre_, 2d ed., chap. x. + +[27] The edition of 1616 has: + +"One drop of blood will save me: O my Christ! Rend not my heart for +naming of my Christ!" + +and omits the preceding line. + +(See Bullen ed., vol. i. pp. 279, 280.) + +[28] On Marlowe's verse see also Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, 2d +ed., chap. x. + +[29] On the technical problems of Shakspere's verse, see Fleay's +_Shakspere Manual_; Abbott's _Shakespearean Grammar_; G. Browne's _Notes +on Shakspere's Versification_; and Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_. + +[30] "In a play of 2500 lines Massinger might possibly have as many as +1200 double or triple endings, Shakspere in his last period might have +as many as 850, while Fletcher would normally have at least 1700, and +might not improbably give as many as 2000." (G. C. Macaulay, in _Francis +Beaumont_, pp. 43, 44. See the entire passage on Fletcher's metre as a +test of authorship. Mr. Macaulay also remarks interestingly that +Fletcher's metrical style is an outgrowth of his general use of the +loose or disjointed, as opposed to the periodic or rounded, style of +speech. To this "Shakspere worked his way slowly," while Fletcher "seems +to have at once and naturally adopted" it.) See also Fleay's +_Shakespeare Manual_, p. 153. + +[31] On Massinger's verse see also Fleay's _Shakespeare Manual_, p. 154. + +[32] On Milton's verse, see, besides the entire third essay in Mr. +Symonds's book, Masson's edition of Milton, vol. iii. pp. 107-133; +Robert Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_; Mayor's _Chapters on English +Metre_, 2d ed., pp. 71-77 and 96-105; chapter xii. of Corson's _Primer +of English Verse_; and a passage in De Quincey's essay on "Milton v. +Southey and Landor," in his works, ed. Masson, vol. xi. pp. 463 ff. Says +De Quincey: "You might as well tax Mozart with harshness in the divinest +passages of _Don Giovanni_ as Milton with any such offence against +metrical science. Be assured it is yourself that do not read with +understanding, not Milton that by possibility can be found deaf to the +demands of perfect harmony." + +[33] Aaron Hill (1685-1750), an admirer of Thomson, wrote a "Poem in +Praise of Blank Verse," opening: + +"Up from Rhyme's poppied vale! and ride the storm That thunders in blank +verse!" + +On the other hand, there were not wanting protestants against the form, +like Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith (see above, p. 205). Robert Lloyd +(1733-1764) wrote: + +"Some Milton-mad (an affectation Glean'd up from college-education) +Approve no verse, but that which flows In epithetic measur'd prose;... +the metre which they call Blank, classic blank, their all in all." + +(Quoted in Perry's _English Literature in the Eighteenth Century_, p. +385.) + +[34] On its analysis, see Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, 2d ed., +chap. xiii. + + + + +III. SIX-STRESS AND SEVEN-STRESS VERSE + + +A.--THE ALEXANDRINE (IAMBIC HEXAMETER) + +The alexandrine was introduced into English from French verse, as early +(according to Schipper) as the early part of the thirteenth century. +Early poems in this metre alone, however, are almost wholly wanting, if +they ever existed. The early alexandrines usually appear in conjunction +with the septenary (seven-stress verse). The French alexandrine has +almost always been characterized by a regular and strongly marked medial +cesura, and this very commonly appears in the English form, but by no +means universally. + +The French alexandrine is of uncertain origin. Kawczynski would trace it +to the classical Asclepiadean verse, as in + + "Męcenas atavis edite regibus," + +which at least has the requisite number of syllables. It appeared in +France as early as the first part of the twelfth century, and in +four-line stanzas was the favorite for didactic poetry as late as the +beginning of the fifteenth century; otherwise, in the close of the +fourteenth century, it was supplanted by the decasyllabic. In the middle +of the sixteenth century it again won precedence over the +decasyllabic--in part through the influence of Ronsard--and is of course +the standard measure of modern French poetry. The name "alexandrine" +seems to have been applied in the fifteenth century, from the familiar +use of the measure in the Alexander romance. The earliest known mention +of the term is in Herenc's _Doctrinal de la secunde Retorique_. (See +Stengel's article in Gröber's _Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie_, +from which these statements are taken.) + +The French alexandrine is in a sense a quite different measure from the +English form. Accent is an element of so comparatively slight importance +in the French language and French rhythm, that its place seems partly to +be filled by regularity of cesural pause and regularity in the counting +of syllables. The French alexandrine, therefore, may often be described +as a verse of twelve syllables, divided into two equal parts by a pause, +with marked accents on the sixth and twelfth syllables, but with the +other accents irregularly disposed. Often it seems to an English reader +to have an anapestic effect, and to be best described as anapestic +tetrameter. In English, however, while the regularity in the number of +syllables is followed, and very commonly the medial pause, there is also +observed the regularity of alternate accents which gives the verse the +characteristic form indicated by the term "six-stress." + + 'Ye nuten hwat ye biddež, žat of gode nabbež imone; + for al eure bileve is on stokke ožer on stone: + ac žeo, žat god iknowež, heo wyten myd iwisse, + žat hele is icume to monne of folke judaysse.' + 'Loverd,' heo seyde, 'nu quiddež men, žat cumen is Messyas, + že king, žat wurž and nužen is and ever yete was. + hwenne he cumež, he wyle us alle ryhtleche; + for he nule ne he ne con nenne mon bipeche.' + +(_De Muliere Samaritana_, ll. 51-58. In Morris's _Old English +Miscellany_, p. 84; and Zupitza's _Alt- und Mittelenglisches +Übungsbuch_, p. 83. ab. 1250.) + +This early poem illustrates the irregular use of alexandrines near the +time of their introduction into English. The poem opens with a +septenary-- + + "Tho Iesu Crist an eorthe was, mylde weren his dede;" + +and septenaries and alexandrines are used interchangeably. Dr. Triggs +says, in his notes on the poem in McLean's edition of Zupitza's +_Übungsbuch_, that lines 5, 6, 9-18, 25-28, 39, 40, 43, 44, 49-54, 57, +58, 63, 64, 66, 67, 70-72, 74, 75 are alexandrines. (Introduction, p. +lxii.) The English tendency toward indifference to regularity in the +counting of syllables is also noticeable. In the same way the early poem +called "The Passion of our Lord" (ed. Morris, E.E.T.S. xlix. 37), which +is thought from the heading--"_Ici cumence la passyun ihesu crist en +engleys_"--to be a translation from the French, shows a preponderance of +alexandrines, although it opens in septenary. See also such poems as the +"Death," "Doomsday," etc., in the _Old English Miscellany_. The +alexandrine was easily confused by the Middle English writers, not only +with the septenary, but with the native "long line," and it is often +difficult to say just what rhythm was in the writer's mind. Thus a line +like + + "Be stille, leve soster, thin herte the to-breke," + +from the _Judas_, may be regarded either as an alexandrine or a long +four-stress line. + + In Westsex was žan a kyng, his [name] was Sir Ine. + Whan he wist of the Bretons, of werre ne wild he fine. + Messengers he sent thorghout Inglond + Unto že Inglis kynges, žat had it in žer hond, + And teld how že Bretons, men of mykelle myght, + Že lond wild wynne ageyn žorh force and fyght. + Hastisly ilkone že kynges com fulle suythe, + Bolde men and stoute, žer hardinesse to kiže. + In a grete Daneis felde žer žei samned alle, + Žat ever sižen hiderward Kampedene men kalle. + +(ROBERT MANNING of Brunne: _Chronicle of Peter de Langtoft_. Hearne ed., +vol. i. p. 2. ab. 1325.) + +This poem is one of the very few representatives of distinctly +alexandrine verse in Middle English. The original poem being in +alexandrines, Manning followed it closely. In the first part, however, +he put rimes only at the ends of the verses, whereas later he introduced +internal rime, thus resolving the verse into short lines of three +stresses. Schipper observes that the four following lines are each +representative of a familiar type of the French alexandrine: + + "Messengers he sent žorghout Inglond + Unto the Inglis kynges, žat had it in žer hond." + + "After Ethelbert com Elfrith his brožer, + Žat was Egbrihtes sonne and [gh]it žer was an ožer." + +(_Englische Metrik_, vol. i. p. 252.) + +The so-called _Legend-Cycle_ is also marked by a sort of alexandrine +couplet. (See ten Brink's _English Literature_, Kennedy trans., vol. i. +p. 274.) + + O! think I, had I wings like to the simple dove, + This peril might I fly, and seek some place of rest + In wilder woods, where I might dwell far from these cares. + What speedy way of wing my plaints should they lay on, + To 'scape the stormy blast that threatened is to me? + Rein those unbridled tongues! break that conjured league! + For I decipher'd have amid our town the strife. + + (EARL OF SURREY: _Psalm. LV_. ab. 1540.) + +This is a not very successful experiment in unrimed alexandrines. Others +of Surrey's Psalms are in rimed "Poulter's Measure" (alexandrines +alternating with septenary). + + O, let me breathe a while, and hold thy heavy hand, + My grievous faults with Shame enough I understand. + Take ruth and pity on my plaint, or else I am forlorn; + Let not the world continue thus in laughing me to scorn. + Madam, if I be he, to whom you once were bent, + With whom to spend your time sometime you were content: + If any hope be left, if any recompense + Be able to recover this forepassed negligence, + O, help me now, poor wretch, in this most heavy plight, + And furnish me yet once again with Tediousness to fight. + +(_The Marriage of Wit and Science_, V. ii., in Dodsley's _Old English +Plays_, ed. Hazlitt, vol. ii. p. 386. ab. 1570.) + +In this play the alexandrine is the dominant measure, though mingled +with occasional septenaries still. (See Schipper, vol. i. p. 256.) + + While favor fed my hope, delight with hope was brought, + Thought waited on delight, and speech did follow thought; + Then grew my tongue and pen records unto thy glory, + I thought all words were lost that were not spent of thee, + I thought each place was dark but where thy lights would be, + And all ears worse than deaf that heard not out thy story. + +(SIDNEY: _Astrophel and Stella_, Fifth Song. [In stanzas _aabccb_.] ab. +1580.) + +See also Sidney's sonnet in alexandrines, p. 272, below. + + Of Albion's glorious isle the wonders whilst I write, + The sundry varying soils, the pleasures infinite, + (Where heat kills not the cold, nor cold expels the heat, + The calms too mildly small, nor winds too roughly great, + Nor night doth hinder day, nor day the night doth wrong, + The summer not too short, the winter not too long) + What help shall I invoke to aid my Muse the while? + Thou Genius of the place (this most renowned isle) + Which livedst long before the all-earth-drowning flood, + Whilst yet the world did swarm with her gigantic brood, + Go thou before me still thy circling shores about, + And in this wand'ring maze help to conduct me out. + +(DRAYTON: _Polyolbion_, ll. 1-12. 1613.) + +This is by all odds the longest Modern English poem in alexandrines, and +while the verse is often agreeable, it illustrates the unfitness of the +measure--to English ears--for long, continuous poems. + + The dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink; + I heard a voice; it said, "Drink, pretty creature, drink!" + And looking o'er the hedge, before me I espied + A snow-white mountain-lamb with a Maiden at its side. + +(WORDSWORTH: _The Pet Lamb_. 1800.) + + If hunger, proverbs say, allures the wolf from wood, + Much more the bird must dare a dash at something good: + Must snatch up, bear away in beak, the trifle-treasure + To wood and wild, and then--O how enjoy at leisure! + Was never tree-built nest, you climbed and took, of bird, + (Rare city-visitant, talked of, scarce seen or heard,) + But, when you would dissect the structure, piece by piece, + You found, enwreathed amid the country-product--fleece + And feather, thistle-fluffs and bearded windlestraws-- + Some shred of foreign silk, unravelling of gauze, + Bit, maybe, of brocade, mid fur and blow-bell-down: + Filched plainly from mankind, dear tribute paid by town, + Which proved how oft the bird had plucked up heart of grace, + Swooped down at waif and stray, made furtively our place + Pay tax and toll, then borne the booty to enrich + Her paradise i' the waste; the how and why of which, + That is the secret, there the mystery that stings! + +(BROWNING: _Fifine at the Fair_, ix. 1872.) + +Browning has made of the alexandrine in this poem an almost new measure, +hardly more like the alexandrine couplet of earlier days than the +measure of _Sordello_ is like the "heroic couplet" proper. In general, +the modern use of the alexandrine is characterized by increased freedom +in the placing of the cesura. It is also distinguished from the early +French and Middle English forms by the fact that the cesura and the +ending are commonly masculine. + +By far the most frequent use of the alexandrine in English poetry is as +a variant from the five-stress line. For instances of this, see the +section on the Spenserian stanza, pp. 102-108, above, and Corson's +chapters on the Spenserian stanza and its influence, in his _Primer of +English Verse_. In connection with Dryden's use of the alexandrine as a +variant from the heroic couplet, Mr. Saintsbury makes some interesting +observations on the measure: "The metre, though a well-known English +critic has maltreated it of late, is a very fine one; and some of +Dryden's own lines are unmatched examples of that 'energy divine' which +has been attributed to him. In an essay on the alexandrine in English +poetry, which yet remains to be written, and which would be not the +least valuable of contributions to poetical criticism, this use of the +verse would have to be considered, as well as its regular recurrent +employment at the close of the Spenserian stanza, and its continuous +use.... An examination of the _Polyolbion_ and of _Fifine at the Fair_, +side by side, would, I think, reveal capacities, somewhat unexpected +even in this form of arrangement. But so far as the occasional +alexandrine is concerned, it is not a hyperbole to say that a number, +out of all proportion, of the best lines in English poetry may be found +in the closing verses of the Spenserian stave as used by Spenser +himself, by Shelley, and by the present Laureate, and in the occasional +alexandrines of Dryden. The only thing to be said against this latter +use is, that it demands a very skilful ear and hand to adjust the +cadence." (_Life of Dryden_, in Men of Letters Series, pp. 172, 173.) + + +B.--THE SEPTENARY + +The septenary, or seven-stress verse (sometimes called the +_septenarius_, from the Latin form of the word) was a familiar measure +of medięval Latin poetry. There it was more commonly trochaic than +iambic, as in the famous drinking song of the Goliards: + + "Meum est propositum in taberna mori: + Vinum sit appositum morientis ori, + Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori, + 'Deus sit propitius huic potatori!'" + +(See the "Confessio Goliae," in _Latin Poems attributed to Walter +Mapes_, ed. Wright, p. 71.) + +Another form of the measure is illustrated by some verses quoted by +Schipper: + + "Fortunae rota volvitur, descendo minoratus, + Alter in altum tollitur, nimis exaltatus." + +In English, naturally enough, the measure always tended to be iambic. In +both Latin and English there was considerable freedom as to the number +of light syllables. It will be noticed that in the specimens just quoted +from the Latin there is rime not only between the ends of the verses but +between the syllables just preceding the cesura. Where this was the case +there was a tendency toward the breaking up of the verse into a quatrain +of verses in four and three stresses, riming _abab_; such septenaries, +indeed, were written at pleasure either in couplets or quatrains. We +shall see the same phenomena in the English forms of the measure. But +the seven-stress rhythm is not easily lost or mistaken, in whatever form +it appears, and has a certain charm which at one time appealed very +widely to metrical taste. + +The earliest appearance of the septenary in English is in the _Poema +Morale_, dated about 1170 by Zupitza, by others somewhat later. For a +specimen of this, see p. 127, above. Here there is only end-rime, and +the individuality of the long line is well preserved. There is some +freedom, however, as to the number of light syllables, and some +variation between the iambic and trochaic rhythm. + + Blessed beo thu, lavedi, ful of hovene blisse, + Swete flur of parais, moder of miltenisse; + Thu praye Jhesu Crist thi sone that he me i-wisse, + Thare a londe al swo ihc beo, that he me ne i-misse. + +(_Hymn to the Virgin_, in Mätzner's _Altenglische Sprachproben_, vol. i. +p. 54.) + +Mätzner prints this poem in short lines of four and three stresses, the +cesura making such a division natural enough. The next specimen is also +frequently printed with the same division. + + Žiss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum, forr ži žatt Orrm itt wrohhte, + annd itt iss wrohht off quažžrigan, off goddspellbokess fowwre, + off quažžrigan Amminadab, off Cristess goddspellbokess; + forr Crist ma[gh][gh] žurh Amminadab rihht full wel ben bitacnedd; + forr Crist toc dęž o rodetre all wižž hiss fulle wille; + annd forrži žatt Amminadab o latin spęche iss nemmnedd + o latin boc spontaneus annd onn ennglisshe spęche + žatt weppmann, žatt summ dede dož wižž all hiss fulle wille, + forži ma[gh][gh] Crist full wel ben žurrh Amminadab bitacnedd. + +(_The Ormulum_, ll. 1-9. ab. 1200.) + +In this specimen we have the septenary without rime, a rare form. Orm's +septenaries are also the most regular of the Middle English period, +preserving an almost painful accuracy throughout the 20,000 extant +lines of the poem. In general the measure appears in this period in +combination with alexandrines and other measures, and with much +irregularity. Like the alexandrine, it was sometimes confused with the +long four-stress line. In the well-known poem called "A Little Soth +Sermun" the first line is an unquestionable septenary ("Herkneth alle +gode men and stylle sitteth a-dun"), but presently we find verse of six +stresses, and even short four-stress couplets. + + Torne we a[gh]en in tour sawes, and speke we atte frome + of erld Olyver and his felawes, žat Sarazyns habbež ynome. + že Sarazyns prykaž faste away, as harde as žay may hye, + and ledež wiž hymen žat riche pray, že flour of chyvalrye. + +(_Sir Fyrumbras_, ll. 1104-1107. In Zupitza'S _Alt- und Mittelenglisches +Übungsbuch_, p. 107. ab. 1380.) + +In this specimen--from a popular romance--we have the use of cesural +rime as well as end-rime, just as in the Latin specimens cited above. + + I tell of things done long ago, + Of many things in few: + And chiefly of this clime of ours + The accidents pursue. + Thou high director of the same, + Assist mine artless pen, + To write the gests of Britons stout, + And acts of English men. + +(WILLIAM WARNER: _Albion's England_, ll. 1-8. 1586.) + +Here we have the measure in its "resolved" or divided form, printed as +short four-stress and three-stress lines, although with rime only at the +seventh stress. Compare the "common metre" of modern hymns: + + "Must I be carried to the skies + On flowery beds of ease, + While others fought to win the prize + And sailed through bloody seas?" + + As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind, + And stars shine clear, to whose sweet beams, high prospects, and the + brows + Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themselves for shows, + And even the lowly valleys joy to glitter in their sight, + When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light, + And all the signs in heaven are seen, that glad the shepherd's heart; + So many fires disclosed their beams, made by the Trojan part, + Before the face of Ilion, and her bright turrets show'd. + A thousand courts of guard kept fires, and every guard allow'd + Fifty stout men, by whom their horse eat oats and hard white corn, + And all did wishfully expect the silver-throned morn. + +(CHAPMAN: _Iliad_, book VIII. 1610.) + +Chapman's translation of _Iliad_ is the longest modern English poem in +septenaries. Professor Newman, however (whose translation gave rise to +Matthew Arnold's lectures _On Translating Homer_), used the same measure +unrimed and with feminine endings; thus,-- + + "He spake, and yelling, held afront the single-hoofed horses." + +Arnold objected to Chapman's measure that "it has a jogging rapidity +rather than a flowing rapidity, and a movement familiar rather than +nobly easy." + + Rejoice, oh, English hearts, rejoice! rejoice, oh, lovers dear! + Rejoice, oh, city, town and country! rejoice, eke every shire! + For now the fragrant flowers do spring and sprout in seemly sort, + The little birds do sit and sing, the lambs do make fine sport; + And now the birchen-tree doth bud, that makes the schoolboy cry; + The morris rings, while hobby-horse doth foot it feateously; + The lords and ladies now abroad, for their disport and play, + Do kiss sometimes upon the grass, and sometimes in the hay. + +(BEAUMONT: _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, IV. v. ab. 1610.) + +Here the septenary is introduced in the May-day song of Ralph, the +London apprentice, doubtless because of its popularity for such +unliterary verse. + + In somer, when the shawes be sheyne, + And leves be large and long, + Hit is full mery in feyre foreste + To here the foulys song. + +(_Ballad of Robin Hood and the Monk_, in Gummere's _English Ballads_, p. +77.) + + It is an ancient Mariner, + And he stoppeth one of three. + "By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, + Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?" ... + + ... He prayeth best, who loveth best + All things both great and small; + For the dear God who loveth us, + He made and loveth all. + +(COLERIDGE: _The Ancient Mariner_, ll. 1-4, 614-617. 1798.) + +These specimens show the ballad stanza, which is made of a sort of +septenary resolved into short lines of four and three accents. It is +often assumed that the measure was derived from the Latin septenary; but +owing to the difficulty of supposing that a foreign metre should have +been adopted for the most popular of all forms of poetry, some scholars +prefer to think that the ballad stanza of this form is the same as that +in which all lines have four accents (see specimen on p. 157, above), +the last accent of the second and fourth lines having dropped off by +natural processes. On the ballad stanzas in general, see Gummere's +_English Ballads_, Appendix II. p. 303. Compare with the present +specimens the metre of Cowper's _John Gilpin_. + + That cross he now was fastening there, as the surest power and best + For supplying all deficiencies, all wants of the rude nest + In which, from burning heat, or tempest driving far and wide, + The innocent boy, else shelterless, his lonely head must hide. + +(WORDSWORTH: _The Norman Boy_. 1842.) + +This is a rare instance of the use of the long septenary in +nineteenth-century poetry. Certainly in Wordsworth's verses the metrical +effect cannot be called happy; the measure is made especially clumsy by +the introduction of hypermetrical light syllables. In the succeeding +specimen the same measure is used with feminine ending. + + O poets, from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless singing! + O Christians, at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was clinging! + O men, this man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling, + Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while ye were smiling! + +(ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING: _Cowper's Grave_. 1833.) + + +C.--THE "POULTER'S MEASURE." + +In the Elizabethan age the alexandrine and the septenary were each used +chiefly in conjunction with the other, in alternation of six-stress and +seven-stress verses. The name commonly applied to the combination is +taken from Gascoigne's _Notes of Instruction_ (1575), where he says: +"The commonest sort of verse which we use now adayes (viz. the long +verse of twelve and fourtene sillables) I know not certainly howe to +name it, unlesse I should say that it doth consist of Poulters measure, +which giveth xii. for one dozen and xiiii. for another." (Arber's +Reprint, p. 39.) It strikes the reader with surprise to find the measure +thus spoken of as "the commonest sort of verse," but a glance at any of +the early Elizabethan anthologies will show the justness of Gascoigne's +words. Yet the measure, while exceedingly popular, seems to have been +instinctively avoided by the best poets (after the days of Surrey and +Sidney); hence it is unfamiliar to modern readers. + +The use of alexandrines and septenaries together, we have seen, was +common even in the Middle English period, but not in regular +alternation. The Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester (about 1300) mingles +both measures, but with alexandrines predominating. In some of the early +Mystery Plays they are found in alternation; for example, where Jacob, +in one of the Towneley plays, is relating his hunger to Esau: + + "Meat or drink, save my life, or bread, I reck not what: + If there be nothing else, some man give me a cat." + +See also the specimen from _The Marriage of Wit and Science_, p. 256, +above. + +Schipper says that he does not know who first brought the two measures +together in alternate use for lyrical poetry. Guest says that the +Poulter's Measure came into fashion soon after 1500 (_History of English +Rhythms_), but gives no examples so early. The history of the measure +should be further investigated. + +After the Elizabethan period the Poulter's Measure practically +disappears from English poetry. A curious suggestion of it may be found +in a little poem of Leigh Hunt's (_Wealth and Womanhood_), cited by +Schipper, who calls the verse "Poulter's Measure in trochaics": + + "Have you seen an heiress in her jewels mounted, + Till her wealth and she seemed one, and she might be counted?" + + Laid in my quiet bed, in study as I were, + I saw within my troubled head a heap of thoughts appear: + And every thought did show so lively in mine eyes, + That now I sighed, and then I smiled, as cause of thought doth rise. + +(EARL OF SURREY: _How no Age is Content with his Own Estate_, in +Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets_. Arber's Reprint, p. 30. Pub. 1557.) + + Her forehead jacinth like, her cheeks of opal hue, + Her twinkling eyes bedeck'd with pearl, her lips as sapphire blue; + Her hair like crapal stone, her mouth O heavenly wide; + Her skin like burnish'd gold, her hands like silver ore untried. + +(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Mopsa_, in the _Arcadia_. ab. 1580.) + + + + +IV. THE SONNET + + +The sonnet is an Italian verse-form, in fourteen five-stress lines, +introduced into England at the time of the Italian literary influences +of the sixteenth century. Almost from the first, the English sonnet has +been divided into two classes: one based on more or less strict +imitation of the structure of the Italian form, and variously called the +Italian, the regular, or the legitimate sonnet; the other taking the +Italian sonnet as the point of departure, but constructed according to +more familiar English rime-schemes, and commonly called the Shaksperian +or the English sonnet. + +The origin of the sonnet in southern Europe is a matter of some +disagreement. Some scholars trace it to the _canzone_ strophe (_e.g._ +Gaspary, in his _Geschichte der Italienischen Literatur_), others to the +combination of the _ottava rima_ with a six-line stanza (Welti, in his +_Geschichte des Sonettes in der deutschen Dichtung_), others to +Provenēal and even German influence. (See Schipper, vol. ii. pp. 835 +ff., and Lentzner's _Das Sonett und seine Gestaltung in der englischen +Dichtung_, p. 1.) It seems first to have been a recognized form in Italy +in the latter part of the thirteenth century (see Tomlinson's _The +Sonnet: its Origin, Structure, and Place in Poetry_); and was made +glorious by Dante, Michael Angelo, Tasso, Ariosto, and--above +all--Petrarch. On the different forms of the Italian sonnet, see +Tomlinson's essay, just cited. + +"The object of the regular or legitimate Italian sonnet," says Mr. +Tomlinson, "is to express one, and only one, idea, mood, sentiment, or +proposition, and this must be introduced ... in the first quatrain, and +so far explained in the second, that this may end in a full point; while +the office of the first tercet is to prepare the leading idea of the +quatrains for the conclusion, which conclusion is to be perfectly +carried out in the second tercet, so that it may contain the fundamental +idea of the poem." (pp. 27, 28.) + +The Italian form is always marked by the division into octave and +sestet, although English usage has been very irregular in marking this +division by a full pause. The octave is based on only two rimes +(_abbaabba_); the sestet on either two or three, the most common +arrangements being _cdecde, cdcdcd, cdedce_, and _cddcee_. + +With regard to the pause at the point of division Lentzner says: "It +should not be a full pause, because this would produce the effect of a +gap or breaking-off, ...--not like the speaker who has reached the end +of what he has to say, but like one who reflects on what has already +been said, and then takes fresh breath to complete his theme."[35] + +Most critics prefer those forms of sestet which avoid a final riming +couplet. This Mr. Courthope explains as follows: "The reason for the +avoidance of the couplet in the second portion of the sonnet is, I +think, plain. In the first eight lines the thought ascends to a climax; +this part of the sonnet may be said to contain the premises of the +poetical syllogism. In the last six lines the idea descends to a +conclusion, and as the two divisions are of unequal length it is +necessary that the lesser should be the more individualised. Hence +while, in the first part, the expression of the thought is massed and +condensed by reduplications of sound, and the general movement is +limited by quatrains; in the second part the clauses are separated by +the alternation of the rhymes, the movement is measured by tercets, and +the whole weight of the rhetorical emphasis is thrown into the last +line." (_History of English Poetry_, vol. ii. p. 91.) + +The sonnet has remained, since its introduction into English poetry, a +favorite form among poets and critics, but has never become genuinely +popular. It is suited, of course, only for the expression of dignified +and careful thinking; and the difficulty of giving it unity and +confining the content to the precise limit of fourteen lines has made +perfect success in the form a rare attainment. Furthermore, the +complexity of the rime-scheme--the distance at which one rime responds +to another--makes the appreciation of the form a matter of some +delicacy, less suited to the prevailingly simple taste of the English +ear than to the more complex taste of the Italian. + +The following specimens are classified only in the two principal groups +of the Italian and the English form. The common test of the Italian form +is that the rime-scheme shall separate the first eight lines from the +rest, these eight lines ordinarily showing "inclusive rime" of the +_abba_ type; the test of the English form is that the rime-scheme shall +separate the first twelve lines from the last two, the twelve lines +ordinarily showing alternate rime. + +Schipper groups English sonnets in five classes: (1) the strict Italian +form, with pause between octave and sestet; (2) the Surrey-Shakspere or +English form; (3) the Spenserian form; (4) the Miltonic form, with +correct rime-arrangement but general neglect of the bipartite structure; +(5) the modern Italian or Wordsworthian form, following the regular +rime-scheme in general, but often with a third or even a fourth rime in +the octave, and treated as a single strophe. (_Englische Metrik_, vol. +ii. p. 878.)[36] + + +A.--THE REGULAR (ITALIAN) SONNET + +In this group the student of the subject should note the detailed +variations of the rime-scheme of the sestet, and the varying practice of +the poets as to the division between octave and sestet. + +In view of the connection of Petrarch's sonnets with Wyatt's +introduction of the form into England, the first of them is reproduced +as a typical specimen of the strict Italian form. + + Voi ch' ascoltate in rime sparse il suono + Di quei sospiri ond' io nudriva 'l core + In su 'l mio primo giovenile errore, + Quand' era in parte altr' uom da quel ch' i' sono, + Del vario stile, in ch' io piango e ragiono + Fra le vane speranze e 'l van dolore, + Ove sia chi per prova intenda amore + Spero trovar pietą, non che perdono. + Ma ben veggi' or sķ come al popol tutto + Favola fui gran tempo, onde sovente + Di me medesmo meco mi vergogno; + E del mio vaneggiar vergogna č 'l frutto, + E 'l pentirsi, e 'l conoscer chiaramente + Che quanto piace al mondo č breve sogno. + +(PETRARCA: _Sonetto_ i.) + + The longe love that in my thought I harber, + And in my heart doth kepe his residence, + Into my face preaseth with bold pretence, + And there campeth, displaying his banner. + She that me learns to love, and to suffer, + And willes that my trust, and lustes negligence + Be reined by reason, shame, and reverence, + With his hardinesse takes displeasure. + Wherwith love to the hartes forest he fleeth, + Leavyng his enterprise with paine and crye, + And there him hideth and not appeareth. + What may I do? when my maister feareth, + But in the field with him to live and dye, + For good is the life, endyng faithfully. + +(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _The lover hideth his desire_, etc., in Tottel's +_Songs and Sonnets_, p. 33. pub. 1557.) + +It was Wyatt who introduced the sonnet into England. Thirty-one of his +sonnets were published in Tottel's Miscellany, of which about a third +are said to be translations or paraphrases of Petrarch's. Wyatt +followed, of course, the regular Italian structure, but used +unhesitatingly the form of sestet with the concluding couplet +(_cddcee_). On this point Mr. Courthope says: "Wyatt was evidently +unaware of the secret principle underlying the extremely complex +structure of the Italian sonnet; ... and being unfortunately misled by +his admiration for the _Strambotti_ of Serafino, which sum up the +conclusion in a couplet, he endeavored to construct his sonnets on the +same principle, thereby leading all sonnet writers before Milton on a +wrong path." (_History of English Poetry_, vol. ii. p. 91.) + + Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, + That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,-- + Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, + Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,-- + I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe; + Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain, + Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow + Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burn'd brain. + But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay; + Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows, + And others' feet still seem'd but strangers in my way. + Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, + Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,-- + 'Fool,' said my Muse to me, 'Look in thy heart, and write.' + +(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Astrophel and Stella_, i. ab. 1580.) + + With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies! + How silently, and with how wan a face! + What, may it be that e'en in heavenly place + That busy archer his sharp arrows tries! + Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes + Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case, + I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace, + To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. + Then, e'en of fellowship, O Moon, tell me, + Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit? + Are beauties there as proud as here they be? + Do they above love to be loved, and yet + Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? + Do they call virtue, there, ungratefulness? + +(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Astrophel and Stella_, xxxi. ab. 1580.) + +Sidney's favorite form for the sonnet sestet was that shown in these +specimens (_cdcdee_), a form that suggests the influence of the Surrey +or English sonnet rather than the Italian. The first of the sonnets is +of course exceptional in being written in alexandrines, but is among the +finest in the sequence. See also Sidney's sonnet of the English type, p. +291, below. + +The _Astrophel and Stella_ (containing 110 sonnets) is the earliest of +the great sonnet-sequences or sonnet-cycles of English poetry, those of +Spenser, Shakspere, Rossetti, and Mrs. Browning being later +representatives. In the Elizabethan age the fashion of writing sonnets, +and sonnet-sequences in particular, was at its height, especially in the +last decade of the century (1590-1600). On this subject, see the +Introduction to Professor Schelling's _Elizabethan Lyrics_, in the +Athenęum Press Series, and Mr. Sidney Lee's _Life of Shakspere_. Other +noteworthy sonnet-sequences besides those of Sidney, Spenser, and +Shakspere were Constable's _Diana_, Daniel's _Delia_, Lodge's _Phyllis_, +Watson's _Tears of Fancy_, Barnes's _Parthenophil_, Giles Fletcher's +_Lycia_, and Drayton's _Idea_,--all published in the years 1592-1594. A +now forgotten poet by the name of Lok produced more than four hundred +sonnets, proving himself an Elizabethan rival to Wordsworth. + + I know that all beneath the moon decays, + And what by mortals in this world is brought + In time's great periods shall return to naught; + That fairest states have fatal nights and days. + I know how all the Muse's heavenly lays, + With toil of spirit which are so dearly bought, + As idle sounds, of few or none are sought; + And that naught lighter is than airy praise. + I know frail beauty like the purple flower, + To which one morn oft birth and death affords; + That love a jarring is of minds' accords, + Where sense and will invassall reason's power. + Know what I list, this all can not me move, + But that, O me! I both must write and love. + +(WILLIAM DRUMMOND of Hawthornden: _Sense of the Fragility of All +Things_, etc. 1616.) + +Drummond was a sonneteer of great skill, and used many original +combinations of rime-schemes,--some forty in all,--yet usually +approximating to the Italian type. Leigh Hunt says: "Drummond's sonnets, +for the most part, are not only of the legitimate order, but they are +the earliest in the language that breathe what may be called the habit +of mind observable in the best Italian writers of sonnets; that is to +say, a mixture of tenderness, elegance, love of country, seclusion, and +conscious sweetness of verse." (Essay on the Sonnet, in _The Book of the +Sonnet_, vol. i. pp. 78, 79.) + + Death, be not proud, though some have called thee + Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; + For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow + Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me. + From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, + Much pleasure: then from thee much more must flow; + And soonest our best men do with thee go-- + Rest of their bones, and souls' delivery. + Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, + And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, + And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well + And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then? + One short sleep past, we wake eternally, + And death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die. + +(JOHN DONNE: _Holy Sonnets_, X. 1635.) + +Donne's series of "Holy Sonnets" was one of the few Elizabethan +sequences, or cycles, which dealt with other than amatory subjects. The +seven sonnets of the series called _La Corona_ are bound together into a +"crown of sonnets,"--an Italian fashion, according to which the first +line of each sonnet is the same as the last of the sonnet preceding, and +the last line of the last sonnet the same as the first line of the +first. + + When I consider how my light is spent + Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, + And that one talent which is death to hide + Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent + To serve therewith my Maker, and present + My true account, lest He returning chide,-- + Doth God exact day-labor, light denied? + I fondly ask:--But patience, to prevent + That murmur, soon replies: God doth not need + Either man's work, or His own gifts; who best + Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state + Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed + And post o'er land and ocean without rest:-- + They also serve who only stand and wait. + +(MILTON: _On his Blindness_. ab. 1655.) + +Milton learned the sonnet direct from the Italian, and wrote five in +that language. While following the Italian rime-schemes, however, he was +not careful to observe any division between octave and sestet. Like +Donne, he turned the sonnet to other subjects than that of love, or--in +Landor's words-- + + "He caught the sonnet from the dainty hand + Of Love, who cried to lose it, and he gave + The notes to Glory." + +(_To Lamartine._) + +Compare, also, Wordsworth's saying that in Milton's hand + + "The Thing became a trumpet, whence he blew + Soul-animating strains--alas, too few!" + +Besides the eighteen English sonnets in regular form, Milton wrote a +"tailed," or "caudated," sonnet, following an Italian fashion,--"On the +New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament." "He intended it," +says Masson, "to be what may be called an Anti-Presbyterian and +Pro-Toleration Sonnet; but by going beyond fourteen lines, converted it +into what the Italians called a 'sonnet with a tail.'" (Globe ed., p. +440.) The "tail" rimes _cfffgg_. + + Deem not devoid of elegance the sage, + By Fancy's genuine feelings unbeguiled, + Of painful pedantry the poring child, + Who turns, of these proud domes, th' historic page, + Now sunk by Time, and Henry's fiercer rage. + Think'st thou the warbling Muses never smiled + On his lone hours? Ingenuous views engage + His thoughts, on themes, unclassic falsely styled, + Intent. While cloistered Piety displays + Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye explores + New manners, and the pomp of elder days, + Whence culls the pensive bard his pictured stores. + Nor rough nor barren are the winding ways + Of hoar Antiquity, but strown with flowers. + +(THOMAS WARTON: _In a Blank Leaf of Dugdale's 'Monasticon.'_ ab. 1775.) + +After Milton, the sonnet fell into disuse for a century. "Walsh," says +Mr. Gosse, "is the author of the only sonnet written in English between +Milton's, in 1658, and Warton's, about 1750." (Ward's _English Poets_, +vol. iii. p. 7.) See, however, that of Gray on West, written in 1742, +quoted p. 295, below. To the Warton brothers, pioneers in so many ways +of the romantic revival, chief credit is given for the revival of the +sonnet in the eighteenth century. Other sonneteers of the period were +William Mason, Thomas Edwards, Benjamin Stillingfleet, and Thomas +Russell (see Seccombe's _Age of Johnson_, pp. 254, 255, and Beers's +_English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century_, pp. 160, 161). + + O Time! who know'st a lenient hand to lay + Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence + (Lulling to sad repose the weary sense) + The faint pang stealest, unperceived, away; + On thee I rest my only hope at last, + And think when thou hast dried the bitter tear + That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear, + I may look back on every sorrow past, + And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile. + As some lone bird, at day's departing hour, + Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower + Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while: + Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure + Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure! + +(WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES: _To Time_. 1789.) + +Bowles (1762-1850) wrote numerous sonnets, and was influential in +carrying on the movement begun by the Wartons. His sonnets were admired, +in particular, by Coleridge and Wordsworth, the former poet dedicating +to him a sonnet beginning: + + "My heart has thanked thee, Bowles! for those soft strains + Whose sadness soothes me." + +His sonnets were, however, neglectful of the regular Italian structure, +so that under his influence, as Leigh Hunt observed, "the illegitimate +order ... became such a favorite with lovers of easy writing who could +string fourteen lines together, that ... it continued to fill the press +with heaps of bad verses, till the genius of Wordsworth succeeded in +restoring the right system." (_Essay on the Sonnet_, p. 85.) But see the +notes on Wordsworth's sonnets, p. 280, below. + + Mary! I want a lyre with other strings, + Such aid from Heaven as some have feigned they drew, + An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new + And undebased by praise of meaner things, + That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings, + I may record thy worth with honor due, + In verse as musical as thou art true, + And that immortalizes whom it sings. + But thou hast little need. There is a book + By Seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light, + On which the eyes of God not rarely look, + A chronicle of actions just and bright: + There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine, + And, since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine. + +(COWPER: _To Mrs. Unwin_. 1793.) + + Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room; + And hermits are contented with their cells; + And students with their pensive citadels; + Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom, + Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom, + High as the highest peak of Furness Fells, + Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells. + In truth the prison unto which we doom + Ourselves no prison is; and hence to me, + In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound + Within the sonnet's scanty plot of ground, + Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be) + Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, + Should find brief solace there, as I have found. + +(WORDSWORTH: _The Sonnet_. 1806.) + + Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, + Mindless of its just honors; with this key + Shakspere unlocked his heart; the melody + Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; + A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; + With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief; + The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf + Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned + His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp, + It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land + To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp + Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand + The Thing became a trumpet, whence he blew + Soul-animating strains--alas, too few! + +(WORDSWORTH: _Scorn not the Sonnet_. 1827.) + + The World is too much with us; late and soon, + Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; + Little we see in Nature that is ours; + We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! + This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, + The winds that will be howling at all hours + And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers, + For this, for every thing, we are out of tune; + It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be + A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,-- + So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, + Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; + Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; + Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. + +(WORDSWORTH: _The World is too much with us_. 1806.) + +Wordsworth's complaint as to the number of Milton's sonnets ("alas, too +few!") certainly cannot be applied to his own. They number about five +hundred, ranking him as the most prolific English sonneteer. These +include some of the finest sonnets in the language, and very many of +admittedly indifferent quality. Mr. Swinburne regards his sonnets as on +the whole "the best out of sight" in our poetry. In general he followed +the Italian model, but with very great liberty. He not only practised +great variety of rime-arrangement in the sestet, but frequently altered +the scheme of the octave to such forms as _abbaacca_; see, for example, +the specimen beginning "Scorn not the Sonnet." Wordsworth also showed no +regard for the careful division of thought between octave and sestet. +Indeed in a letter to Dyce, in 1833, he said that he regarded the sonnet +not as a piece of architecture, but as "an orbicular body,--a sphere or +a dew-drop." (_Works_, ed. Knight, vol. xi. p. 232.) Its excellence +seemed to him to consist mainly in a "pervading sense of intense unity." +Nevertheless, he admitted that "a sonnet will often be found excellent, +where the beginning, the middle, and the end are distinctly marked, and +also where it is distinctly separated into _two_ parts, to which, as I +before observed, the strict Italian model, as they write it, is +favorable." + + Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew + Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, + Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, + This glorious canopy of light and blue? + Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, + Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, + Hesperus with the host of heaven came, + And lo! creation widened in man's view. + Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed + Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find, + Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, + That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind? + Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife? + If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life? + +(JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE: _To Night_. ab. 1825. In _The Book of the Sonnet_, +i. 258.) + +This famous sonnet was called by Coleridge "the best in the English +language." He seems, however, to have been led to this opinion rather by +the thought than the form. + + I met a traveler from an antique land, + Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone + Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, + Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown + And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command + Tell that its sculptor well those passions read + Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, + The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed; + And on the pedestal these words appear: + "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: + Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" + Nothing beside remains. Round the decay + Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, + The lone and level sands stretch far away. + +(SHELLEY: _Ozymandias of Egypt_. 1817.) + +Shelley wrote but few sonnets, and all but one (_To the Nile_) are +irregular in structure. The rime-scheme of the present specimen is, of +course, wholly eccentric. + + The poetry of earth is never dead: + When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, + And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run + From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead: + That is the Grasshopper's; he takes the lead + In summer luxury; he has never done + With his delights, for, when tired out with fun, + He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. + The poetry of earth is ceasing never: + On a lone winter evening, when the frost + Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills + The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, + And seems to one in drowsiness half lost + The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. + +(KEATS: _The Grasshopper and Cricket_. 1817.) + +Keats's sonnets are for the most part regular in both rime-scheme and +bipartite structure; but a number of the posthumous sonnets are in the +English form. The present specimen (which competes with the more +familiar sonnet on _Chapman's Homer_ for the chief place among those of +Keats) is a particularly good example of the bipartite structure and its +organic relation to the thought of the sonnet. + + Amazing monster! that, for aught I know, + With the first sight of thee didst make our race + Forever stare! O flat and shocking face, + Grimly divided from the breast below! + Thou that on dry land horribly dost go + With a split body and most ridiculous pace, + Prong after prong, disgracer of all grace, + Long-useless-finned, haired, upright, unwet, slow! + O breather of unbreathable, sword-sharp air, + How canst exist? How bear thyself, thou dry + And dreary sloth! What particle canst thou share + Of the only blessed life, the watery? + I sometimes see of ye an actual _pair_ + Go by, linked fin by fin! most odiously. + +(LEIGH HUNT: _The Fish to the Man_. 1836.) + + If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange + And be all to me? Shall I never miss + Home-talk and blessing, and the common kiss + That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, + When I look up, to drop on a new range + Of walls and floors,--another home than this? + Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is + Fill'd by dead eyes, too tender to know change? + That's hardest! If to conquer love, has tried, + To conquer grief tries more, as all things prove: + For grief indeed is love, and grief beside. + Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love-- + Yet love me--wilt thou? Open thine heart wide, + And fold within the wet wings of thy dove. + +(ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING: _Sonnets from the Portuguese_, xxxv. +1850.) + +The forty-four _Sonnets from the Portuguese_ (the title, of course, +being purely fanciful) constitute one of the chief sonnet-sequences of +the modern period. While true to the Italian rime-structure, Mrs. +Browning cannot be said to have treated the sonnet either as a two-part +poem or as a unit. Only three of the series, says Professor Corson (the +first, fourth, and thirteenth), "can be said to realize with any +distinctness the idea and the peculiar artistic effect of the sonnet +proper." Hence while calling them "the most beautiful love-poems in the +language," he thinks "they cannot be classed as sonnets." (_Primer of +English Verse_, pp. 175, 176.) + + A Sonnet is a moment's monument,-- + Memorial from the Soul's eternity + To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be, + Whether for lustral rite or dire portent, + Of its own arduous fulness reverent: + Carve it in ivory or in ebony, + As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see + Its flowering crest impearled and orient. + A sonnet is a coin: its face reveals + The soul,--its converse, to what Power 'tis due:-- + Whether for tribute to the august appeals + Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue, + It serve; or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath, + In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death. + +(ROSSETTI: Sonnet preceding _The House of Life_. 1881.) + + When do I see thee most, beloved one? + When in the light the spirits of mine eyes + Before thy face, their altar, solemnize + The worship of that Love through thee made known? + Or when in the dusk hours (we two alone), + Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies + Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies, + And my soul only sees thy soul its own? + O love, my love! if I no more should see + Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, + Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,-- + How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope + The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope, + The wind of Death's imperishable wing? + +(ROSSETTI: _The House of Life_: Sonnet iv. _Lovesight_. 1870.) + +The sonnets of Rossetti are undoubtedly the most perfect representatives +of the Italian form in English poetry of the nineteenth century, and +_The House of Life_ (in 101 sonnets) is probably to be regarded as the +most important sonnet-sequence since the Elizabethan age. The bipartite +character of Rossetti's sonnets is marked, in editions of his poems, by +the printing of the octave and sestet with a space between them. + + They rose to where their sovran eagle sails, + They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height, + Chaste, frugal, savage, armed by day and night + Against the Turk; whose inroad nowhere scales + Their headlong passes, but his footstep fails, + And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight + Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone flight + By thousands down the crags and through the vales. + O smallest among peoples! rough rock-throne + Of Freedom! warriors beating back the swarm + Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years, + Great Tsernagora! never since thine own + Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm + Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers. + +(TENNYSON: _Montenegro_. 1877.) + +It is curious that the two chief representatives of English poetry of +the Victorian period, Tennyson and Browning, should neither of them have +given much attention to the sonnet nor have achieved any notable success +in the form. Among Tennyson's poems there are some seventeen sonnets, of +which the present specimen was considered by the poet to be the best. It +represents a common form of the bipartite structure, where the octave is +a narrative, and the sestet a comment upon what has been narrated. In +the following specimen, from Matthew Arnold, the structure is similar. +Lentzner quotes the _East London_, in his monograph on the English +sonnet, as a case where the octave represents the thought in particular, +the sestet in the abstract; in other cases the order is the reverse. + + 'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead + Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green, + And the pale weaver, through his window seen + In Spitalfields, looked thrice dispirited. + I met a preacher there I knew, and said: + 'Ill and o'er-worked, how fare you in this scene?' + 'Bravely!' said he, 'for I of late have been + Much cheered with thoughts of Christ, the Living Bread!' + O human soul! so long as thou canst so + Set up a mark of everlasting light + Above the howling senses' ebb and flow, + To cheer thee and to right thee if thou roam, + Not with lost toil thou laborest through the night! + Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home. + +(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _East London_. 1867.) + + "Why?" Because all I haply can and do, + All that I am now, all I hope to be,-- + Whence comes it save from fortune setting free + Body and soul the purpose to pursue, + God traced for both? If fetters, not a few, + Of prejudice, convention, fall from me, + These shall I bid men--each in his degree + Also God-guided--bear, and gayly too? + But little do or can the best of us: + That little is achieved through Liberty. + Who, then, dares hold, emancipated thus-- + His fellow shall continue bound? Not I. + Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss + A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why." + +(BROWNING: _Why I am a Liberal_. 1885.) + +Browning's sonnets are few in number, mostly occasional, and none of +them can be considered notable. For a study of them, see the article by +Lentzner in _Anglia_, vol. xi. p. 500. Dr. Lentzner includes nine in his +list, not all of which are included in Browning's collected poems. Three +are so closely connected as practically to form a poem in three stanzas +(appended to _Jochanan Hakkadosh_, 1883). + + One saith: the whole world is a Comedy + Played for the mirth of God upon his throne, + Whereof the hidden meanings will be known + When Michael's trumpet thrills through earth and sea. + Fate is the dramaturge; Necessity + Allots the parts; the scenes, by Nature shown, + Embrace each element and every zone, + Ordered with infinite variety.Another + saith: no calm-eyed Sophocles + Indites the tragedy of human doom, + But some cold scornful Aristophanes, + Whose zanies gape and gibber in thick gloom, + While nightingales, shrill 'mid the shivering trees, + Jar on the silence of the neighboring tomb. + +(JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS: from _Sonnets on the Thought of Death_. ab. +1880.) + + Yon silvery billows breaking on the beach + Fall back in foam beneath the star-shine clear, + The while my rhymes are murmuring in your ear + A restless lore like that the billows teach; + For on these sonnet-waves my soul would reach + From its own depths, and rest within you, dear, + As, through the billowy voices yearning here, + Great Nature strives to find a human speech. + A sonnet is a wave of melody: + From heaving waters of the impassioned soul + A billow of tidal music one and whole + Flows in the octave; then, returning free, + Its ebbing surges in the sestet roll + Back to the deeps of Life's tumultuous sea. + +(THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON: _The Sonnet's Voice; a Metrical Lesson by the +Sea-shore_. _Athenęum_, Sept. 17, 1881.) + +The "sonnet on the sonnet" has become so familiar in recent times that a +volume of such sonnets has been compiled, and a writer of humorous verse +has satirized the fashion in a "Sonnet on the Sonnet on the Sonnet." +Doubtless the two specimens quoted from Wordsworth lead all others of +the class; but the present specimen is an interesting attempt to +represent the characteristic metrical expressiveness of the form. + + Oft have I seen at some cathedral door + A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat, + Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet + Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor + Kneel to repeat his Paternoster o'er; + Far off the noises of the world retreat; + The loud vociferations of the street + Become an undistinguishable roar. + So, as I enter here from day to day, + And leave my burden at this minster gate, + Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray, + The tumult of the time disconsolate + To inarticulate murmurs dies away, + While the eternal ages watch and wait. + +(LONGFELLOW: _Sonnets on the Divina Commedia_, i. 1864.) + + Caliph, I did thee wrong. I hailed thee late + "Abdul the Damned," and would recall my word. + It merged thee with the unillustrious herd + Who crowd the approaches to the infernal gate-- + Spirits gregarious, equal in their state + As is the innumerable ocean bird, + Gannet or gull, whose wandering plaint is heard + On Ailsa or Iona desolate. + For, in a world where cruel deeds abound, + The merely damned are legion: with such souls + Is not each hollow and cranny of Tophet crammed? + Thou with the brightest of Hell's aureoles + Dost shine supreme, incomparably crowned, + Immortally, beyond all mortals, damned. + +(WILLIAM WATSON: _To the Sultan_, in _The Year of Shame_. 1897.) + +Mr. William Archer says of Mr. Watson's political sonnets, that the form +becomes in his hands "a weapon like the sling of David. In the octave he +whirls it round and round with ever-gathering momentum, and in the +sestet sends his scorn or rebuke singing through the air, arrow-straight +to its mark." (_Poets of the Younger Generation_, p. 503.) + + +B.--THE ENGLISH (SHAKSPERIAN) SONNET + + From Tuskane came my Ladies worthy race: + Faire Florence was sometyme her auncient seate: + The Western yle, whose pleasaunt shore dothe face + Wilde Cambers clifs, did geve her lively heate: + Fostered she was with milke of Irishe brest: + Her sire, an Erle; her dame, of princes blood. + From tender yeres, in Britain she doth rest, + With kinges childe, where she tasteth costly food. + Honsdon did first present her to mine yien: + Bright is her hewe, and Geraldine she hight. + Hampton me taught to wishe her first for mine: + And Windsor, alas, dothe chase me from her sight. + Her beauty of kind, her vertues from above. + Happy is he that can obtaine her love. + +(EARL OF SURREY: _Description and praise of his love Geraldine_. In +Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets_, p. 9. Pub. 1557.) + +Surrey experimented with the Italian sonnet as it had been introduced +into England by his master Wyatt, but soon devised a variation from the +Italian form, and wrote a majority of his sonnets in the new English +form (nine out of the sixteen which are printed in Tottel's Miscellany). +This new form is divided, not into octave and sestet, but into three +quatrains, with alternate rime, and a couplet. It produces, therefore, +an effect quite different from that of the legitimate Italian sonnet, +the couplet at the end giving it a more epigrammatic structure. +Surrey's form seems more consonant with common English taste for +simplicity of rime-structure, and, besides being honored by its adoption +by Shakspere, has remained a favorite side by side with the more +"correct" original.[37] + + Come, Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace, + The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, + The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release, + The indifferent judge between the high and low; + With shield of proof shield me from out the press + Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw. + O make me in those civil wars to cease; + I will good tribute pay, if thou do so. + Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed, + A chamber deaf of noise and blind of light, + A rosy garland and a weary head: + And if these things, as being thine in right, + Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me, + Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see. + +(SIDNEY: _Astrophel and Stella_, xxxix. ab. 1580.) + + Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, + Brother to Death, in silent darkness born, + Relieve my languish, and restore the light; + With dark forgetting of my care return. + And let the day be time enough to mourn + The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth: + Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn, + Without the torment of the night's untruth. + Cease, dreams, the images of day-desires, + To model forth the passions of to-morrow; + Never let rising Sun approve you liars, + To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow: + Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain, + And never wake to feel the day's disdain. + +(SAMUEL DANIEL: _Care-charmer Sleep_. 1592.) + +Daniel was one of the most skilful of the Elizabethans in the use of the +English form of the sonnet. The greater number of his _Sonnets to Delia_ +are of this type. The subject of the present sonnet was a fashionable +one in the sixteenth century (compare Sidney's, quoted above). + + Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part,-- + Nay I have done, you get no more of me; + And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart, + That thus so cleanly I myself can free; + Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, + And when we meet at any time again, + Be it not seen in either of our brows + That we one jot of former love retain. + Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath, + When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies, + When faith is kneeling by his bed of death, + And innocence is closing up his eyes, + --Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over, + From death to life thou might'st him yet recover! + +(DRAYTON: _Love's Farewell_. 1594.) + +Rossetti called this sonnet "perhaps the best in the language." +Drayton's sonnet-sequence, the _Idea_, follows the Shaksperian form; and +the present specimen illustrates how the important division of this type +of sonnet is between the quatrains and the final couplet. + + One day I wrote her name upon the strand; + But came the waves and washed it away: + Again I wrote it with a second hand, + But came the tide and made my pains his prey. + Vain man! said she, that dost in vain essay + A mortal thing so to immortalize; + For I myself shall like to this decay, + And eke my name be wiped out likewise. + Not so (quoth I); let baser things devise + To die in dust, but you shall live by fame; + My verse your virtues rare shall eternize, + And in the heavens write your glorious name,-- + Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue, + Our love shall live, and later life renew. + +(SPENSER: _Amoretti_, lxxv. 1595.) + +The sonnets in Spenser's collected poems number 177, of which fifty-six +are in the common English (Surrey) form, the remainder--like the present +specimen--riming _ababbcbccdcdee_. This order of rimes reminds us of +that in the Spenserian stanza, and must have been devised by Spenser at +about the same time. It has never been adopted by other poets. + + When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, + I all alone beweep my outcast state, + And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, + And look upon myself and curse my fate; + Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, + Featured like him, like him with friends possest, + Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, + With what I most enjoy contented least; + Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, + Haply I think on thee--and then my state, + Like to the lark at break of day arising + From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; + For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings + That then I scorn to change my state with kings. + +(SHAKSPERE: _Sonnet_ xxix. 1609.) + + That time of year thou may'st in me behold + When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang + Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, + Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang: + In me thou see'st the twilight of such day + As after sunset fadeth in the west, + Which by and by black night doth take away, + Death's second self, that seals up all in rest: + In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire + That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, + As the death-bed whereon it must expire, + Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by: + --This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, + To love that well which thou must leave ere long. + +(SHAKSPERE: _Sonnet_ lxxiii. 1609.) + +These two specimens, perhaps the favorites of as many readers as any +which could be chosen, must serve to represent the sonnets of Shakspere. +The whole number of these is 154, and all are in the English form. +Slight irregularities in the rime-scheme will be found in about fifteen. +Number 99 has fifteen lines and 126 (sometimes called the Epilogue to +the first part of the series) has only twelve. Number 20 is wholly based +on feminine rimes.[38] + + Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round! + Parents first season us; then schoolmasters + Deliver us to laws; they send us bound + To rules of reason, holy messengers, + Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, + Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes, + Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in, + Bibles laid open, millions of surprises, + Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness, + The sound of glory ringing in our ears; + Without, our shame; within, our consciences; + Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears. + Yet all these fences and their whole array + One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away. + +(GEORGE HERBERT: _Sin_. 1631.) + + In vain to me the smiling mornings shine, + And reddening Ph[oe]bus lifts his golden fire; + The birds in vain their amorous descant join, + Or cheerful fields resume their green attire. + These ears, alas! for other notes repine, + A different object do these eyes require; + My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine, + And in my breast the imperfect joys expire. + Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer, + And new-born pleasure brings to happier men; + The fields to all their wonted tribute bear; + To warm their little loves the birds complain; + I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear, + And weep the more because I weep in vain. + +(GRAY: _On the Death of Richard West_. 1742.) + +On the place of this sonnet in the eighteenth century, see p. 277, +above. + + Oh it is pleasant, with a heart at ease, + Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, + To make the shifting clouds be what you please, + Or let the easily-persuaded eyes + Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould + Of a friend's fancy; or, with head bent low + And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold + 'Twixt crimson bank; and then, a traveler, go + From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land! + Or listening to the tide, with closed sight, + Be that blind bard who, on the Chian strand + By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, + Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee + Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea. + +(COLERIDGE: _Fancy in Nubibus_. 1819.) + +The sonnets of Coleridge, as has already been noted, were written under +the influence of those of Bowles, and are not of the Italian type. He +defined the sonnet as "a short poem in which some lonely feeling is +developed," thus emphasizing, like Wordsworth, the idea of unity rather +than of progressive structure. + + Darkly, as by some gloomed mirror glassed, + Herein at times the brooding eye beholds + The great scarred visage of the pompous Past, + But oftener only the embroidered folds + And soiled regality of his rent robe, + Whose tattered skirts are ruined dynasties + And cumber with their trailing pride the globe, + And sweep the dusty ages in our eyes; + Till the world seems a world of husks and bones + Where sightless Seers and Immortals dead, + Kings that remember not their awful thrones, + Invincible armies long since vanquished, + And powerless potentates and foolish sages + Lie 'mid the crumbling of the mossy ages. + +(WILLIAM WATSON: _History_.) + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[35] It will perhaps be found of interest to reproduce the "Ten +Commandments of the Sonnet" given by Mr. Sharp in his Introduction to +_Sonnets of this Century_ (p. lxxviii): + +"1. The sonnet must consist of fourteen decasyllabic lines. + +"2. Its octave, or major system, whether or not this be marked by a +pause in the cadence after the eighth line, must (unless cast in the +Shakespearian mould) follow a prescribed arrangement in the +rhyme-sounds--namely, the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth lines must +rhyme on the same sound, and the second, third, sixth, and seventh on +another. + +"3. Its sestet, or minor system, may be arranged with more freedom, but +a rhymed couplet at the close is only allowable when the form is the +English or Shakespearian. + +"4. No terminal should also occur in any other portion of any other line +in the same system; and the rhyme-sounds (1) of the octave should be +harmoniously at variance, and (2) the rhyme-sounds of the sestet should +be entirely distinct in intonation from those of the octave.... + +"5. It must have no slovenliness of diction, no weak or indeterminate +terminations, no vagueness of conception, and no obscurity. + +"6. It must be absolutely complete in itself--_i.e._, it must be the +evolution of one thought, or one emotion, or one poetically apprehended +fact. + +"7. It should have the characteristic of apparent inevitableness, and in +expression be ample, yet reticent.... + +"8. The continuity of the thought, idea, or emotion must be unbroken +throughout. + +"9. Continuous sonority must be maintained from the first phrase to the +last. + +"10. The end must be more impressive than the commencement." + +These rules of course represent the ideal of the strictest Italian form, +and are by no means derived from the prevailing practice of English +poets. + +[36] On the structure and history of the sonnet, see Schipper, as cited +above; C. Tomlinson: _The Sonnet, its Origin, Structure, and Place in +Poetry_ (1874); K. Lentzner: _Ueber das Sonett und seine Gestaltung in +der englischen Dichtung bis Milton_ (1886); Leigh Hunt and S. A. Lee: +_The Book of the Sonnet_ (with introductory essay, 1867); W. Sharp: +_Sonnets of This Century_ (with essay, 1886); S. Waddington: _English +Sonnets by Poets of the Past_, and _English Sonnets by Living Poets_; +Hall Caine: _Sonnets of Three Centuries_ (1882); H. Corson: _Primer of +English Verse_, chap. x. + +[37] In 1575, when Gascoigne wrote his _Notes of Instruction_, he found +it necessary to say: "Some thinke that all Poemes (being short) may be +called Sonets, as in deede it is a diminutive worde derived of _Sonare_, +but yet I can beste allowe to call those Sonnets whiche are of fouretene +lynes, every line conteyning tenne syllables. The firste twelve do ryme +in staves of foure lines by crosse meetre, and the last two ryming +togither do conclude the whole." (Arber's Reprint, pp. 38, 39.) It is, +of course, the English sonnet which Gascoigne thus describes. + +[38] Shakspere also introduced sonnets into some of his earlier plays: +_Love's Labor's Lost_, _All's Well that Ends Well_, _Romeo and Juliet_, +and _Henry V._ See Fleay's _Chronicle of the English Drama_, vol. ii. p. +224, and Schelling's _Elizabethan Lyrics_, p. xxx. + + + + +V. THE ODE + + +The term Ode is used of English poetry with considerable vagueness. The +Century Dictionary defines the word thus: "A lyric poem expressive of +exalted or enthusiastic emotion, especially one of complex or irregular +metrical form; originally and strictly, such a composition intended to +be sung." Compare with this the definition of Mr. Gosse, in his +collection of _English Odes_: "Any strain of enthusiastic and exalted +lyrical verse, directed to a fixed purpose, and dealing progressively +with one dignified theme." + +Viewed from the purely metrical standpoint, English odes are commonly +either (_a_) regular Pindaric odes, imitative of the structure of the +Greek ode, or (_b_) irregular, so-called "Pindaric" or "Cowleyan" odes. +A third group may be made of forms based on the imitation of the choral +odes of the Greek drama. There is also a class of odes called +"Horatian," made up of simple lyrical stanzas; the name "ode" is applied +here only because of the content of the poem or because of resemblance +to the so-called odes (properly _carmina_ or songs) of Horace, and since +these Horatian odes show no metrical peculiarities they will not be +represented here.[39] + +The characteristic effect of the ode is produced by the varying lengths +of lines employed, and the varying distances at which the rimes answer +one another. This variety, in the hands of a master of verse, is capable +of splendid effectiveness, but it gives dangerous license to the +unskilled writer. + + +A.--REGULAR PINDARIC + +III.^{1} _The Strophe, or Turn_ + + It is not growing like a tree + In bulk, doth make men better be; + Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, + To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear: + A lily of a day + Is fairer far, in May, + Although it fall and die that night; + It was the plant of flower and light. + In small proportions we just beauties see; + And in short measures life may perfect be. + +III.^{2} _The Antistrophe, or Counter-turn_ + + Call, noble Lucius, then for wine, + And let thy looks with gladness shine; + Accept this garland, plant it on thy head, + And think, nay know, thy Morison's not dead. + He leap'd the present age, + Possess'd with holy rage, + To see that bright eternal day; + Of which we priests and poets say + Such truths as we expect for happy men: + And there he lives with memory, and Ben. + +III.^{3} _The Epode, or Stand_ + + Jonson, who sung this of him, ere he went, + Himself, to rest, + Or taste a part of that full joy he meant + To have express'd, + In this bright asterism!-- + Where it were friendship's schism, + Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry, + To separate these twi- + Lights, the Dioscuri; + And keep the one half from his Harry. + But fate doth so alternate the design, + Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine. + +(BEN JONSON: _A Pindaric Ode on the death of Sir H. Morison_. 1629.) + +This ode of Jonson's is apparently the earliest, and remained for a long +time the only, notable English ode based on the strict structure of the +Greek original. The Greek ode was commonly divided into the strophe, the +antistrophe, and the epode; the strophe and antistrophe being identical +in structure, though varying in different odes, and the epode being of +different structure. Jonson therefore followed the classical form +carefully, and introduced English terms to express the original three +divisions. + +Professor Bronson observes, in his Introduction to the Odes of Collins: +"It is a commonplace that the Pindaric Ode in English is an artificial +exotic, of slight native force, and unable to reproduce the effects of +the Greek original. The reason is obvious. The Greek odes were +accompanied by music and dancing, the singers moving to one side during +the strophe, retracing their steps during the antistrophe, ... and +standing still during the epode. The ear was thus helped by the eye, and +the divisions of the ode were distinct and significant. But in an +English Pindaric the elaborate correspondences and differences between +strophe, antistrophe, and epode are lost upon most readers, and even the +critical reader derives from them a pleasure intellectual rather than +sensuous." (Edition of Collins, Athenęum Press Series, Introduction, pp. +lxxiv, lxxv.) + + I^{1} + + Daughter of Memory, immortal Muse, + Calliope, what poet wilt thou choose, + Of Anna's name to sing? + To whom wilt thou thy fire impart, + Thy lyre, thy voice, and tuneful art, + Whom raise sublime on thy ethereal wing, + And consecrate with dews of thy Castalian spring? + + I^{2} + + Without thy aid, the most aspiring mind + Must flag beneath, to narrow flights confin'd, + Striving to rise in vain; + Nor e'er can hope with equal lays + To celebrate bright Virtue's praise. + Thine aid obtain'd, even I, the humblest swain, + May climb Pierian heights, and quit the lowly plain. + + I^{3} + + High in the starry orb is hung, + And next Alcides' guardian arm, + That harp to which thy Orpheus sung, + Who woods and rocks and winds could charm; + That harp which on Cyllene's shady hill, + When first the vocal shell was found, + With more than mortal skill + Inventor Hermes taught to sound: + Hermes on bright Latona's son, + By sweet persuasion won, + The wondrous work bestow'd; + Latona's son, to thine + Indulgent, gave the gift divine: + A god the gift, a god th' invention show'd. + +(CONGREVE: _A Pindaric Ode on the victorious progress of her Majesty's +Arms_. 1706.) + +To Congreve is due the credit for the revival of the regular ode in the +eighteenth century, after it had been long forgotten by English poets. +Meantime the irregular form, devised by Cowley, had become popular; and +against the license of this Congreve protested in his _Discourse on the +Pindaric Ode_, prefixed to his Ode of 1706. (See Mr. Gosse's +Introduction to _English Odes_, p. xvii., and his _Life of Congreve_, p. +158.) + + Congreve said in his Discourse: "The following ode is an attempt + towards restoring the regularity of the ancient lyric poetry, which + seems to be altogether forgotten, or unknown, by our English + writers. There is nothing more frequent among us than a sort of + poems entitled Pindaric Odes, pretending to be written in imitation + of the manner and style of Pindar, and yet I do not know that there + is to this day extant, in our language, one ode contrived after his + model.... The character of these late Pindarics is a bundle of + rambling incoherent thoughts, expressed in a like parcel of + irregular stanzas, which also consist of such another complication + of disproportioned, uncertain, and perplexed verses and rhymes.... + On the contrary, there is nothing more regular than the odes of + Pindar, both as to the exact observation of the measures and + numbers of his stanzas and verses, and the perpetual coherence of + his thoughts.... + + "Though there be no necessity that our triumphal odes should + consist of the three afore-mentioned stanzas, yet if the reader can + observe that the great variation of the numbers in the third stanza + (call it epode, or what you please) has a pleasing effect in the + ode, and makes him return to the first and second stanzas with more + appetite than he could do if always cloyed with the same quantities + and measures, I cannot see why some use may not be made of Pindar's + example, to the great improvement of the English ode. There is + certainly a pleasure in beholding anything that has art and + difficulty in the contrivance, especially if it appears so + carefully executed that the difficulty does not show itself till it + is sought for.... + + "Having mentioned Mr. Cowley, it may very well be expected that + something should be said of him, at a time when the imitation of + Pindar is the theme of our discourse. But there is that great + deference due to the memory, great parts, and learning, of that + gentleman, that I think nothing should be objected to the latitude + he has taken in his Pindaric odes. The beauty of his verses is an + atonement for the irregularity of his stanzas.... Yet I must beg + leave to add that I believe those irregular odes of Mr. Cowley may + have been the principal, though innocent, occasion of so many + deformed poems since, which, instead of being true pictures of + Pindar, have (to use the Italian painters' term) been only + caricatures of him." + +(_Discourse on the Pindaric Ode_, in Chalmers's _English Poets_, vol. x. +p. 300.) + + Who shall awake the Spartan fife, + And call in solemn sounds to life + The youths whose locks divinely spreading, + Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue, + At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding, + Applauding Freedom lov'd of old to view? + What new Alcęus, fancy-blest, + Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest, + At Wisdom's shrine awhile its flame concealing + (What place so fit to seal a deed renowned?), + Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing, + It leap'd in glory forth, and dealt her prompted wound? + O goddess, in that feeling hour, + When most its sounds would court thy ears, + Let not my shell's misguided power + E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears. + No, Freedom, no, I will not tell + How Rome before thy weeping face, + With heaviest sound, a giant statue, fell, + Push'd by a wild and artless race + From off its wide ambitious base, + When Time his Northern sons of spoil awoke, + And all the blended work of strength and grace, + With many a rude repeated stroke, + And many a barb'rous yell, to thousand fragments broke.... + + Beyond the measure vast of thought, + The works the wizard Time has wrought! + The Gaul, 'tis held of antique story, + Saw Britain link'd to his now adverse strand; + No sea between, nor cliff sublime and hoary, + He pass'd with unwet feet thro' all our land. + To the blown Baltic then, they say, + The wild waves found another way, + Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains rounding; + Till all the banded West at once 'gan rise, + A wide wild storm ev'n Nature's self confounding, + With'ring her giant sons with strange uncouth surprise. + This pillar'd earth so firm and wide, + By winds and inward labors torn, + In thunders dread was push'd aside, + And down the should'ring billows borne. + And see, like gems, her laughing train, + The little isles on every side! + Mona, once hid from those who search the main, + Where thousand elfin shapes abide, + And Wight, who checks the west'ring tide; + For thee consenting Heaven has each bestowed, + A fair attendant on her sovereign pride. + To thee this blest divorce she ow'd, + For thou hast made her vales thy lov'd, thy last abode! + +(COLLINS: _Ode to Liberty_, strophe and antistrophe. 1746.) + +This ode consists of strophe, epode, antistrophe, and second epode. The +antistrophe corresponds metrically to the strophe, as usual; the epodes +are in four-stress couplets. It was Collins's habit to place the epode +between the strophe and antistrophe, perhaps, as Professor Bronson +suggests, in order that it may produce "an impression of its own +analogous to that of the Greek epode, namely, an impression of relief +and repose." Mr. Bronson says further of Collins's odes: "Collins was +less scholarly than Gray, but he was bolder and more original; and +consciously or unconsciously he so constructed his odes that their +organic parts stand out clearly distinct and produce effects analogous +to those produced by the Greek ode. In brief, his method was, first, to +make large divisions of the thought correspond to the large divisions of +the form; and, second, to throw out into relief the complex strophe and +antistrophe by contrasting them with a simple epode. The reader may not +perceive the minute correspondences in form between strophe and +antistrophe, but he can hardly fail to feel that the two answer to one +another in a general way." (Athenęum Press edition of Collins, +Introduction, p. lxxv.) + +III^{1} + + Far from the sun and summer-gale, + In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid, + What time, where lucid Avon strayed, + To him the mighty Mother did unveil + Her awful face. The dauntless Child + Stretched forth his little arms, and smiled. + This pencil take (she said) whose colors clear + Richly paint the vernal year; + Thine too these golden keys, immortal Boy! + This can unlock the gates of Joy, + Of Horror that, and thrilling Fears, + Or ope the sacred source of sympathetic Tears. + + III^{2} + + Nor second he, that rode sublime + Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy, + The secrets of th' Abyss to spy, + He pass'd the flaming bounds of Place and Time; + The living Throne, the sapphire-blaze, + Where Angels tremble while they gaze, + He saw; but, blasted with excess of light, + Clos'd his eyes in endless night. + Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car + Wide o'er the fields of glory bear + Two coursers of ethereal race, + With necks in thunder cloth'd, and long-resounding pace. + + III^{3} + + Hark, his hands the lyre explore! + Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o'er + Scatters from her pictured urn + Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn. + But ah! 'tis heard no more-- + Oh! Lyre divine, what daring spirit + Wakes thee now? tho' he inherit + Nor the pride, nor ample pinion, + That the Theban Eagle bear + Sailing with supreme dominion + Thro' the azure deep of air; + Yet oft before his infant eyes would run + Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray + With orient hues, unborrow'd of the sun; + Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way + Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate, + Beneath the good how far--but far above the great. + +(GRAY: _The Progress of Poesy._ 1757.) + +Gray's _Progress of Poesy_ is probably to be regarded as the chief of +all English odes of the regular Pindaric form. Mr. Lowell said, indeed, +that it "overflies all other English lyrics like an eagle." _The Bard_ +is in precisely the same form, and shows the same skill in the wielding +of the intricately varying melodies of the lines of different length. + + +B.--IRREGULAR (COWLEYAN) + + Whom thunder's dismal noise, + And all that Prophets and Apostles louder spake, + And all the creatures' plain conspiring voice, + Could not, whilst they liv'd, awake, + This mightier sound shall make + When dead t' arise, + And open tombs, and open eyes, + To the long sluggards of five thousand years. + This mightier sound shall wake its hearers' ears. + Then shall the scatter'd atoms crowding come + Back to their ancient home. + Some from birds, from fishes some, + Some from earth, and some from seas, + Some from beasts, and some from trees. + Some descend from clouds on high, + Some from metals upwards fly, + And where th' attending soul naked and shivering stands, + Meet, salute, and join their hands, + As dispers'd soldiers at the trumpet's call + Haste to their colors all. + Unhappy most, like tortur'd men, + Their joints new set, to be new-rack'd again, + To mountains they for shelter pray; + The mountains shake, and run about no less confus'd than they. + + Stop, stop, my Muse! allay thy vig'rous heat, + Kindled at a hint so great. + Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in, + Which does to rage begin, + And this steep hill would gallop up with violent course; + 'Tis an unruly and a hard-mouth'd horse, + Fierce, and unbroken yet, + Impatient of the spur or bit; + Now prances stately, and anon flies o'er the place; + Disdains the servile law of any settled pace; + Conscious and proud of his own natural force, + 'Twill no unskilful touch endure, + But flings writer and reader too that sits not sure. + +(COWLEY: _The Resurrection_, strophes iii. and iv. 1656). + +Cowley, as has already appeared, introduced the irregular ode into +English poetry, calling it "Pindaric" under a misapprehension of the +real structure of the Greek odes. He published fifteen "Pindarique Odes" +in 1656 (see the Preface to these, in Grosart's edition of his works, +vol. ii. p. 4). The present specimen illustrates the really not +unskilful use which Cowley made of the varying cadences of the form, and +also sets forth--in the amusing concluding lines--his own idea of its +difficulties. + +Under the influence of Cowley's odes, the new form speedily became +popular. According to Dr. Johnson, "this lax and lawless versification +so much concealed the deficiencies of the barren, and flattered the +laziness of the idle, that it immediately over-spread our books of +poetry; all the boys and girls caught the pleasing fashion, and they who +could do nothing else could write like Pindar." (_Life of Cowley_.) +Compare also the remarks of Mr. Gosse: "Until the days of Collins and +Gray, the ode modelled upon Cowley was not only the universal medium for +congratulatory lyrics and pompous occasional pieces, but it was almost +the only variety permitted to the melancholy generations over whom the +heroic couplet reigned supreme." (_Seventeenth Century Studies_, p. +216.) + +It has been the habit of modern critics to treat the irregularities of +the Cowleyan ode with no little contempt, and it is undoubtedly true +that in the hands of small poets its liberties are dangerous; but it is +also true that some of the greatest modern poets have adopted the form +for some of their best work, and that they have generally preferred it +to that of the regular Pindaric ode. + + When in mid-air the golden trump shall sound, + To raise the nations under ground; + When in the valley of Jehoshaphat + The judging God shall close the book of Fate, + And there the last assizes keep + For those who wake and those who sleep; + When rattling bones together fly + From the four corners of the sky; + When sinews o'er the skeletons are spread, + Those cloth'd with flesh, and life inspires the dead; + The sacred poets first shall hear the sound, + And foremost from the tomb shall bound, + For they are covered with the lightest ground; + And straight, with inborn vigor, on the wing, + Like mounting larks, to the new morning sing. + There thou, sweet saint, before the choir shalt go, + As harbinger of heaven, the way to show, + The way which thou so well hast learn'd below. + +(DRYDEN: _To the Pious Memory of Mistress Anne Killigrew_, strophe x. +1686.) + +See also specimen from the _Ode for St. Cecilia's Day_, quoted above, p. +52. + +Dryden's odes for St. Cecilia's Day (especially the _Alexander's Feast_) +are among the most highly esteemed of his poems; but parts, at least, of +the ode on Mistress Killigrew are no less fine, and in this case we have +a purely literary ode, whose irregularities are not designed--as in the +case of the others--to fit choral rendering. The conclusion of the ode, +here quoted, seems to owe something of both substance and form to the +conclusion of Cowley's Resurrection Ode (see preceding specimen). Dr. +Johnson called Dryden's Killigrew Ode "undoubtedly the noblest ode that +our language ever has produced." + + Last came Joy's ecstatic trial. + He, with viny crown advancing, + First to the lively pipe his hand addrest; + But soon he saw the brisk awak'ning viol, + Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best. + They would have thought, who heard the strain, + They saw in Tempe's vale her native maids, + Amidst the festal sounding shades, + To some unwearied minstrel dancing, + While, as his flying fingers kiss'd the strings, + Love fram'd with Mirth a gay fantastic round; + Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound, + And he, amidst his frolic play, + As if he would the charming air repay, + Shook thousand odors from his dewy wings. + +(COLLINS: _The Passions._ 1746.) + + I marked Ambition in his war-array! + I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry-- + "Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay! + Groans not her chariot on its onward way?" + Fly, mailed Monarch, fly! + Stunned by Death's twice mortal mace, + No more on murder's lurid face + The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye! + Manes of the unnumbered slain! + Ye that gasped on Warsaw's plain! + Ye that erst at Ismail's tower, + When human ruin choked the streams, + Fell in conquest's glutted hour, + Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams! + Spirits of the uncoffined slain, + Sudden blasts of triumph swelling, + Oft, at night, in misty train, + Rush around her narrow dwelling! + The exterminating fiend is fled-- + (Foul her life, and dark her doom)-- + Mighty armies of the dead + Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb! + Then with prophetic song relate + Each some tyrant-murderer's fate! + +(COLERIDGE: _Ode on the Departing Year_, strophe iii. 1796.) + +This ode was evidently intended to be in the regular Pindaric form, and +was divided into strophes, antistrophes, and epodes; but it soon broke +into irregularity. On Coleridge's odes see some remarks by Mr. Theodore +Watts in the article on Poetry in the _Encyclopędia Britannica_. + + Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: + The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, + Hath had elsewhere its setting, + And cometh from afar: + Not in entire forgetfulness, + And not in utter nakedness, + But trailing clouds of glory do we come + From God, who is our home. + Heaven lies about us in our infancy! + Shades of the prison-house begin to close + Upon the growing boy, + But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, + He sees it in his joy; + The youth, who daily farther from the east + Must travel, still is Nature's priest, + And by the vision splendid + Is on his way attended; + At length the man perceives it die away, + And fade into the light of common day.... + O joy! that in our embers + Is something that doth live, + That nature yet remembers + What was so fugitive! + The thought of our past years in me doth breed + Perpetual benediction: not indeed + For that which is most worthy to be blest; + Delight and liberty, the simple creed + Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, + With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:-- + Not for these I raise + The song of thanks and praise; + But for those obstinate questionings + Of sense and outward things, + Fallings from us, vanishings; + Blank misgivings of a creature + Moving about in worlds not realized, + High instincts before which our mortal nature + Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: + But for those first affections, + Those shadowy recollections, + Which, be they what they may, + Are yet the fountain light of all our day, + Are yet a master light of all our seeing; + Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make + Our noisy years seem moments in the being + Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake + To perish never; + Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, + Nor man nor boy, + Nor all that is at enmity with joy, + Can utterly abolish or destroy! + Hence in a season of calm weather, + Though inland far we be, + Our souls have sight of that immortal sea + Which brought us hither, + Can in a moment travel thither, + And see the children sport upon the shore, + And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. + +(WORDSWORTH: _Intimations of Immortality_, strophes v. and ix. 1807.) + +In this poem the English ode may be said to have reached its high-water +mark. Professor Corson observes: "The several metres are felt, in the +course of the reading of the Ode, to be organic--inseparable from what +each is employed to express. The rhymes, too, with their varying +degrees of emphasis, according to the nearness or remoteness, and the +length, of the rhyming verses, are equally a part of the expression.... +The feelings of the reader of English poetry get to be set, so to speak, +to the pentameter measure, as in that measure the largest portion of +English poetry is written; and, accordingly, other measures derive some +effect from that fact. In the theme-metre, generally, the more +reflective portions of the Ode, its deeper tones, are expressed. The +gladder notes come in the shorter metres.... Wordsworth never wrote any +poem of which it can be more truly said than of his great Ode, 'Of the +soul the body form doth take.'" (_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 32-34.) + + Then gentle winds arose + With many a mingled close + Of wild Ęolian sound and mountain-odor keen; + And where the Baian ocean + Welters with airlike motion, + Within, above, around its bowers of starry green, + Moving the sea-flowers in those purple caves + Even as the ever stormless atmosphere + Floats o'er the Elysian realm, + It bore me like an Angel, o'er the waves + Of sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy air + No storm can overwhelm; + I sailed, where ever flows + Under the calm Serene + A spirit of deep emotion + From the unknown graves + Of the dead kings of Melody. + Shadowy Aornos darkened o'er the helm + The horizontal ether; heaven stripped bare + Its depths over Elysium, where the prow + Made the invisible water white as snow; + From that Typhęan mount, Inarime, + There streamed a sunlight vapor, like the standard + Of some ethereal host; + Whilst from the coast, + Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered + Over the oracular woods and divine sea + Prophesyings which grew articulate-- + They seize me--I must speak them--be they fate! + +(SHELLEY: _Ode to Naples_, strophe ii. 1819.) + + Bury the Great Duke + With an empire's lamentation, + Let us bury the Great Duke + To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, + Mourning when their leaders fall, + Warriors carry the warrior's pall, + And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. + Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore? + Here, in streaming London's central roar. + Let the sound of those he wrought for, + And the feet of those he fought for, + Echo round his bones for evermore. + + Lead out the pageant: sad and slow, + As fits an universal woe, + Let the long long procession go, + And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, + And let the mournful martial music blow; + The last great Englishman is low.... + + ... We revere, and while we hear + The tides of Music's golden sea + Setting toward eternity, + Uplifted high in heart and hope are we, + Until we doubt not that for one so true + There must be other nobler work to do + Than when he fought at Waterloo, + And Victor he must ever be. + For though the Giant Ages heave the hill + And break the shore, and evermore + Make and break, and work their will; + Though world on world in myriad myriads roll + Round us, each with different powers, + And other forms of life than ours, + What know we greater than the soul? + On God and Godlike men we build our trust. + Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears: + The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears: + The black earth yawns: the mortal disappears; + Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; + He is gone who seemed so great.-- + Gone; but nothing can bereave him + Of the force he made his own + Being here, and we believe him + Something far advanced in state, + And that he wears a truer crown + Than any wreath that man can weave him. + Speak no more of his renown, + Lay your earthly fancies down, + And in the vast cathedral leave him. + God accept him, Christ receive him. + +(TENNYSON: _On the Death of the Duke of Wellington_, strophes i, ii, +iii, ix (in part). 1852.) + +This ode of Tennyson's is one of the few poems in which he gave himself +such liberty of form (compare some of the irregular measures of _Maud_). +It shows his usual skill in the adaptation of metrical effects to the +purposes of description. Dr. Henry Van Dyke has suggested that the +varying--almost lawless--movements of the opening lines are designed to +suggest the surging of the crowd through the streets of London, before +the entrance into the cathedral for the funeral. + + Bow down, dear Land, for thou hast found release! + Thy God, in these distempered days, + Hath taught thee the sure wisdom of His ways, + And through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace! + Bow down in prayer and praise! + No poorest in thy borders but may now + Lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised brow. + O Beautiful! my Country! ours once more, + Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair + O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, + And letting thy set lips, + Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, + The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, + What words divine of lover or of poet + Could tell our love and make thee know it, + Among the Nations bright beyond compare? + What were our lives without thee? + What all our lives to save thee? + We reck not what we gave thee; + We will not dare to doubt thee. + But ask whatever else, and we will dare! + +(LOWELL: _Harvard Commemoration Ode_, strophe xii. 1865.) + +This is undoubtedly the finest of odes by American poets, and remains +one of the glories of new-world poetry. Its irregular measures were +designed by Mr. Lowell to fit the poem for public reading (see his +letter to Mr. Gosse on the subject, quoted in the Appendix to Gosse's +_Seventeenth Century Studies_). + + In the Year of the great Crime, + When the false English nobles and their Jew, + By God demented, slew + The Trust they stood thrice pledged to keep from wrong, + One said, Take up thy Song, + That breathes the mild and almost mythic time + Of England's prime! + But I, Ah, me, + The freedom of the few + That, in our free Land, were indeed the free, + Can song renew? + Ill singing 'tis with blotting prison-bars, + How high soe'er, betwixt us and the stars; + Ill singing 'tis when there are none to hear; + And days are near + When England shall forget + The fading glow which, for a little while, + Illumes her yet, + The lovely smile + That grows so faint and wan, + Her people shouting in her dying ear: + Are not jays twain worth two of any swan! + Harsh words and brief asks the dishonor'd Year. + +(COVENTRY PATMORE: Ode ix. Printed 1868.) + +Mr. Patmore's use of the irregular ode forms is of particular interest. +He made a special study of the form, and applied it more widely than is +commonly done. His first odes were printed (not published) in 1868, and +from one of these the present specimen is taken. Later (1877), in +connection with _The Unknown Eros_, he set forth his view of the ode +form, treating it not as lawless but as governed by laws of its own. +"Nearly all English metres," he said, "owe their existence as metres to +'catalexis,' or pause, for the time of one or more feet, and, as a rule, +the position and amount of catalexis, are fixed. But the verse in which +this volume is written is catalectic _par excellence_, employing the +pause (as it does the rhyme) with freedom only limited by the exigencies +of poetic passion. From the time of Drummond of Hawthornden to our own, +some of the noblest flights of English poetry have been taken on the +wings of this verse; but with ordinary readers it has been more or less +discredited by the far greater number of abortive efforts, on the part +sometimes of considerable poets, to adapt it to purposes with which it +has no expressional correspondence; or to vary it by rhythmical +movements which are destructive of its character. Some persons, +unlearned in the subject of this metre, have objected to this kind of +verse that it is 'lawless.' But it has its laws as truly as any other. +In its highest order, the lyric or 'ode,' it is a tetrameter, the line +having the time of eight iambics. When it descends to narrative, or the +expression of a less exalted strain of thought, it becomes a trimeter, +having the time of six iambics, or even a dimeter, with the time of +four; and it is allowable to vary the tetrameter 'ode' by the occasional +introduction of passages in either or both of these inferior measures, +but not, I think, by the use of any other. The license to rhyme at +indefinite intervals is counterbalanced ... by unusual frequency in the +recurrence of the same rhyme." (From Patmore's Prefatory Note to _The +Unknown Eros_; quoted by William Sharp, in the Introduction to _Great +Odes_, p. xxxii.)[40] + + On the shores of a Continent cast, + She won the inviolate soil + By loss of heirdom of all the Past, + And faith in the royal right of Toil! + She planted homes on the savage sod: + Into the wilderness lone + She walked with fearless feet, + In her hand the divining-rod, + Till the veins of the mountains beat + With fire of metal and force of stone! + She set the speed of the river-head + To turn the mills of her bread; + She drove her ploughshare deep + Through the prairie's thousand-centuried sleep. + To the South, and West, and North, + She called Pathfinder forth, + Her faithful and sole companion + Where the flushed Sierra, snow-starred, + Her way to the sunset barred, + And the nameless rivers in thunder and foam + Channeled the terrible canyon! + Nor paused, till her uttermost home + Was built, in the smile of a softer sky + And the glory of beauty yet to be, + Where the haunted waves of Asia die + On the strand of the world-wide sea. + +(BAYARD TAYLOR: _National Ode_, strophe iii. 1876.) + + Soon shall the Cape Ann children shout in glee, + Spying the arbutus, spring's dear recluse; + Hill lads at dawn shall hearken the wild goose + Go honking northward over Tennessee; + West from Oswego to Sault Sainte-Marie, + And on to where the Pictured Rocks are hung, + And yonder where, gigantic, willful, young, + Chicago sitteth at the northwest gates, + With restless violent hands and casual tongue + Moulding her mighty fates, + The Lakes shall robe them in ethereal sheen; + And like a larger sea, the vital green + Of springing wheat shall vastly be outflung + Over Dakota and the prairie states. + By desert people immemorial + On Arizonan mesas shall be done + Dim rites unto the thunder and the sun; + Nor shall the primal gods lack sacrifice + More splendid, when the white Sierras call + Unto the Rockies straightway to arise + And dance before the unveiled ark of the year, + Sounding their windy cedars as for shawms, + Unrolling rivers clear + For flutter of broad phylacteries; + While Shasta signals to Alaskan seas + That watch old sluggish glaciers downward creep + To fling their icebergs thundering from the steep, + And Mariposa through the purple calms + Gazes at far Hawaii crowned with palms + Where East and West are met,-- + A rich seal on the ocean's bosom set + To say that East and West are twain, + With different loss and gain: + The Lord hath sundered them; let them be sundered yet.... + + ... Ah no! + We have not fallen so, + We are our fathers' sons: let those who lead us know! + 'Twas only yesterday sick Cuba's cry + Came up the tropic wind, 'Now help us, for we die!' + Then Alabama heard, + And rising, pale, to Maine and Idaho + Shouted a burning word. + Proud state with proud impassioned state conferred, + And at the lifting of a hand sprang forth, + East, west, and south, and north, + Beautiful armies. Oh, by the sweet blood and young, + Shed on the awful hill slope at San Juan, + By the unforgotten names of eager boys + Who might have tasted girls' love and been stung + With the old mystic joys + And starry griefs, now the spring nights come on, + But that the heart of youth is generous,-- + We charge you, ye who lead us, + Breathe on their chivalry no hint of stain! + Turn not their new-world victories to gain! + One least leaf plucked for chaffer from the bays + Of their dear praise, + One jot of their pure conquest put to hire, + The implacable republic will require. + +(WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY: _An Ode in Time of Hesitation_, strophes iii. and +ix. 1900.) + + +C.--CHORAL + +Different from either of the two classes of odes already represented are +the irregular choral measures used by a few English poets in translation +or imitation of the odes of the Greek drama. + +_Chorus._ + + O dearly bought revenge, yet glorious! + Living or dying thou hast fulfilled + The work for which thou wast foretold + To Israel, and now liest victorious + Among thy slain self-killed; + Not willingly, but tangled in the fold + Of dire Necessity, whose law in death conjoined + Thee with thy slaughtered foes, in number more + Than all thy life had slain before. + +_Semi-chorus._ + + While their hearts were jocund and sublime, + Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine + And fat regorged of bulls and goats, + Chaunting their idol, and preferring + Before our living Dread, who dwells + In Silo, his bright sanctuary, + Among them he a spirit of phrenzy sent, + Who hurt their minds, + And urged them on with mad desire + To call in haste for their destroyer. + They, only set on sport and play, + Unweetingly importuned + Their own destruction to come speedy upon them. + So fond are mortal men, + Fallen into wrath divine, + As their own ruin on themselves to invite, + Insensate left, or to sense reprobate, + And with blindness internal struck. + +_Semi-chorus._ + + But he, though blind of sight, + Despised, and thought extinguished quite, + With inward eyes illuminated, + His fiery virtue roused + From under ashes into sudden flame, + And as an evening dragon came, + Assailant on the perched roosts + And nests in order ranged + Of tame villatic fowl, but as an eagle + His cloudless thunder bolted on their heads. + So Virtue, given for lost, + Depressed and overthrown, as seemed, + Like that self-begotten bird + In the Arabian woods embost, + That no second knows nor third, + And lay erewhile a holocaust, + From out her ashy womb now teemed, + Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most + When most unactive deemed; + And, though her body die, her fame survives, + A secular bird, ages of lives. + +(MILTON: _Samson Agonistes_, ll. 1660-1707. 1671.) + +Of this passage Mr. Swinburne says: "It is hard to realize and hopeless +to reproduce the musical force of classic metres so recondite and +exquisite as the choral parts of a Greek play. Even Milton could not; +though with his godlike instinct and his godlike might of hand he made a +kind of strange and enormous harmony by intermixture of assonance and +rhyme with irregular blank verse, as in that last Titanic chorus of +Samson which utters over the fallen Philistines the trumpet-blast and +thunder of its triumphs." (_Essays and Studies_, pp. 162, 163.) + + The lyre's voice is lovely everywhere; + In the court of gods, in the city of men, + And in the lonely rock-strewn mountain-glen, + In the still mountain air. + Only to Typho it sounds hatefully,-- + To Typho only, the rebel o'erthrown, + Through whose heart Etna drives her roots of stone, + To embed them in the sea. + Wherefore dost thou groan so loud? + Wherefore do thy nostrils flash, + Through the dark night, suddenly, + Typho, such red jets of flame? + Is thy tortured heart still proud? + Is thy fire-scathed arm still rash? + Still alert thy stone-crushed frame? + Doth thy fierce soul still deplore + Thine ancient rout by the Cilician hills, + And that curst treachery on the Mount of Gore? + Do thy bloodshot eyes still weep + The fight which crowned thine ills, + Thy last mischance on this Sicilian deep? + Hast thou sworn, in thy sad lair, + Where erst the strong sea-currents sucked thee down, + Never to cease to writhe, and try to rest, + Letting the sea-stream wander through thy hair? + That thy groans, like thunder prest, + Begin to roll, and almost drown + The sweet notes whose lulling spell + Gods and the race of mortals love so well, + When through thy caves thou hearest music swell? + + But an awful pleasure bland + Spreading o'er the Thunderer's face, + When the sound climbs near his seat, + The Olympian council sees; + As he lets his lax right hand, + Which the lightnings doth embrace, + Sink upon his mighty knees. + And the eagle, at the beck + Of the appeasing, gracious harmony, + Droops all his sheeny, brown, deep-feathered neck, + Nestling nearer to Jove's feet; + While o'er his sovran eye + The curtains of the blue films slowly meet. + And the white Olympus-peaks + Rosily brighten, and the soothed gods smile + At one another from their golden chairs, + And no one round the charmed circle speaks. + Only the loved Hebe bears + The cup about, whose draughts beguile + Pain and care, with a dark store + Of fresh-pulled violets wreathed and nodding o'er; + And her flushed feet glow on the marble floor. + +(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _Empedocles on Etna_, Act II. Song of Callicles. 1853.) + + Wherefore to me, this fear-- + Groundedly stationed here + Fronting my heart, the portent-watcher--flits she? + Wherefore should prophet-play + The uncalled and unpaid lay, + Nor--having spat forth fear, like bad dreams--sits she + On the mind's throne beloved--well-suasive Boldness? + For time, since, by a throw of all the hands, + The boat's stern-cables touched the sands, + Has passed from youth to oldness,-- + When under Ilion rushed the ship-borne bands. + + And from my eyes I learn-- + Being myself my witness--their return. + Yet, all the same, without a lyre, my soul, + Itself its teacher too, chants from within + Erinus' dirge, not having now the whole + Of Hope's dear boldness: nor my inwards sin-- + The heart that's rolled in whirls against the mind + Justly presageful of a fate behind. + But I pray--things false, from my hope, may fall + Into the fate that's not-fulfilled-at-all! + + Especially at least, of health that's great + The term's insatiable: for, its weight + --A neighbor, with a common wall between-- + Ever will sickness lean; + And destiny, her course pursuing straight, + Has struck man's ship against a reef unseen. + Now, when a portion, rather than the treasure + Fear casts from sling, with peril in right measure, + It has not sunk--the universal freight, + (With misery freighted over-full,) + Nor has fear whelmed the hull. + Then too the gift of Zeus, + Two-handedly profuse, + Even from the furrows' yield for yearly use + Has done away with famine, the disease; + But blood of man to earth once falling,--deadly, black,-- + In times ere these,-- + Who may, by singing spells, call back? + Zeus had not else stopped one who rightly knew + The way to bring the dead again. + But, did not an appointed Fate constrain + The Fate from gods, to bear no more than due, + My heart, outstripping what tongue utters, + Would have all out: which now, in darkness, mutters + Moodily grieved, nor ever hopes to find + How she a word in season may unwind + From out the enkindling mind. + +(BROWNING: _Agamemnon_; chorus. 1877.) + +Of the same general metrical character as the irregular odes are certain +poems (like some of Patmore's) with no regularly organized structure and +varying lengths of line. See, for example, Milton's verses _At a Solemn +Music_ and _On Time_; Swinburne's _Thalassius_ and _On the Cliffs_; and +William Morris's _On a fair Spring Morning_. Compare, also, the effect +of the irregular strophic forms in Southey's _Curse of Kehama_, +Shelley's _Queen Mab_, and the like.[41] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[39] On English ode-forms, see the introductions to Mr. Gosse's _English +Odes_ and Mr. William Sharp's _Great Odes_; also Schipper, vol. ii. p. +792. + +[40] Mr. Patmore has used the same sort of verse for narrative poetry, +with unusual daring but also with unusual success. For an example see +his _Amelia_, included in the _Golden Treasury_, Second Series. The +following passage exhibits the metrical method of the poem at its best: + +"And so we went alone By walls o'er which the lilac's numerous plume +Shook down perfume; Trim plots close blown With daisies, in conspicuous +myriads seen, Engross'd each one With single ardor for her spouse, the +sun; Garths in their glad array Of white and ruddy branch, auroral, gay, +With azure chill the maiden flower between; Meadows of fervid green, +With sometime sudden prospect of untold Cowslips, like chance-found +gold; And broadcast buttercups at joyful gaze, Rending the air with +praise, Like the six-hundred-thousand-voiced shout Of Jacob camp'd in +Midian put to rout; Then through the Park, Where Spring to livelier +gloom Quickened the cedars dark, And, 'gainst the clear sky cold, Which +shone afar Crowded with sunny alps oracular, Great chestnuts raised +themselves abroad like cliffs of bloom." + + + +[41] The easy abuse of these irregular measures is amusingly parodied by +Mr. Owen Seaman, in a burlesque of an ode of Mr. Le Gallienne's: + +"Is this the Seine? And am I altogether wrong About the brain, Dreaming +I hear the British tongue? Dear Heaven! what a rhyme! And yet 'tis all +as good As some that I have fashioned in my time, Like _bud_ and _wood_; +And on the other hand you couldn't have a more precise or neater Metre." + +(_The Battle of the Bays_, p. 37.) + + + + +VI. IMITATIONS OF CLASSICAL METRES + + +While English verse is generally admitted to be based on a different +system from that of Greek and Latin poetry (the element of accent +obscuring that of quantity in English prosody, as the element of +quantity obscures that of accent in classical prosody), there have been +repeated attempts to introduce the more familiar classical measures into +English. Most of these attempts have been academic and have attracted +the attention only of critics and scholars; a few have interested the +reading public. + +Imitations of classical verse in English may conveniently be divided +into two classes: imitations of lyrical measures, and imitations of the +dactylic hexameter. The latter group is of course much the larger, +especially in modern poetry. It will appear that the classical measures +might also be divided into two groups according to another distinction: +those attempting to observe the quantitative prosody of the original +language, and those in which the original measure is transmuted into +frankly accentual verse. + + The original impulse toward this classical or pseudo-classical + verse was a product of the Renaissance, when all forms of art not + based on Greek and Latin models were suspected. Rime, not being + found in the poetry of the classical languages, was treated as a + product of the dark ages,--the invention of "Goths and Huns." See + Roger Ascham's _Schoolmaster_ (1570) for the most characteristic + representative of this phase of thought in England. The new forms + of verse were, naturally enough, first tried in Italy. Schipper + traces the beginning of the movement to Alberti (1404-1484). A + century later Trissino wrote his _Sophonisbe_ and _Italia Liberata_ + in unrimed verse, in professed imitation of Homer, and was looked + upon as the inventor of _versi sciolti_, that is, verses "freed" + from rime (compare the remarks of Milton in the prefatory note to + _Paradise Lost_). In 1539 Claudio Tolomei wrote _Versi e Regole + della Poesia Nuova_, a systematic attempt to introduce the + classical versification. He also wrote hexameters and sapphics. In + France there were similar efforts in the sixteenth century. Mousset + translated Homer into hexameters in 1530, and A. de Baļf, a member + of the "Pleiade" (1532-1589), devised some French hexameters which + he called _vers baļfins_. The English experiments were worked out + independently, and yet under the same neo-classical influences. On + this subject, see Schipper, vol. ii. pp. 2-12, 439-464. + + +A.--LYRICAL MEASURES + + Reason, tell me thy mind, if here be reason + In this strange violence, to make resistance + Where sweet graces erect the stately banner + Of Virtue's regiment, shining in harness + Of Fortune's diadems, by Beauty mustered: + Say, then, Reason, I say, what is thy counsel? + +(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Phaleuciakes_, from the _Arcadia_, ab. 1580.) + +This is the measure commonly called "Phalęcian." Compare Tennyson's +imitation of it, in his Hendecasyllabics quoted below. + + O sweet woods, the delight of solitariness! + O how much I do like your solitariness! + Where man's mind hath a freed consideration + Of goodness to receive lovely direction. + Where senses do behold the order of heavenly host, + And wise thoughts do behold what the Creator is. + +(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Asclepiadics_, from the _Arcadia_. ab. 1580.) + +This is the measure now called "Lesser Asclepiadean." + + My Muse, what ails this ardor + To blaze my only secrets? + Alas, it is no glory + To sing my own decay'd state. + Alas, it is no comfort + To speak without an answer; + Alas, it is no wisdom + To show the wound without cure. + +(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Anacreontics_, from the _Arcadia_. ab. 1580.) + +Sidney was a member of the little group of classical students who called +themselves the "Areopagus," and who were interested in introducing +classical measures into English verse. Others of the group were Gabriel +Harvey and Edmund Spenser, from whose correspondence most of our +information regarding the movement is derived. (See the letters in +Grosart's edition of Harvey's Works, vol. i. pp. 7-9, 20-24, 35-37, +75-76, 99-107.) Spenser's only known efforts in the same direction are +also preserved in this correspondence; a poem in twenty-one iambic +trimeters, and this "tetrasticon":-- + + "See yee the blindfoulded pretie god, that feathered archer, + Of lovers miseries which maketh his bloodie game? + Wote ye why his moother with a veale hath coovered his face? + Trust me, least he my loove happely chaunce to beholde." + +It would seem that Spenser was attempting, more conscientiously than +Sidney did, to follow the classical rules of quantity in making his +verses; hence they are more difficult to read according to English +rhythm. Sidney's experiments in the classical versification are perhaps +the most successful, to modern taste, of all those made in the +Elizabethan period. Among the other songs in the _Arcadia_ will be found +sapphics and hexameters. + + See especially Spenser's letter of April, 1580, and Harvey's reply + (_op. cit._, vol. i. pp. 35, 99), for notable passages indicating + the seriousness with which the members of the "Areopagus" were + trying to orm English verse so as to bring it under the rules of + classical prosody. The relations of quantity and accent were not + understood, as indeed they may be said still not to be understood + for the English language. Spenser suggests, in a frequently quoted + passage, that in the word _carpenter_ the middle syllable is "short + in speech, when it shall be read long in verse,"--that is, because + the vowel is followed by two consonants; hence it "seemeth like a + lame gosling that draweth one legge after her.... But it is to be + wonne with custome, and rough words must be subdued with use." + Harvey resented the idea that the common pronunciation of words + could be departed from in order to conform them to arbitrary + metrical rules, and in his reply said: "You shall never have my + subscription or consent ... to make your Carp[=e]nter our + Carp[)e]nter, an inche longer or bigger, than God and his Englishe + people have made him.... Else never heard I any that durst presume + so much over the Englishe ... as to alter the quantitie of any one + sillable, otherwise than oure common speache and generall receyved + custome woulde beare them oute." But while all English verse must + be consistent with "the vulgare and naturall mother prosodye," + Harvey does not despair of finding a system that shall be at the + same time "countervaileable to the best tongues" in making possible + quantitative verse. The whole passage is well worth reading. The + best account of the movement toward classical versification in the + days of the "Areopagus" will be found in Professor Schelling's + _Poetic and Verse Criticism in the Reign of Elizabeth_ + (Publications of the University of Pennsylvania). + + O ye Nymphes most fine who resort to this brooke, + For to bathe there your pretty breasts at all times: + Leave the watrish bowres, hyther and to me come at my request nowe. + + And ye Virgins trymme who resort to Parnass, + Whence the learned well Helicon beginneth: + Helpe to blase her worthy deserts, that all els mounteth above farre. + +(WILLIAM WEBBE: Sapphic Verse, in _A Discourse of English Poetrie_. +1586.) + +Webbe was another of those who believed "that if the true kind of +versifying in immitation of Greekes and Latines, had been practised in +the English tongue, ... it would long ere this have aspyred to as full +perfection, as in anie other tongue whatsoever." So he added to his +_Discourse_ (see Arber Reprint, pp. 67-84) a discussion of the +principles of quantitative prosody, and some specimens of what might be +done by way of experiment.[42] The Sapphics from which the present +specimen is taken are a paraphrase of Spenser's praise of Elizabeth in +the fourth eclogue of the _Shepherd's Calendar_. (For a specimen of +Webbe's hexameters, see p. 334, below.) + + Greatest in thy wars, + Greater in thy peace, + Dread Elizabeth; + Our muse only truth, + Figments cannot use, + Thy ritch name to deck + That itselfe adorns: + But should now this age + Let all poesye fayne, + Fayning poesy could + Nothing faine at all + Worthy halfe thy fame. + +(THOMAS CAMPION: Iambic Dimeter, "an example Lyrical," in _Observations +in the Art of English Poesie_. 1602.) + + Rose-cheekt Lawra come + Sing thou smoothly with thy beawtie's + Silent musick, either other + Sweetely gracing. + + Lovely formes do flowe + From concent devinely framed, + Heav'n is musick, and thy beawtie's + Birth is heavenly. + +(THOMAS CAMPION: Trochaic Dimeter, _ib._) + +The full title of Campion's work was: "Observations in the Art of +English Poesie; wherein it is demonstratively proved, and by example +confirmed, that the English toong will receive eight severall kinds of +numbers, proper to it selfe, which are all in this booke set forth, and +were never before this time by any man attempted." Campion, like other +classical versifiers, condemned rime as a barbarity; but in imitating +the classical measures he does not violate the normal English accent, so +that his verses read smoothly in English rhythm. Curiously enough, he +includes among his innovations an iambic measure which proves to be +ordinary decasyllabic verse: + + "Goe numbers boldly passe, stay not for ayde + Of shifting rime, that easie flatterer, + Whose witchcraft can the ruder eares beguile". + +Professor Schelling exclaims: "Where could the musical Doctor have kept +his ears all this time? to propose this measure thus innocently for the +drama, when the English stage had been ringing with his 'licentiate +iambics' for more than two decades!" + +The second of the specimens quoted above Campion describes as a dimeter +"whose first foote may either be a Sponde or Trochy: the two verses +following are both of them Trochaical, and consist of foure feete, the +first of either of them being a Spondee or Trochy, the other three only +Trochyes. The fourth and last verse is made of two Trochyes. The number +is voluble and fit to expresse any amorous conceit." (See also another +of Campion's measures, in Part One, p. 27.)[43] + +In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries few, if any, notable English +poems were written in the classical measures. Goldsmith, in one of his +essays (xviii, on Versification), maintained the possibility of reducing +English words to the classical prosody, and said: "We have seen several +late specimens of English hexameters and sapphics so happily composed +that, by attaching them to the idea of ancient measure, we found them in +all respects as melodious and agreeable to the ear as the works of +Virgil and Anacreon, or Horace." But whose these were it seems to be +impossible to say. + + Needy knife-grinder! whither are you going? + Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order-- + Bleak blows the blast;--your hat has got a hole in't, + So have your breeches! + + Weary knife-grinder! little think the proud ones + Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike- + road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, "Knives and + Scissors to grind O!" + +(CANNING and FRERE: _Sapphics; the Friend of Humanity and the +Knife-Grinder_, in the _Anti-Jacobin_, November, 1797). + +These "Sapphics" were a burlesque of some by Southey in similar stanzas, +opening: + + "Cold was the night wind, drifting fast the snow fell, + Wide were the downs and shelterless and naked, + When a poor wanderer struggled on her journey, + Weary and way-sore." + +"In this poem," said the _Anti-Jacobin_, not unjustly, "the pathos of +the matter is not a little relieved by the absurdity of the metre." + + O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies, + O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity, + God-gifted organ-voice of England, + Milton, a name to resound for ages; + Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, + Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armories, + Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean + Rings to the roar of an angel onset. + +(TENNYSON: _Milton; Alcaics._) + + O you chorus of indolent reviewers, + Irresponsible, indolent reviewers, + Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem + All composed in a metre of Catullus, + All in quantity, careful of my motion, + Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him, + Lest I fall unawares before the people, + Waking laughter in indolent reviewers. + Should I flounder awhile without a tumble + Thro' this metrification of Catullus, + They should speak to me not without a welcome, + All that chorus of indolent reviewers. + Hard, hard, hard is it, only not to tumble, + So fantastical is the dainty metre. + Wherefore slight me not wholly, nor believe me + Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers. + +(TENNYSON: _Hendecasyllabics._) + +On the first of these stanzas of Tennyson, compare his stanzas to +Maurice, and note, p. 77, above. With the hendecasyllabics, compare the +"Phaleuciakes" of Sidney, p. 331, above, and "Hendecasyllabics" in +Swinburne's _Poems and Ballads_. + +Tennyson took no little interest in the relations of classical and +English metres, and seems to have believed in the possibility of genuine +English quantitative verse. He did not, however, regard it as of +practical value, and treated his own experiments as trifles. In his +Memoirs, written by his son, Tennyson is said to have observed that he +knew the quantity of every English word except _scissors_, a mysterious +saying which may be set beside Southey's declaration that _Egypt_ is the +only spondee in the English language. His son also preserves an +extemporaneous line composed by Tennyson to illustrate the observance of +quantity "regardless of accent": + + "All men alike hate slops, particularly gruel;" + +and a sapphic stanza, also extemporized, quantitative but conforming to +common accent: + + "Faded ev'ry violet, all the roses; + Gone the glorious promise; and the victim, + Broken in this anger of Aphrodite, + Yields to the victor." + +(_Memoir_, vol. ii. p. 231.) + + God, on verdurous Helicon + Dweller, child of Urania, + Thou that draw'st to the man the fair + Maiden, O Hymenęus, O + Hymen, O Hymenęus! + +(ROBINSON ELLIS: _Poems of Catullus_, LXI. 1871.) + +Mr. Ellis's translations from Catullus are all "in the metres of the +original," and are among the most interesting specimens of modern +classical versifying. "Tennyson's Alcaics and Hendecasyllabics," he said +in his Preface, "suggested to me the new principle on which I was to go +to work. It was not sufficient to reproduce the ancient metres, unless +the ancient quantity was reproduced also." Of special interest is the +imitation of the "almost unapproachable" galliambic verse of the _Attis_ +(pp. 49-53): + + "When awoke the sun, the golden, that his eyes heaven-orient + Scann'd lustrous air, the rude seas, earth's massy solidity, + When he smote the shadowy twilight with his healthy team sublime, + Then arous'd was Attis; o'er him sleep hastily fled away + To Pasithea's arms immortal with a tremulous hovering." + +As Mr. Ellis observes, the metre of Tennyson's _Boadicea_ was modelled +on this of Catullus. Compare also Mr. George Meredith's _Phaėthon_, +"attempted in the galliambic measure": + + "At the coming up of Ph[oe]bus, the all-luminous charioteer, + Double-visaged stand the mountains in imperial multitudes, + And with shadows dappled, men sing to him, Hail, O Beneficent; + For they shudder chill, the earth-vales, at his clouding, shudder + to black." + + --Saw the white implacable Aphrodite, + Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled + Shine as fire of sunset on western waters; + Saw the reluctant + + Feet, the straining plumes of the doves that drew her, + Looking always, looking with necks reverted, + Back to Lesbos, back to the hills whereunder + Shone Mitylene. + +(SWINBURNE: _Sapphics_, in _Poems and Ballads_.) + + Love, what ailed thee to leave life that was made lovely, we thought, + with love? + What sweet visions of sleep lured thee away, down from the light above? + + What strange faces of dreams, voices that called, hands that were raised + to wave, + Lured or led thee, alas, out of the sun, down to the sunless grave? + +(SWINBURNE: _Choriambics_, in _Poems and Ballads_, Second Series, 1878.) + +Swinburne's imitations of classical measures are frankly accentual, with +no effort to introduce fixed quantities into English. + + +B.--DACTYLIC HEXAMETER + + Lady, reserved by the heavens to do pastors' company honor, + Joining your sweet voice to the rural Muse of a desert, + Here you fully do find this strange operation of love, + How to the woods Love runs, as well as rides to the palace, + Neither he bears reverence to a prince nor pity to beggar, + But (like a point in midst of a circle) is still of a nearness, + All to a lesson he draws, neither hills nor caves can avoid him. + +(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Dorus and Zelmane_, in the _Arcadia_. ab. 1580.) + +Sidney was evidently trying to write genuinely quantitative hexameters. +Thus "of love," in the third line, may be regarded as a quantitative +spondee (the _o_ being followed by two consonants), although the _of_ +would not naturally be stressed. In like manner it is very possible that +"pallace" was spelled with two _l_'s in order to make the first syllable +seem long. + +Sidney's hexameters are the first in literary verse which have come down +to us; but there must have been earlier efforts at least by the time of +Ascham's _Schoolmaster_ (1570), which vigorously attacked "our rude +beggerly ryming, brought first into Italie by Gothes and Hunnes, ... and +at last receyved into England by men of excellent wit in deede, but of +small learning, and less judgement in that behalfe." (Arber Reprint, p. +145.) One hexameter distich by a contemporary and friend of Ascham's, +Master Watson of Cambridge, is handed down to us by Webbe, as being +"common in the mouthes of all men": + + "All travellers doo gladlie report great praise to Ulisses + For that he knewe manie mens maners, and saw many citties." + +(_Discourse of English Poetrie_, p. 72.) + + But the Queene in meane while with carks quandare deepe anguisht, + Her wound fed by Venus, with firebayt smoldred is hooked. + Thee wights doughtye manhood leagd with gentilytye nobil, + His woords fitlye placed, with his hevnly phisnomye pleasing, + March throgh her hert mustring, al in her brest deepelye she printeth. + Theese carcking cratchets her sleeping natural hynder. + Thee next day foloing Ph[oe]bus dyd clarifye brightlye + Thee world with luster, watrye shaads Aurora remooved, + When to her deere sister with woords haulf gyddye she raveth. + "Sister An, I merveyle, what dreams me terrefye napping, + What newcom travayler, what guest in my harborye lighted? + How brave he dooth court yt? what strength and coorrage he carryes? + I beleve yt certeyn (ne yet hold I yt vaynelye reported) + That fro the great linnadge of gods his pettegre shooteth." + +(RICHARD STANYHURST: Vergil's _Ęneid_, bk. iv. 1582.) + +Stanyhurst's _Vergil_ is one of the curiosities of Elizabethan +literature, not only from its verse-form but from its spelling and +diction. The translator declares himself a disciple of Ascham, in his +antipathy to rimed verse; "What Tom Towly is so simple," he asks, "that +wyl not attempt too bee a _rithmoure_?" In an address to the Learned +Reader he explains his system of English quantitative prosody. In 1593 +Stanyhurst's hexameters were severely noticed in a passage by Thomas +Nash directed primarily against the classical versifying of Gabriel +Harvey. "The hexamiter verse," said Nash, "I graunt to be a gentleman of +an auncient house (so is many an English begger), yet this clyme of ours +he cannot thrive in; our speech is too craggy for him to set his plough +in; hee goes twitching and hopping in our language, like a man running +upon quagmiers, up the hill in one syllable and down the dale in +another, retaining no part of that stately smooth gate which he vaunts +himselfe with among the Greeks and Latins.... Master Stannyhurst (though +otherwise learned) trod a foule lumbring boystrous wallowing measure, in +his translation of Virgil." (Works of Nash, Grosart edition, vol. ii. +pp. 237, 238.) + +Stanyhurst was also ridiculed by Joseph Hall, in the Satires of his +_Virgidemiarum_ (1597): + + "Another scorns the home-spun thread of rhymes, + Match'd with the lofty feet of elder times: + Give me the numbred verse that Virgil sung, + And Virgil's self shall speak the English tongue: + Manhood and garboiles shall he chaunt with chaunged feet + And head-strong dactyls making music meet. + The nimble dactyl striving to out-go, + The drawling spondees pacing it below. + The lingring spondees, labouring to delay, + The breathless dactyls with a sudden stay. + Whoever saw a colt wanton and wild + Yok'd with a slow-foot ox on fallow field, + Can right areed how handsomely besets + Dull spondees with the English dactylets." + +(CHALMERS'S _English Poets_, vol. v. p. 266.) + +Compare the lines of Chapman, in his _Hymn to Cynthia_, where he says +that + + "sweet poesy + Will not be clad in her supremacy + With those strange garments (Rome's hexameters) + As she is English; but in right prefers + Our native robes." + +See also, in Arber's edition of Stanyhurst in the _English Scholar's +Library_, an account of another work in hexameters, published +anonymously in 1599: the _First Booke of the Preservation of King Henry +the VII_. This writer admired Stanyhurst's effort, but desired "him to +refile" his verses into more polished English: + + "If the Poet Stanihurst yet live and feedeth on ay-er, + I do request him (as one that wisheth a grace to the meter) + With wordes significant to refile and finely to polishe + Those fower _Ęneis_, that he late translated in English." + +In the same connection the writer tells us definitely what is to be +hoped from the "trew kind of Hexametred and Pentametred verse." "First +it will enrich our speach with good and significant wordes: Secondly it +will bring a delight and pleasure to the skilfull Reader, when he seeth +them formally compyled: And thirdly it will incourage and learne the +good and godly Students, that affect Poetry, and are naturally enclyned +thereunto, to make the like: Fourthly it will direct a trew Idioma, and +will teach trew Orthography."[44] + + Tityrus, happilie thou lyste tumbling under a beech tree, + All in a fine oate pipe these sweete songs lustilie chaunting: + We, poore soules goe to wracke, and from these coastes be remooved, + And fro our pastures sweete: thou Tityr, at ease in a shade plott + Makst thicke groves to resound with songes of brave Amarillis. + +(WILLIAM WEBBE: Vergil's First Eclogue, in _A Discourse of English +Poetrie_. 1586.) + +Webbe prefaces his hexameters with a reference to those made by Gabriel +Harvey, and says: "I for my part, so farre as those examples would leade +me, and mine owne small skyll affoorde me, have blundered upon these +fewe; whereinto I have translated the two first Ęglogues of Virgill: +because I thought no matter of my owne invention, nor any other of +antiquitye more fitte for tryal of thys thyng, before there were some +more speciall direction, which might leade to a lesse troublesome manner +of wryting." (Arber Reprint, p. 72.) + + Thou, who roll'st in the firmament, round as the shield of my fathers, + Whence is thy girdle of glory, O Sun! and thy light everlasting? + Forth thou comest in thy awful beauty; the stars at thy rising + Haste to their azure pavilions; the moon sinks pale in the waters; + But thou movest alone; who dareth to wander beside thee? + Oaks of the mountains decay, and the hard oak crumbles asunder; + Ocean shrinks and again grows; lost is the moon from the heavens; + Whilst thou ever remainest the same to rejoice in thy brightness. + +(WILLIAM TAYLOR: Paraphrase of _Ossian's Hymn to the Sun_. 1796.) + +When English hexameters were revived at the end of the eighteenth +century, it was in good part under German influence. Bodmer, Klopstock, +and Voss, followed later by Goethe, made the German hexameter popular; +and William Taylor of Norwich, who in many ways helped to familiarize +his countrymen with German literature, became interested in the form. In +1796, the year of Goethe's _Hermann und Dorothea_, he contributed to the +_Monthly Magazine_ an article called "English Hexameters Exemplified," +in which occurred the paraphrase from Ossian here quoted. Taylor pointed +out that the hexameter of the Germans was purely accentual. They were +"obliged, by the scarceness of long vowels and the rifeness of short +syllables in their language, to tolerate the frequent substitution of +trochees for spondees in their hexameter verse; and they scan, like +other modern nations, by emphasis, not by position." (Quoted in J. W. +Robberds's _Memoir of William Taylor of Norwich_, vol. i. pp. 157 ff.) +Most later writers of English hexameters have followed the line here +indicated, and have frankly abandoned the effort to represent the +quantities of classical prosody. + + Earth! thou mother of numberless children, the nurse and the mother, + Sister thou of the stars, and beloved by the Sun, the rejoicer! + Guardian and friend of the moon, O Earth, whom the comets forget not, + Yea, in the measureless distance wheel round and again they behold thee! + Fadeless and young (and what if the latest birth of creation?) + Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon thee enamoured! + +(COLERIDGE: _Hymn to the Earth._ 1799.) + +Coleridge made several experiments in hexameters at this time, and +planned, together with Southey, a long hexameter poem on Mohammed. To +Wordsworth he sent an experiment of the same kind in a lighter vein: + + "Smooth out the folds of my letter, and place it on desk or on table; + Place it on table or desk; and your right hands loosely half-closing, + Gently sustain them in air, and extending the digit didactic, + Rest it a moment on each of the forks of the five-forked left hand, + Twice on the breadth of the thumb, and once on the tip of each finger, + Read with a nod of the head in a humoring recitativo; + And, as I live, you will see my hexameters hopping before you. + This is a galloping measure, a hop, and a trot, and a gallop!" + +(Wordsworth's _Memoirs_, quoted in Coleridge's Poems, Aldine edition, +vol. ii. p. 307.) + +Coleridge also translated from Schiller the well-known distich +describing and exemplifying the elegiac verse of Ovid: + + "In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column; + In the pentameter aye falling in melody back." + +This distich, it is interesting to find, was revised by Tennyson so as +to represent the measure quantitatively rather than accentually: + + "Up springs hexameter, with might, as a fountain arising, + Lightly the fountain falls, lightly the pentameter." + + Lift up your heads, ye gates; and ye everlasting portals, + Be ye lift up! Behold, the Worthies are there to receive him,-- + They who, in later days or in elder ages, ennobled + Britain's dear name. Bede I beheld, who, humble and holy, + Shone like a single star, serene in a night of darkness. + Bacon also was there, the marvellous Friar; and he who + Struck the spark from which the Bohemian kindled his taper; + Thence the flame, long and hardly preserved, was to Luther transmitted,-- + Mighty soul; and he lifted his torch, and enlightened the nations. + +(SOUTHEY: _A Vision of Judgment_, ix. 1821.) + +Southey followed the example of William Taylor in attempting to +construct hexameters "which would be perfectly consistent with the +character of our language, and capable of great richness, variety and +strength," yet which should not profess to follow "rules which are +inapplicable to our tongue." (Preface to _Vision of Judgment_, Southey's +Works, ed. 1838, vol. x. p. 195.)[45] In the same Preface he briefly +reviewed the history of earlier efforts to introduce the classical +measures into English. It is to be feared that Southey's hexameters are +to be counted among the worst of modern times. + + Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom of a window's embrasure, + Sat the lovers and whispered together, beholding the moon rise + Over the pallid sea and the silvery mist of the meadows. + Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, + Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels. + Thus was the evening passed. Anon the bell from the belfry + Rang out the hour of nine, the village curfew, and straightway + Rose the guests and departed; and silence reigned in the household. + +(LONGFELLOW: _Evangeline_, Part. I. 1847.) + +_Evangeline_ is undoubtedly the most popular and widely read poem in +English hexameters, and may be said to have revived the vogue of the +measure in the middle of the nineteenth century. Yet its metrical +qualities have not pleased most careful critics. Matthew Arnold said +that the reception which the poem met with indicated that the dislike +for the metre "is rather among professional critics than among the +general public. Yet," he went on to say, "a version of Homer in +hexameters of the _Evangeline_ type would not satisfy the judicious, nor +is the definite establishment of this type to be desired." (_On +Translating Homer_, Macmillan ed., p. 284.) Mr. Arnold had previously +suggested that the "lumbering effect" of such hexameters as Longfellow's +is "caused by their being much too dactylic"; more spondees should be +introduced. + +The editor of the Riverside edition of _Evangeline_ remarks +interestingly: "The measure lends itself easily to the lingering +melancholy which marks the greater part of the poem. The fall of the +verse at the end of the line and the sharp recovery at the beginning of +the next will be snares to the reader, who must beware of a jerking +style of delivery.... A little practice will enable one to acquire that +habit of reading the hexameter which we may liken, roughly, to the +climbing of a hill, resting a moment on the summit, and then descending +the other side." + +Longfellow's hexameters were criticised most severely by his countryman, +Edgar Poe. Poe denied the possibility of any adequate representation of +the classical hexameter in English, largely because of the impossibility +of using English spondees. The only genuine hexameters he knew, he +declared, were some he had himself made, running: + + "Do tell! when may we hope to make men of sense out of the Pundits, + Born and brought up with their snouts deep down in the mud of the + Frog-pond?" + +(See Poe's Works, ed. Stedman and Woodberry, vol. vi. p. 104.) + +Another interesting American experiment in hexameters is found in the +_Home Pastorals_ of Bayard Taylor (1869-1874). Taylor modeled his verses +after those of the Germans, particularly Goethe's in _Hermann und +Dorothea_. See, for example, the opening lines of _November_: + + "Wrapped in his sad-colored cloak, the Day, like a Puritan, standeth + Stern in the joyless fields, rebuking the lingering color,-- + Dying hectic of leaves and the chilly blue of the asters,-- + Hearing, perchance, the croak of a crow on the desolate tree-top, + Breathing the reek of withered reeds, or the drifted and sodden + Splendors of woodland, as whoso piously groaneth in spirit: + 'Vanity, verily; yea, it is vanity, let me forsake it!'" + But as the light of day enters some populous city, + Shaming away, ere it come, by the chilly day-streak signal, + High and low, the misusers of night, shaming out the gas-lamps-- + All the great empty streets are flooded with broadening clearness + Which, withal, by inscrutable simultaneous access + Permeates far and pierces to the very cellars lying in + Narrow high back-lane, and court, and alley of alleys:-- + He that goes forth to his walks, while speeding to the suburb, + Sees sights only peaceful and pure; as laborers settling + Slowly to work, in their limbs the lingering sweetness of slumber; + Humble market-carts, coming in, bringing in, not only + Flower, fruit, farm-store, but sounds and sights of the country + Dwelling yet on the sense of the dreamy drivers; soon after + Half-awake servant-maids unfastening drowsy shutters + Up at the windows, or down, letting in the air by the doorway, + School-boys, school-girls soon, with slate, portfolio, satchel, + Hampered as they haste, those running, these others maidenly tripping;... + Meantime above purer air untarnished of new-lit fires; + So that the whole great wicked artificial civilised fabric-- + All its unfinished houses, lots for sale, and railway out-works-- + Seems reaccepted, resumed to Primal Nature and Beauty. + +(ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH: _The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich_. 1848.) + +Clough's hexameters are quite unlike any others in English poetry, both +in their metrical quality and in their use for serio-comic verse. As +Matthew Arnold observed, they are "excessively, needlessly rough," but +their free, garrulous effect has a charm of its own. Clough also wrote +some hexameters intended to be strictly quantitative. (For a detailed +criticism of the verse of the _Bothie_, see Robert Bridges's _Milton's +Prosody_, 1901 ed., Appendix J.) + +It was Clough's hexameters, together with some "English Hexameter +Translations" by Dr. Hawtrey and Mr. Lockhart (1847), that chiefly +encouraged Matthew Arnold to believe that the measure might be well +adapted to a translation of Homer. "The hexameter, whether alone or with +the pentameter, possesses a movement, an expression, which no metre +hitherto in common use amongst us possesses, and which I am convinced +English poetry, as our mental wants multiply, will not always be content +to forego." (_Ib._, p. 210.) Mr. James Spedding replied to Mr. Arnold's +suggestion, from the point of view of the classical scholar, urging that +only hexameters purely quantitative could properly represent those of +Vergil. He illustrated his views by an amusing "hexametrical dialogue," +conducted alternately in Vergilian measure and "in that of Longfellow." +Of the former are the lines: + + "Verses so modulate, so tuned, so varied in accent, + Rich with unexpected changes, smooth, stately, sonorous, + Rolling ever forward, tidelike, with thunder, in endless + Procession, complex melodies--pause, quantity, accent, + After Virgilian precedent and practice, in order + Distributed--could these gratify th' Etonian ear-drum?" + +(JAMES SPEDDING: _Reviews and Discussions_, 1879. p. 327.) + +Arnold, however, wisely declined to be led into a discussion of the +relations of accent and quantity in English. "All we are here concerned +with," he said, "is the imitation, by the English hexameter, of the +ancient hexameter _in its effect upon us moderns_.... The received +English type, in its general outlines, is, for England, the necessary +given type of this metre; it is by rendering the metrical beat of its +pattern, not by rendering the accentual beat of it, that the English +language has adapted the Greek hexameter.... I look with hope towards +continued attempts at perfecting and employing this rhythm; but my +belief in the immediate success of such attempts is far less confident +than has been supposed." (See the whole passage, _On Translating Homer_, +pp. 275-284.) + +The hexameters of Dr. Hawtrey, quoted by Arnold, are these: + + Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia; + Known to me well are the faces of all; their names I remember; + Two, two only remain, whom I see not among the commanders, + Kastor fleet in the car,--Polydeukes brave with the cestus,-- + Own dear brethren of mine,--one parent loved us as infants. + Are they not here in the host, from the shores of loved Lakedaimon, + Or, though they came with the rest in ships that bound through the waters, + Dare they not enter the fight or stand in the council of heroes, + All for fear of the shame and the taunts my crime has awakened? + --So said she. They long since in Earth's soft arms were reposing, + There, in their own dear land, their fatherland, Lakedaimon. + +(From _English Hexameter Translations_, p. 242.) + +Arnold also illustrated his doctrine in some hexameters of his own, +which have not usually been regarded as a happy experiment. They run in +part as follows: + + "Truly, yet this time will we save thee, mighty Achilles! + But thy day of death is at hand; nor shall we be the reason-- + No, but the will of heaven, and Fate's invincible power. + For by no slow pace nor want of swiftness of ours + Did the Trojans obtain to strip the arms from Patroclus; + But that prince among gods, the son of the lovely-haired Leto, + Slew him fighting in front of the fray, and glorified Hector. + But, for us, we vie in speed with the breath of the West-Wind, + Which, men say, is the fleetest of winds; 'tis thou who art fated + To lie low in death, by the hand of a god and a mortal." + +(_Ib._, p. 234.) + +Tennyson evidently viewed with small respect these various efforts to +render Homer in English hexameters. See his lines beginning: + + "These lame hexameters the strong-wing'd music of Homer! + No--but a most burlesque barbarous experiment." + +(_In Quantity: Hexameters and Pentameters_.) + +Compare the amusing lines of Walter Savage Landor: + + "Askest thou if in my youth I have mounted, as others have mounted, + Galloping Hexameter, Pentameter cantering after, + English by dam and by sire; bit, bridle, and saddlery, English; + English the girths and the shoes; all English from snaffle to crupper; + Everything English about, excepting the tune of the jockey?.... + Seldom my goosequill, of goose from Germany, fatted in England, + (Frolicsome though I have been) have I tried on Hexameter, knowing + Latin and Greek are alone its languages. We have a measure + Fashioned by Milton's own hand, a fuller, a deeper, a louder. + .... Peace be with all! but afar be ambition to follow the Roman, + Led by the German uncombed and jigging in dactyl and spondee, + Lumbering shapeless jackboots which nothing can polish or supple. + Much as old metres delight me, 'tis only where first they were nurtured, + In their own clime, their own speech: than pamper them here, I would rather + Tie up my Pegasus tight to the scanty-fed rack of a sonnet." + +(_English Hexameters_, in _The Last Fruit off an Old Tree_.) + +In like manner Mr. Swinburne says: "I must say how inexplicable it seems +to me that Mr. Arnold, of all men, should be a patron of English +hexameters. His own I have tried in vain to reduce by scansion into any +metrical feet at all; they look like nothing on earth, and sound like +anapests broken up and driven wrong.... And at best what ugly bastards +of verse are these self-styled hexameters! how human tongues or hands +could utter or could write them except by way of burlesque improvisation +I could never imagine, and never shall." (_Essays and Studies_, p. 163.) +From this condemnation Mr. Swinburne excepts only the hexameters of Dr. +Hawtrey, "but that is simply a graceful interlude of pastime." + +See also the essay called "Remarks on English Hexameters," in the _Horę +Hellenicę_ of Professor John Stuart Blackie. + + Hovering over the water he came, upon glittering pinions, + Living, a wonder, outgrown from the tight-laced fold of his sandals; + Bounding from billow to billow, and sweeping the crests like a sea-gull; + Leaping the gulfs of the surge, as he laughed in the joy of his leaping. + Fair and majestic he sprang to the rock; and the maiden in wonder + Gazed for a while, and then hid in the dark-rolling wave of her tresses, + Fearful, the light of her eyes; while the boy (for her sorrow had awed + him) + Blushed at her blushes, and vanished, like mist on the cliffs at the + sunrise. + Fearful at length she looked forth: he was gone: she, wild with amazement, + Wailed for her mother aloud: but the wail of the wind only answered. + +(CHARLES KINGSLEY: _Andromeda_. 1858.) + +Kingsley believed in the possibility of representing the quantitative +verse of classical poetry in English, and at the same time holding to +genuinely English rhythm.[46] Thus he tried to introduce more real +spondees into his hexameters than Longfellow and others had done. +Compare such a line as Longfellow's-- + + "Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice"-- + +with Kingsley's-- + + "Then as a pine upon Ida when south-west winds blow landward." + +In the former the dissyllabic feet are in no sense spondees; in the +latter there is an effort to fill them with genuinely long syllables. + + Lover whose vehement kisses on lips irresponsive are squandered, + Lover that wooest in vain Earth's imperturbable heart; + Athlete mightily frustrate, who pittest thy thews against legions, + Locked with fantastical hosts, bodiless arms of the sky; + Sea that breakest for ever, that breakest and never art broken, + Like unto thine, from of old, springeth the spirit of man,-- + Nature's wooer and fighter, whose years are a suit and a wrestling, + All their hours, from his birth, hot with desire and with fray. + +(WILLIAM WATSON: _Hymn to the Sea_, ii.) + +Here the alternate lines represent the "pentameter" of the Latin elegiac +verse, where the light syllables were omitted at the cesura and the end +of the line. + + When they came to the fair-flowing river and to the places + Where stood pools in plenty prepared, and water abundant + Gushed up, a cure for things manifold uncleanly, the mules were + Unyoked from the waggons, driven off to the bindweed pastures + By the rushing swirling river, and the women set about it + Unloading the waggons, carrying clothes down to the water, + One with other striving, stepping hastily into the wash-troughs. + When washing and rinsing were done, they brought the linen down + On to the sea-shore, and set it all out thereupon in rows + Where the pebbles thrown up by the waves most thickly abounded. + +(WILLIAM JOHNSON STONE: Translation of _Odyssey_, vi. 85 ff., in _The +Use of Classical Measures in English_. 1899.) + +Mr. Stone, like the Elizabethan classical versifiers, seeks to write +purely quantitative verse in English, and, so far from aiming at the +same time to preserve the rhythm of the usual English hexameter, he +regards the clash between accent and quantity as a beauty rather than a +defect. The verses he intends to be read "with the natural accent +unimpaired," the reader listening for the regular quantities at the same +time. + + The views of Mr. Stone on the nature of English accent and quantity + are perhaps unique among modern writers on the subject. "The + ordinary unemphatic English accent is exactly a raising of pitch, + and nothing more," as in Greek. "The accent of emphasis is + something quite different in character from the ordinary accent." + To those who insist that to them the second syllable of + _carpenter_ is distinctly short, Mr. Stone replies: "You are + associating yourselves by such an admission with the vulgar actors + of Plautus rather than the educated readers of Virgil;"--a truly + terrible charge! Mr. Stone gives an interesting critical history of + earlier efforts to introduce classical measures into English. His + monograph is reprinted, but without the specimen translation, as + the second part of the 1901 edition of Robert Bridges's _Milton's + Prosody_. + + For further discussion of the relations of classical and English + prosody, and of accent and quantity in English, see Schipper, vol. + i. pp. 21-27; A. J. Ellis: article in the _Transactions of the + Philological Society_, 1875-1876; T. D. Goodell: article on + "Quantity in English Verse," in the _Proceedings of the American + Philological Society_, 1885; Edmund Gurney: _The Power of Sound_, + pp. 429-439; J. M. Robertson: Appendix to _New Essays towards a + Critical Method_, 1897; and the discussion in Part Three of the + present volume. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[42] Puttenham's treatise on English poetry, which followed Webbe's +(1589), and was the most thorough treatment of the subject written in +the Elizabethan period, also discussed the "reformed versifying," but +with less respect. The chapter is entitled: "How if all maner of sodaine +innovations were not very scandalous, specially in the lawes of any +langage or arte, the use of the Greeke and Latine feete might be brought +into our vulgar Poesie, and with good grace inough." (Arber Reprint of +_The Arte of English Poesie_, p. 126.) Puttenham seems to see the +relations of quantity and accent somewhat more clearly than most of his +contemporaries, and while he gives rules for adapting English words to +quantitative prosody, he is disposed to think that "peradventure with us +Englishmen it be somewhat too late to admit a new invention of feete and +times that our forefathers never used nor never observed till this day" +(p. 132). + +[43] Campion's _Observations_ are reprinted in Mr. Bullen's edition of +his poems, and also in Rhys's _Literary Pamphlets_, vol. i. His attack +on the customary English rimed verse was answered by the poet laureate, +Samuel Daniel, who published in the same year (1602) his _Defence of +Ryme against a Pamphlet entituled Observations in the Art of English +Poesie_. "Wherein is demonstratively prooved that Ryme is the fittest +harmonie of words that comports with our Language." Daniel struck at the +root of all the principles of the classical versifiers,--the supreme +authority of the classics. "We are the children of nature as well as +they," he exclaims with reference to the ancients. "It is not the +observing of Trochaiques nor their Iambiques, that will make our +writings ought the wiser." And he expounds the English accentual +verse-system with clearness and vigor. This essay of Daniel's may be +said to mark the end, if it did not bring about the end, of the +Elizabethan experiments in classical metres. For other contemporary +criticism of the effort, see under the following section, on the +Hexameter. + +[44] On the history of the English hexameter, see the admirable account +in Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, 2d ed., chap. xv. + +[45] Southey's effort was attacked by the Rev. S. Tillbrook, Fellow of +Peterhouse, in a pamphlet entitled "Historical and Critical Remarks upon +the Modern Hexameters, and upon Mr. Southey's _Vision of Judgment_." To +this Southey replied in the second edition of his poem, saying to Mr. +Tillbrook: "You try the measure by Greek and Latin prosody: you might as +well try me by the Laws of Solon, or the Twelve Tables. I have +distinctly stated that the English hexameter is not constructed upon +those canons." He further appealed to the success of the hexameter in +Germany, and concluded: "I am glad that I have made the experiment, and +quite satisfied with the result. The critics who write and talk are with +you: so I dare say are the whole posse of schoolmasters. The women, the +young poets, and the _docile bairns_ are with me." (_Op. cit._, Preface +to the Present Edition, pp. xix, xxi.) + +[46] For Kingsley's exposition of his theories, see the _Letters and +Memories_, edited by his wife, vol. i. pp. 338-344. He declined to yield +to "trocheism one atom. My ear always demands the equivalent of the +'lost short syllable.'" And again: "Every argument you bring convinces +me more and more that the theory of our prosody depending on accent is +false, and that it really is very nearly identical with the Greek.... I +am glad to hear (being a lazy man) that I have more license than I wish +for; but I do think that, with proper care, you may have as many +spondees, without hurting the rhythm, in English as you have in Greek, +and my ear is tortured by a trochee instead.... I must try for Homer's +average of a spondee a line." + + + + +VII. IMITATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL FRENCH LYRICAL FORMS + + +A number of artificial lyrical forms, originating in the ingenuity of +the medięval Provenēal poets, were adopted by the Middle English +imitators of the Romance lyrists, and were revived with no little vigor +in the Victorian period. Chief among the influential models for these +forms, in early times, were the poems of Machault (1284-1377), Deschamps +(1328-1415), Froissart (1337-1410), and Villon (1431-1485). Again in the +seventeenth century such forms as the rondeau were revived in France by +Voiture (1598-1648), but with little effect in England. Finally, in the +nineteenth century, the forms were reintroduced by M. Théodore de +Banville, and later into England by Mr. Lang, Mr. Austin Dobson, Mr. +Gosse, and others. For the history of these fashions in outline, see the +admirable introduction to Mr. Gleeson White's _Ballades and Rondeaus_ +(1893); also Mr. Andrew Lang's _Lays and Lyrics of Old France_ (1872); +Mr. Austin Dobson's "Note on some Foreign Forms of Verse," in the +collection of _Latter Day Lyrics_ (1878); and an article by Mr. Edmund +Gosse in the _Cornhill Magazine_, July, 1877. + +Says Mr. Dobson: "It may be conceded that the majority of the forms now +in question are not at present suited for ... the treatment of grave or +elevated themes. What is modestly advanced for some of them ... is that +they may add a new charm of buoyancy,--a lyric freshness,--to amatory +and familiar verse, already too much condemned to faded measures and +out-worn cadences. Further, ... that they are admirable vehicles for the +expression of trifles or _jeux d'esprit_. They have also a humbler and +obscurer use. If, to quote the once-hackneyed, but now +too-much-forgotten maxim of Pope-- + + 'Those move easiest that have learned to dance,' + +what better discipline, among others, could possibly be devised for +'those about to versify' than a course of Rondeaux, Triolets, and +Ballades?" Mr. Dobson refers to the article by Mr. Gosse already cited, +and "to the _Odes Funambulesques_, the _Petit Traité de Poésie +Franēaise_, and other works of M. Théodore de Banville. To M. de +Banville in particular and to the second French Romantic School in +general, the happy modernization in France of the old measures of Marot, +Villon, and Charles of Orleans is mainly to be ascribed." (_Latter Day +Lyrics_, ed. W. D. Adams, pp. 334 ff.)[47] + +Says Mr. Gleeson White: "The taste for these _tours de force_ in the art +of verse-making is no doubt an acquired one; yet to quote the first +attempt to produce a lyric with a repeated burden would take one back to +the earliest civilization.... Whether the first refrains were used for +decorative effect only, or to give the singer time to recollect or +improvise the next verse, it matters little, since the once mere adjunct +was made in later French use an integral and vital part of the verse. +The charm of these strictly written verses is undoubtedly increased by +some knowledge of their technical rules.... To approach ideal +perfection, nothing less than implicit obedience to all the rules is the +first element of success; but the task is by no means finished there. +Every quality that poetry demands, whether clearness of thought, +elegance of expression, harmonious sound, or faultless rhythm, is needed +as much in these shapes as in unfettered verse.... It may be said, +without fear of exaggeration, that all the qualities required to form a +perfect lyric in poetry are equally needful here, _plus_ a great many +special ones the forms themselves demand. To the students of any art +there is always a peculiar charm when the highest difficulties are +surmounted with such ease that the consummate art is hidden to all who +know not the magic password to unveil it." (_Ballades and Rondeaus_, +Introduction, pp. xli, xlii.) "No one is compelled to use these complex +forms, but if chosen, their laws must be obeyed to the letter if success +is to be obtained. The chief pleasure they yield consists in the +apparent spontaneity, which is the result of genius, if genius be indeed +the art of taking infinite pains; or, if that definition is rejected, +they must yet exhibit the art which conceals art, whether by intense +care in every minute detail, or a happy faculty for naturally wearing +these fetters." (_Ib._, pp. l, li.) + + +A.--THE BALLADE + +The ballade commonly consists of three stanzas, with an envoy. In modern +usage the stanzas usually contain either eight or ten lines, and the +envoy half as many as the stanza; but in earlier usage both stanza and +envoy varied, and the latter might be omitted altogether. The rimes in +all the stanzas must be identical in the corresponding lines, but the +riming words must be different. The most characteristic element is the +refrain,--the keynote of the poem,--which forms the last line of each +stanza, including the envoy. The favorite rime-scheme for the eight-line +stanza is _ababbcbc_, with the envoy _bcbc_. Mr. White says of the envoy +that it "is not only a dedication, but should be the peroration of the +subject, and richer in its wording and more stately in its imagery than +the preceding verses, to convey the climax of the whole matter, and +avoid the suspicion that it is a mere postscript." + + Flee fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse, + Suffyce unto thy good, though hit be smal; + For hord hath hate, and climbing tikelnesse, + Prees hath envye, and wele blent overal; + Savour no more than thee bihove shal; + Werk wel thy-self, that other folk canst rede; + And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede. + + Tempest thee noght al croked to redresse, + In trust of hir that turneth as a bal: + Gret reste slant in litel besinesse; + And eek be war to sporne ageyn an al; + Stryve noght, as doth the crokke with the wal. + Daunte thy-self, that dauntest otheres dede; + And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede. + + That thee is sent, receyve in buxumnesse; + The wrastling for this worlde axeth a fal. + Her nis non hoom, her nis but wildernesse: + Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal! + Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al; + Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede: + And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede. + + _Envoy_ + + Therfore, thou vache, leve thyn old wrecchednesse + Unto the worlde; leve now to be thral; + Crye him mercy, that of his hy goodnesse + Made thee of noght, and in especial + Draw unto him, and pray in general + For thee, and eek for other, hevenlich mede; + And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede. + +(CHAUCER: _Balade de bon conseyl._ ab. 1385.) + +Here Chaucer follows the rules of the ballade carefully, but in the +"rime royal" stanza. It will be noticed that the rime-word "al" seems to +be repeated, but it is used each time in a distinct sense, +hence--according to the rules of Chaucer's time, as of modern French--is +regarded as a different rime-word each time. + + Compare, also, Chaucer's _Fortune_ ("_Balades de visage sanz + peinture_"), made of three ballades, with one envoy; the _Balade to + Rosemound_ and _Moral Balade on Gentilesse_, without envoys; the + ballades on _Lak of Stedfastnesse_ and the _Compleint of Chaucer to + his Empty Purse_, with envoys addressed to the king; also the + ballade in the Prologue to the _Legend of Good Women_, B-text, ll. + 249-269. The _Compleynt of Venus_, like _Fortune_, is in three + ballades, with one envoy, and is of special interest as being based + on three French ballades of Graunson.[48] Says Chaucer: + + "And eek to me hit is a greet penaunce, + Sith rym in English hath swich scarsitee, + To folowe word by word the curiositee + Of Graunson, flour of hem that make in Fraunce." + + In the Prologue to the _Legend of Good Women_, when Chaucer is + accused by the god of love for his translation of the _Romance of + the Rose_, Alcestis defends him by enumerating his other works, + which include: + + "many an ympne for your halydayes, + That highten Balades, Roundels, Virelayes." + + (B-text, ll. 422 f.) + + On the roundels, see below; none of Chaucer's virelays have come + down to us. Chaucer's contemporary, John Gower, also wrote + ballades, but in French. + + Tell me now in what hidden way is + Lady Flora the lovely Roman? + Where's Hipparcha, and where is Thais, + Neither of them the fairer woman? + Where is Echo, beheld of no man, + Only heard on river and mere,-- + She whose beauty was more than human?-- + But where are the snows of yester-year? + + Where's Héloise, the learned nun, + For whose sake Abeillard, I ween, + Lost manhood and put priesthood on? + (From love he won such dule and teen!) + And where, I pray you, is the Queen + Who willed that Buridan should steer + Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine?-- + But where are the snows of yester-year? + + White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies, + With a voice like any mermaiden,-- + Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice, + And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,-- + And that good Joan whom Englishmen + At Rouen doomed and burned her there,-- + Mother of God, where are they then?-- + But where are the snows of yester-year?-- + + Nay, never ask this week, fair lord, + Where they are gone, nor yet this year, + Except with this for an overword,-- + But where are the snows of yester-year? + +(ROSSETTI: _The Ballad of Dead Ladies_, from the French of Franēois +Villon, 1450.) + +This is a notable translation of a notable ballade, but it will be +observed that it does not follow the strict rules as to the number of +rimes. In Mr. Andrew Lang's _Ballades of Blue China_ is a formally +correct translation. + + Where are the cities of the plain? + And where the shrines of rapt Bethel? + And Calah, built of Tubal-Cain? + And Shinar whence King Amraphal + Came out in arms, and fought, and fell, + Decoyed into the pits of slime + By Siddim, and sent sheer to hell; + Where are the cities of old time? + + Where now is Karnak, that great fane + With granite built, a miracle? + And Luxor smooth without a stain, + Whose graven scriptures still we spell? + The jackal and the owl may tell, + Dark snakes around their ruins climb, + They fade like echo in a shell; + Where are the cities of old time? + + And where is white Shusan, again, + Where Vashti's beauty bore the bell, + And all the Jewish oil and grain + Were brought to Mithridath to sell, + Where Nehemiah would not dwell, + Because another town sublime + Decoyed him with her oracle? + Where are the cities of old time? + + _Envoy_ + + Prince, with a dolorous, ceaseless knell, + Above their wasted toil and crime + The waters of oblivion swell: + Where are the cities of old time? + +(EDMUND GOSSE: _Ballad of Dead Cities._) + +In this ballade Mr. Gosse finely reproduces the more serious tones of +the old form, and imitates the ancient custom of addressing the envoy to +royalty. This _motif_, of old things lost, is a favorite one for the +serious ballade, being suggested by Villon's _Ballade of Dead Ladies_. +Compare Mr. Lang's _Ballade of Dead Cities_, in _Ballades of Blue +China_. + +On the other hand, the next specimen illustrates the use of the form for +the light familiarity of _vers de société_ and parody. + + He lived in a cave by the seas, + He lived upon oysters and foes, + But his list of forbidden degrees + An extensive morality shows; + Geological evidence goes + To prove he had never a pan, + But he shaved with a shell when he chose, + 'Twas the manner of Primitive Man! + + He worshipp'd the rain and the breeze, + He worshipp'd the river that flows, + And the Dawn, and the Moon, and the trees, + And bogies, and serpents, and crows; + He buried his dead with their toes + Tucked up, an original plan, + Till their knees came right under their nose, + 'Twas the manner of Primitive Man! + + His communal wives, at his ease, + He would curb with occasional blows; + Or his state had a queen, like the bees + (As another philosopher trows): + When he spoke it was never in prose, + But he sang in a strain that would scan, + For (to doubt it, perchance, were morose) + 'Twas the manner of Primitive Man! + + _Envoy_ + + Max, proudly your Aryans pose, + But their rigs they undoubtedly ran, + For, as every Darwinian knows, + 'Twas the manner of Primitive Man! + +(ANDREW LANG: _Ballade of Primitive Man._) + +In Mr. Lang's _Ballades of Blue China_ this appears as a _double +ballade_, with three more stanzas. + + From the sunny climes of France, + Flying to the west, + Came a flock of birds by chance, + There to sing and rest: + Of some secrets deep in quest,-- + Justice for their wrongs,-- + Seeking one to shield their breast, + One to write their songs. + + Melodies of old romance, + Joy and gentle jest, + Notes that made the dull heart dance + With a merry zest;-- + Maids in matchless beauty drest, + Youths in happy throngs;-- + These they sang to tempt and test + One to write their songs. + + In old London's wide expanse + Built each feathered guest,-- + Man's small pleasure to entrance, + Singing him to rest,-- + Came, and tenderly confessed, + Perched on leafy prongs, + Life were sweet if they possessed + One to write their songs. + + _Envoy_ + + Austin, it was you they blest: + Fame to you belongs! + Time has proven you're the best + One to write their songs. + +(FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN: _To Austin Dobson._) + +Mr. Austin Dobson is said to have been the first to reintroduce the +ballade into English poetry, and the present specimen is a tribute to +his success by an American poet. + + Bird of the bitter bright gray golden morn + Scarce risen upon the dusk of dolorous years, + First of us all and sweetest singer born + Whose far shrill note the world of new men hears + Cleave the cold shuddering shade as twilight clears; + When song new-born put off the old world's attire + And felt its tune on her changed lips expire, + Writ foremost on the roll of them that came + Fresh girt for service of the latter lyre, + Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name! + +(SWINBURNE: _Ballad of Franēois Villon, Prince of all Ballad-Makers_, +st. i.) + +This specimen represents the ballade in ten-line stanzas. + +There is also an extended form of the ballade, called the _Chant Royal_, +with five stanzas and envoy, the stanzas consisting of eleven verses. +The usual rime-scheme is _ababccddede_, with envoy _ddede_. For +admirable specimens, see Mr. Dobson's _Dance of Death_ and Mr. Gosse's +_Praise of Dionysus_, in _Ballades and Rondeaus_, pp. 98, 100. Mr. White +says of this form: "The chant royal in the old form is usually devoted +to the unfolding of an allegory in its five stanzas, the envoy supplying +the key; but this is not always observed in modern examples. Whatever be +the subject, however, it must always march in stately rhythm with +splendid imagery, using all the poetic adornments of sonorous, +highly-wrought lines and rich embroidery of words, to clothe a theme in +itself a lofty one. Unless the whole poem is constructed with intense +care, the monotony of its sixty-one lines rhymed on five sounds is +unbearable." (_Ballades and Rondeaus_, Introduction, p. liv.) + + +B.--THE RONDEAU AND RONDEL + +_Rondel_ is the old French form of the word _rondeau_, and the terms are +therefore naturally interchangeable. They have been applied to a number +of different forms, all characterized by a refrain so repeated as to +link together different parts of the structure. Two of these forms are +particularly familiar. The first (called more commonly the _rondel_) +consists of fourteen lines, with only two rimes; the first two lines +constitute the refrain, and are commonly repeated as the seventh and +eighth and again as the thirteenth and fourteenth. The rime-scheme +varies, but is often _ABba, abAB, abbaAB_ (the capitals indicating the +repeated lines of the refrain). Sometimes the form is shortened to +thirteen lines, the second line of the refrain not being repeated at the +close. The second principal form (called more commonly the _rondeau_) +consists of thirteen lines, with two rimes, and an unrimed refrain, +taken from the opening words of the first line, which follows the eighth +line and is again repeated at the end. The common rime-scheme is +_aabba,aab (refrain), aabba (refrain)_. Both these forms are found in +early French poetry, together with many variations. The modern +distinction between _rondeau_ and _rondel_ is artificial but +convenient. + + +i. _"Rondel" Type_ + + Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe, + That hast this wintres weders over-shake, + And driven awey the longe nightes blake! + + Seynt Valentyn, that art ful hy on-lofte, + Thus singen smale foules for thy sake: + Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe, + That hast this wintres weders over-shake. + + Wel han they cause for to gladen ofte, + Sith ech of hem recovered hath his make; + Ful blisful may they singen whan they wake: + Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe, + That hast this wintres weders over-shake, + And driven awey the longe nightes blake. + +(CHAUCER: _Qui bien aime a tard oublie_, in _The Parlement of Foules_, +ll. 680-692. ab. 1380.) + +This is the "roundel" sung by the birds "to do Nature honour and +plesaunce." "The note" we are told was made in France. It will be seen +that Chaucer employs a form with three-line refrain, of which the first +two lines are twice repeated, the last only once: _ABB,abAB,abbABB_. The +same form is used in the three roundels of _Merciles Beaute_. + + Too hard it is to sing + In these untuneful times, + When only coin can ring, + And no one cares for rhymes! + + Alas! for him who climbs + To Aganippe's spring:-- + Too hard it is to sing + In these untuneful times! + + His kindred clip his wing; + His feet the critic limes; + If Fame her laurel bring + Old age his forehead rimes:-- + Too hard it is to sing + In these untuneful times! + +(AUSTIN DOBSON: _Too hard it is to sing._) + + Underneath this tablet rest, + Grasshopper by autumn slain, + Since thine airy summer nest + Shivers under storm and rain. + + Freely let it be confessed + Death and slumber bring thee gain + Spared from winter's fret and pain, + Underneath this tablet rest. + + Myro found thee on the plain, + Bore thee in her lawny breast, + Reared this marble tomb amain + To receive so small a guest! + Underneath this tablet rest, + Grasshopper by autumn slain. + +(EDMUND GOSSE: _After Anyte of Tegea._) + +In this the second line of the refrain is omitted where we should expect +it as line eight, the scheme of the first part of the rondel being +changed to _ABab, abbA_. + + The ways of Death are soothing and serene, + And all the words of Death are grave and sweet. + From camp and church, the fireside and the street, + She signs to come, and strife and song have been. + + A summer night descending, cool and green + And dark, on daytime's dust and stress and heat, + The ways of Death are soothing and serene, + And all the words of Death are grave and sweet. + + O glad and sorrowful, with triumphant mien + And hopeful faces look upon and greet + This last of all your lovers, and to meet + Her kiss, the Comforter's, your spirit lean.-- + The ways of Death are soothing and serene. + +(W. E. HENLEY: _The Ways of Death._) + + +ii. _"Rondeau" Type_ + + Ma foi, c'est fait de moi, car Isabeau + M'a conjuré de lui faire un rondeau. + Cela me met en peine extrźme. + Quoi! treize vers, huit en _-čau_, cinq en _-čme!_ + Je lui ferais aussitōt un bateau. + + En voilą cinq pourtant en un monceau, + Faisons-en huit, en invoquant Brodeau, + Et puis mettons, par quelque stratagčme: + Ma foi, c'est fait. + + Si je pouvais encore de mon cerveau + Tirer cinq vers, l'ouvrage serait beau; + Mais cependant je suis dedans l'onzičme: + Et si je crois que je fais le douzičme, + En voilą treize ajustés au niveau. + Ma foi, c'est fait! + +(VOITURE: _Rondeau_, ab. 1640. In _[OE]uvres de Voiture_, ed. Ubicini, +vol. ii. p. 314.) + +This is perhaps the most famous of rondeaus of the type which Voiture +did much to make popular. + + What no pardy ye may be sure + Thinck not to make me to yor lure + With wordes and chere so contrarieng + Swete and sowre contrewaing + To much it were still to endure + Trouth is tryed where craft is in ure + But though ye have had my herte cure + Trow ye I dote withoute ending + What no pardy + Though that with pain I do procure + For to forgett that ons was pure + Wtin my hert shall still that thing + Unstable unsure and wavering + Be in my mynde without recure + What no pardye. + +(SIR THOMAS WYATT: Rondeau in Wyatt MS., reproduced in _Anglia_, vol. +xviii. p. 478. ab. 1540.) + +Besides the rondeaus found in the Wyatt MS., three poems of Wyatt's, +published in Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets_ (1557), were evidently +intended as rondeaus (see Arber's Reprint, pp. 53, 73). The editor, not +understanding the form or thinking it too unfamiliar to be popular, +seems to have changed it to a sort of sonnet, omitting the refrain at +the end and making a complete line of it as the ninth of the poem. These +hidden rondeaus were discussed by Mr. Dobson in the _Athenęum_ for 1878 +(vol. i. p. 380); see also Alscher's _Sir Thomas Wyatt und seine +Stellung_, etc. + + Thou fool! if madness be so rife, + That, spite of wit, thou'lt have a wife, + I'll tell thee what thou must expect-- + After the honeymoon neglect, + All the sad days of thy whole life; + + To that a world of woe and strife, + Which is of marriage the effect-- + And thou thy woe's own architect, + Thou fool! + + Thou'lt nothing find but disrespect, + Ill words i' th' scolding dialect, + For she'll all tabor be, or fife; + Then prythee go and whet thy knife, + And from this fate thyself protect, + Thou fool! + +(CHARLES COTTON: _Rondeau._ ab. 1675. Quoted by Guest, _English +Rhythms_, Skeat ed., p. 645.) + + A good rondeau I was induced to show + To some fair ladies some short while ago; + Well knowing their ability and taste, + I asked should aught be added or effaced, + And prayed that every fault they'd make me know. + + The first did her most anxious care bestow + To impress one point from which I ne'er should go: + "Upon a good beginning must be based + A good rondeau." + + Zeal bid the other's choicest language glow: + She softly said: "Recount your weal or woe, + Your every subject, free from pause or haste; + Ne'er let your hero fail, nor be disgraced." + The third: "With varying emphasis should flow + A good rondeau." + +(J. R. BEST: _Ung Bon Rondeau_, in _Rondeaulx_. Translated from the +French, ed. 1527. 1838. Quoted in _Ballades and Rondeaus_, Introduction, +p. xxxviii.) + + Death, of thee do I make my moan, + Who hadst my lady away from me, + Nor wilt assuage thine enmity + Till with her life thou hast my own; + For since that hour my strength has flown. + Lo! what wrong was her life to thee, + Death? + + Two we were, and the heart was one; + Which now being dead, dead I must be, + Or seem alive as lifelessly + As in the choir the painted stone, + Death! + +(ROSSETTI: _To Death, of his Lady_, from the French of Villon, 1450.) + +This represents an early short form of the rondeau. + + With pipe and flute the rustic Pan + Of old made music sweet for man; + And wonder hushed the warbling bird, + And closer drew the calm-eyed herd,-- + The rolling river slowlier ran. + + Ah! would,--ah! would, a little span, + Some air of Arcady could fan + This age of ours, too seldom stirred + With pipe and flute! + + But now for gold we plot and plan; + And from Beersheba unto Dan + Apollo's self might pass unheard, + Or find the night-jar's note preferred.-- + Not so it fared, when time began + With pipe and flute! + +(AUSTIN DOBSON: _With Pipe and Flute._) + + What is to come we know not. But we know + That what has been was good--was good to show, + Better to hide, and best of all to bear. + We are the masters of the days that were: + We have lived, we have loved, we have suffered--even so. + + Shall we not take the ebb who had the flow? + Life was our friend. Now, if it be our foe-- + Dear, though it break and spoil us!--need we care + What is to come? + + Let the great winds their worst and wildest blow, + Or the gold weather round us mellow slow: + We have fulfilled ourselves, and we can dare + And we can conquer, though we may not share + In the rich quiet of the afterglow + What is to come. + +(W. E. HENLEY: _What is to Come._) + + A man must live! We justify + Low shift and trick to treason high, + A little vote for a little gold, + To a whole senate bought and sold, + With this self-evident reply. + + But is it so? Pray tell me why + Life at such cost you have to buy? + In what religion were you told + "A man must live"? + + There are times when a man must die. + Imagine for a battle-cry + From soldiers with a sword to hold-- + From soldiers with the flag unrolled-- + This coward's whine, this liar's lie, + "A man must live"! + +(CHARLOTTE PERKINS STETSON: _A Man Must Live._) + + A Roundel is wrought as a ring or a starbright sphere, + With craft of delight and with cunning of sound unsought, + That the heart of the hearer may smile if to pleasure his ear + A roundel is wrought. + + Its jewel of music is carven of all or of aught-- + Love, laughter, or mourning--remembrance of rapture or fear-- + That fancy may fashion to hang in the ear of thought. + + As a bird's quick song runs round, and the hearts in us hear-- + Pause answers to pause, and again the same strain caught, + So moves the device whence, round as a pearl or tear, + A roundel is wrought. + +(SWINBURNE: _The Roundel_, in _A Century of Roundels_.) + +Mr. Swinburne has reintroduced the old word-form "roundel," to +distinguish this style of rondeau, of his own devising, with nine long +lines, riming _aba, bab, aba_, the refrain riming also with the _b_ +lines. + + +C.--THE VILLANELLE + +This highly intricate form was originally used for pastoral or idyllic +verse, and it is commonly reserved, as Mr. Dobson observes, for subjects +"full of sweetness and simplicity." In its typical form it consists of +nineteen lines, divided into five groups or stanzas of three and one of +four. There are but two rimes, and the two verses which constitute the +refrain recur again and again, line 1 reappearing as line 6, line 12, +and line 18, while line 3 reappears as line 9, line 15, and line 19. The +rime scheme of all the tercets is _aba_, of the conclusion _abaa_. Those +villanelles are considered most highly finished in which the refrain +recurs with slightly different significations. + +On the history of this form, see J. Boulmier's _Les Villanelles_, Paris, +1878. The modern development of the villanelle has been largely +influenced by the work of Passerat (1534-1602), whose most famous +villanelle is the following specimen: + + J'ay perdu ma tourterelle; + Est-ce-point elle que j'oy? + Je veux aller aprčs elle. + + Tu regrettes ta femelle; + Hélas! aussy fay-je moy: + J'ay perdu ma tourterelle. + + Si ton amour est fidčle, + Aussy est ferme ma foy; + Je veux aller aprčs elle. + + Ta plainte se renouvelle? + Toujours plaindre je me doy: + J'ay perdu ma tourterelle. + + En ne voyant plus la belle + Plus rien de beau je ne voy: + Je veux aller aprčs elle. + + Mort, que tant de fois j'apelle, + Prens ce que se donne ą toy: + J'ai perdu ma tourterelle. + Je veux aller aprčs elle. + +(JEAN PASSERAT: _Villanelle._) + + When I saw you last, Rose, + You were only so high;-- + How fast the time goes! + + Like a bud ere it blows, + You just peeped at the sky, + When I saw you last, Rose! + + Now your petals unclose, + Now your May-time is nigh;-- + How fast the time goes! + + And a life,--how it grows! + You were scarcely so shy + When I saw you last, Rose! + + In your bosom it shows + There's a guest on the sly; + How fast the time goes! + + Is it Cupid? Who knows! + Yet you used not to sigh, + When I saw you last, Rose;-- + How fast the time goes! + +(AUSTIN DOBSON: _When I Saw You Last, Rose._) + + A dainty thing's the Villanelle. + Sly, musical, a jewel in rhyme, + It serves its purpose passing well. + + A double-clappered silver bell + That must be made to clink in chime, + A dainty thing's the Villanelle; + + And if you wish to flute a spell, + Or ask a meeting 'neath the lime, + It serves its purpose passing well. + + You must not ask of it the swell + Of organs grandiose and sublime-- + A dainty thing's the Villanelle; + + And, filled with sweetness, as a shell + Is filled with sound, and launched in time, + It serves its purpose passing well. + + Still fair to see and good to smell + As in the quaintness of its prime, + A dainty thing's the Villanelle, + It serves its purpose passing well. + +(W. E. HENLEY: _Villanelle._) + + Wouldst thou not be content to die + When low-hung fruit is hardly clinging + And golden Autumn passes by? + + Beneath this delicate rose-gray sky, + While sunset bells are faintly ringing, + Wouldst thou not be content to die? + + For wintry webs of mist on high + Out of the muffled earth are springing, + And golden Autumn passes by. + + O now when pleasures fade and fly, + And Hope her southward flight is winging, + Wouldst thou not be content to die? + + Lest Winter come, with wailing cry + His cruel icy bondage bringing, + When golden Autumn hath passed by; + + And thou with many a tear and sigh, + While life her wasted hands is wringing, + Shall pray in vain for leave to die + When golden Autumn hath passed by. + +(EDMUND GOSSE: _Villanelle._) + + Spring knocks at winter's frosty door: + In boughs by wild March breezes swayed + The bonnie bluebirds sing once more. + + The brooks have burst their fetters hoar, + And greet with noisy glee the glade; + Spring knocks at winter's frosty door. + + The swallow soon will northward soar, + The rush uplift its gleaming blade, + The bonnie bluebirds sing once more. + + Soon sunny skies their gold will pour + O'er meads that breezy maples shade; + Spring knocks at winter's frosty door. + + Along the reedy river's shore, + Fleet fauns will frolic unafraid, + The bonnie bluebirds sing once more. + + And Love, the Love we lost of yore, + Will come to twine the myrtle braid; + Spring knocks at winter's frosty door, + The bonnie bluebirds sing once more. + +(CLINTON SCOLLARD: _Spring Knocks at Winter's Frosty Door._) + + +D.--THE TRIOLET + +The triolet is really a diminutive form of the Rondeau, and was not +originally distinguished by name. It consists of eight lines, with two +rimes, lines 1 and 2 recurring as lines 7 and 8, and line 1 also as line +4. The rime-scheme is _ABaAabAB_. Here, as in the villanelle, a change +of signification in the repeated lines is thought to add to the charm of +the form. + +A French specimen, from Ranchin, is cited by Mr. Gleeson White as being +called by some "the king of triolets": + + Le premier jour du mois de mai + Fut le plus heureux de ma vie: + Le beau dessein que je formai, + Le premier jour du mois de mai! + Je vous vis et je vous aimai. + Si ce dessein vous plut, Sylvie, + Le premier jour du mois de mai + Fut le plus heureux de ma vie. + + Easy is the Triolet, + If you really learn to make it! + Once a neat refrain you get, + Easy is the Triolet. + As you see!--I pay my debt + With another rhyme. Deuce take it, + Easy is the Triolet, + If you really learn to make it! + +(W. E. HENLEY.) + + Rose kissed me to-day, + Will she kiss me to-morrow? + Let it be as it may, + Rose kissed me to-day. + But the pleasure gives way + To a savor of sorrow;-- + Rose kissed me to-day,-- + _Will_ she kiss me to-morrow? + + I intended an Ode, + And it turned to a Sonnet. + It began _ą la mode_, + I intended an Ode; + But Rose crossed the road + In her latest new bonnet. + I intended an Ode, + And it turned to a Sonnet. + +(AUSTIN DOBSON: _Rose Leaves._) + +In an earlier version of this last "rose-leaf" the ode is said to have +"turned into triolets," when Rose crossed the road "with a bunch of +fresh violets." + + A little kiss when no one sees, + Where is the impropriety? + How sweet amid the birds and bees + A little kiss when no one sees! + Nor is it wrong, the world agrees, + If taken with sobriety. + A little kiss when no one sees, + Where is the impropriety? + +(SAMUEL MINTURN PECK: _Under the Rose._) + + Worldly designs, fears, hopes, farewell! + Farewell all earthly joys and cares! + On nobler thoughts my soul shall dwell! + Worldly designs, fears, hopes, farewell! + At quiet, in my peaceful cell, + I'll think on God, free from your snares; + Worldly designs, fears, hopes, farewell! + Farewell all earthly joys and cares! + +(PATRICK CAREY: in _Trivial Poems and Triolets_, 1651; reprinted by +Scott, 1819; this triolet also quoted in _Ballades and Rondeaus_, +Introduction, p. xxxvi.) + +Originally, the triolet was often used for serious sentiment. The +present and the following specimen are rare instances of its serious use +in English. + + In his arms thy silly lamb + Lo! he gathers to his breast! + See, thou sadly bleating dam, + See him lift thy silly lamb! + Hear it cry, "How blest I am!-- + Here is love and love is rest." + In his arms thy silly lamb + See him gather to his breast! + +(GEORGE MACDONALD.) + + +E.--THE SESTINA + +This form, although originally found in Provenēal like the others of the +group, has been more used in Italy than in France, and, as the English +form of the word indicates, was introduced into England under Italian +influence. It was invented at the end of the thirteenth century, by the +troubadour Arnaut Daniel, celebrated in the following specimen. The +common form of the sestina has six stanzas of six lines each, with a +tercet at the end. There is usually no rime, but the stanzas are based +on six end-words, which are the same in all stanzas; in the tercet three +of these words are used in the middle of the lines, and three at the +ends. The order of the end-words changes in each stanza according to a +complex system: thus (in the common modern form) if the end-words of the +first stanza be represented by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, the order in the second +stanza will be 6, 1, 5, 2, 4, 3; in the third, 3, 6, 4, 1, 2, 5; in the +fourth, 5, 3, 2, 6, 1, 4; in the fifth, 4, 5, 1, 3, 6, 2; in the sixth, +2, 4, 6, 5, 3, 1. Sometimes the end-words also rime by twos and threes. + + In fair Provence, the land of lute and rose, + Arnaut, great master of the lore of love, + First wrought sestines to win his lady's heart; + For she was deaf when simpler staves he sang, + And for her sake he broke the bonds of rhyme, + And in this subtler measure hid his woe. + + "Harsh be my lines," cried Arnaut, "harsh the woe, + My lady, that enthroned and cruel rose, + Inflicts on him that made her live in rhyme!" + But through the metre spake the voice of Love, + And like a wildwood nightingale he sang + Who thought in crabbed lays to ease his heart. + + It is not told if her untoward heart + Was melted by her poet's lyric woe, + Or if in vain so amorously he sang. + Perchance through crowd of dark conceits he rose + To nobler heights of philosophic love, + And crowned his later years with sterner rhyme. + + This thing alone we know: the triple rhyme + Of him who bared his vast and passionate heart + To all the crossing flames of hate and love, + Wears in the midst of all its storm and woe-- + As some loud morn of March may bear a rose-- + The impress of a song that Arnaut sang. + + "Smith of his mother-tongue," the Frenchman sang + Of Lancelot and of Galahad, the rhyme + That beat so bloodlike at its core of rose, + It stirred the sweet Francesca's gentle heart + To take that kiss that brought her so much woe, + And sealed in fire her martyrdom of love. + + And Dante, full of her immortal love, + Stayed his drear song, and softly, fondly sang + As though his voice broke with that weight of woe; + And to this day we think of Arnaut's rhyme, + Whenever pity at the laboring heart + On fair Francesca's memory drops the rose. + + Ah! sovereign Love, forgive this weaker rhyme! + The men of old who sang were great at heart, + Yet have we too known woe, and worn thy rose. + +(EDMUND GOSSE: _Sestina._) + +For a specimen of the rimed sestina, see Swinburne's _Poems and +Ballads_, Second Series, p. 46. + +The Virelai, which we have seen was one of the forms used by Chaucer, +though not represented in his extant poetry, has been but slightly +imitated in English. It was a poem of indeterminate length, composed of +longer and shorter lines, the longer lines in each stanza riming, the +shorter lines in the same stanza also riming, while in the succeeding +stanza the short-line rime of the previous stanza became the long-line +rime. The last stanza took the unrepeated rime of the first stanza as +its new rime; so that in the whole poem each rime was used in two +stanzas. Charles Cotton, one of whose rondeaus has been quoted, also +wrote a virelai. A modern specimen, by Mr. John Payne, is quoted in +_Ballades and Rondeaus_, p. 276. + +The Pantoum is another very interesting form belonging in this group +rather than elsewhere, although it originated not in France but +Malaysia. It was imitated in French by Victor Hugo and other poets, and +through French influence has found a place in English verse. It consists +of an indeterminate number of stanzas of four lines each, the second and +fourth line of each stanza being repeated as the first and third of the +succeeding stanza, while the second and fourth lines of the last stanza +repeat the first and third lines of the first stanza. Thus the whole +forms a sort of interwoven circle, and is used most appropriately to +represent any kind of monotony,--the dull round of repetition. From +_Love in Idleness_ (1883) Mr. White reprints the following admirable +specimen: + + _Monologue d'outre Tombe._ + + Morn and noon and night, + Here I lie in the ground; + No faintest glimmer of light, + No lightest whisper of sound. + + Here I lie in the ground; + The worms glide out and in; + No lightest whisper of sound, + After a lifelong din. + + The worms glide out and in; + They are fruitful and multiply; + After a lifelong din + I watch them quietly. + + They are fruitful and multiply, + My body dwindles the while; + I watch them quietly; + I can scarce forbear a smile. + + My body dwindles the while, + I shall soon be a skeleton; + I can scarce forbear a smile, + They have had such glorious fun. + + I shall soon be a skeleton, + The worms are wriggling away; + They have had such glorious fun, + They will fertilize my clay. + + The worms are wriggling away, + They are what I have been; + They will fertilize my clay; + The grass will grow more green. + + They are what I have been. + I shall change, but what of that? + The grass will grow more green, + The parson's sheep grow fat. + + I shall change, but what of that? + All flesh is grass, one says. + The parson's sheep grow fat, + The parson grows in grace. + + All flesh is grass, one says; + Grass becomes flesh, one knows; + The parson grows in grace: + I am the grace he grows. + + Grass becomes flesh, one knows. + He grows like a bull of Bashan. + I am the grace he grows; + I startle his congregation. + + He grows like a bull of Bashan, + One day he'll be Bishop or Dean. + I startle his congregation; + One day I shall preach to the Queen. + + One day he'll be Bishop or Dean, + One of those science-haters; + One day I shall preach to the Queen. + To think of my going in gaiters! + + One of those science-haters, + Blind as a mole or bat; + To think of my going in gaiters, + And wearing a shovel hat! + + Blind as a mole or bat, + No faintest glimmer of light, + And wearing a shovel hat, + Morning and noon and night. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[47] On the early history of these forms in France, see Stengel's +article in Gröber's _Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie_. vol. ii. pp. +87-96. + +[48] On these ballades of Graunson, a "knight of Savoy," see the +articles by A. Piaget, in _Romania_, vol. xix., and Lounsbury's _Studies +in Chaucer_, vol. iii. p. 450. + + + + +PART THREE + + + + +THE TIME-ELEMENT IN ENGLISH VERSE[49] + + +Nearly all modern writers on the theory of verse have admitted that +English words have no fixed syllabic quantities such as are postulated +for the classical languages, but that English quantities, so far as they +exist, are variable and (in part at least) subjective in character. To +this it is true there are exceptions, chiefly among the poets, like some +of those considered in the preceding section on Imitations of Classical +Metres. + +Writers who have agreed that English words have no fixed quantities, are +still at variance as to the relation of the element of syllabic time to +the element of accent in English verse. Two extremes may at once be +distinguished: that represented by the familiar statement that our +rhythms differ from those of classical poetry in being based wholly on +accent, and that represented most notably by the late Sidney Lanier, who +held that syllabic time-values in English verse are as exact and regular +(hence as accurately measurable) as the notes of music. Lanier applied +his theory with admirable consistency, and represented all sorts of +English verse, even that of the Anglo-Saxon period, in musical notation. +He is almost universally regarded, however, as having been led by the +analogy between music and poetry to carry his method to quite impossible +lengths. The most characteristic example of this is his representation +of the familiar "blank verse" measure in "three-four" time, each +accented syllable being given a time-value twice as long as that of the +adjacent unaccented syllable--a method of reading which can easily be +shown to be contrary to all common practice. It should not be forgotten, +however, that a debt of gratitude is owed Mr. Lanier for having been one +of the first to emphasize adequately the fact that verse, like music, is +_rhythmical sound_. + +Besides those who make English verse to depend wholly on accent, and +those who give it time-values equally regular and measurable with those +of music, there is a third class disposed to confuse the two elements of +quantity and accent. Of this class was Edgar Poe, who in his essay on +The Rationale of Verse constantly spoke of accented and unaccented +syllables as "long" and "short," respectively, and was even disposed to +carry the identification into Latin verse itself. This essay of Poe's +has lately been defended by Mr. John M. Robertson, in the interesting +Appendix to his _New Essays toward a Critical Method_ (1897). +Unfortunately Mr. Robertson seems to have perpetuated deliberately the +confusion which he found in Poe in the use of the terms "accent" and +"quantity." He even says that the attempt to distinguish them is +ill-founded, "that quantity in speaking _must_ amount substantially to +the same thing as stress," and, again, that "Poe's identification of +stress with length is perfectly sound." Whatever be the fundamental fact +here, the use of terms cannot be commended. If quantity is swallowed up +in accent, so that accent alone dominates our verse, that is one thing; +if the conditions are such that a heavy stress and a long quantity +nearly always coincide, that is also a possible doctrine; but that is +not to say that the two things should be identified. If all tall men +wear long coats, or if all men--tall and short--wear long coats, it +follows in neither case that tallness and long-coatedness are the same +thing. It is a mere matter of physics that duration of sound and +intensity of sound are perfectly distinguishable, and that they have no +necessary connection with each other. The problem is: how are they +related in practice? + +It has already been observed that Mr. Lanier did good service in +emphasizing the analogy between music and poetry, but that he carried +the analogy too far. It may, therefore, be worth while to consider at +just this point the elements of likeness and of difference in the two +forms of art. Both are forms of _rhythmical_ art: music and verse are +alike rhythmical sound. Lanier showed with sufficient certainty that +rhythm is dependent upon both _time_ and _accent_. He said, to be sure, +that "time is _the_ essential" element;[50] but this does not seem to +have been altogether what he meant, for he himself pointed out that the +ear insistently marks off time-elements by the sense of variation of +stress, even when there is no real variation, as in the tick-tack of the +clock. He also pointed out that accent marks the rhythm of music quite +as truly as that of verse, the rule being that ordinarily the first note +of each measure shall receive a special stress. It seems, then, that the +rhythm of music is based on the recurrence of accented sounds at equal +time-intervals. The same thing is true of the rhythm of verse. For every +kind of metre there is a normal verse-rhythm which is present in the +mind as the basis on which the verse is built up, no matter how many +variations may constantly occur. This normal rhythm is formed by a +succession of accents at exactly equal time-intervals,[51] such as can +be marked off by a metronome, or by the mechanical beating of the foot +on the floor. We realize that the verse as commonly read frequently +departs from this regularity of intervals; but without the regularity as +a norm to which to refer it, we should not recognize it as verse. The +normal accent-interval we call a "foot." + +Exception must therefore be taken, it seems to me, to another contention +of Mr. Robertson's; namely, that "there is no time-unit." "Our feet," he +says, "are a pure convention, and the sole rhythmic fact is the +fluctuant relativity of long and short, or stress and slur." I am glad +to be able to believe that the fundamental rhythmic fact is something +more definite than this.[52] But the latest writer on the subject, Mr. +Mark Liddell, in his _Introduction to the Scientific Study of Poetry_, +joins Mr. Robertson in finding no feet in English verse. Nay, he +represents the metrist who makes use of the old conventions of +rhythmical measurement as one who will "flounder ceaselessly amid the +scattered timbers of iambuses, spondees, dactyls, tribrachs, never +reaching the firm ground of truth"! Mr. Liddell points out that we do +not pronounce English words, even in verse, with mechanically regular +alternations of stress; and he rejects the explanation that there is +nevertheless a typical form in the poet's and the reader's mind, on the +ground that it is "a strange state of affairs that the ęsthetically +imperfect should produce a greater pleasure than the ęsthetically +perfect." Strange, perhaps, but as familiar as sunrise, if by +"ęsthetically perfect" we mean absolutely regular. Here we need to recur +to the analogy of music, where the phenomenon in question is so obvious. +Let any one attempt to follow a symphony with a metronome in his hand, +and he will soon discover that if the metronome represents the +ęsthetically perfect rhythm, the orchestra represents a more pleasurable +imperfection. Its accelerations and retardations carry on a continual +conflict with the typical time of the music, yet that typical time is +not only printed on every sheet, but is in the mind of every player. It +is precisely so with verse. + +It is true, of course, that the variations from regularity of rhythm are +more numerous and conspicuous in verse than in music. The reason is +obvious: the sounds of verse have constantly to effect a compromise +between the typical rhythm to which they are set and the irregular +stress-and time-variations of human speech, while music has no such +complicated task. Lyrical verse, being closest to music, keeps the +typical rhythm freest from interruption; and it is worthy of remark that +Mr. Liddell's study of English rhythms is based very largely on those of +a non-lyrical character, although he himself points out (p. 271) that +these are the least regular. The drama is dominated, most of all forms +of verse, by the necessity of representing natural human speech; hence +it is not the place to look for the fundamental laws of verse at their +purest. + +There is, then, a unit of time on which all verse-rhythms, like all +musical rhythms, are based; and this is what we commonly call in music +the _measure_, and in verse, the _foot_, I shall recur to this matter a +little later in considering the terminology of the subject; for the +present let us return to the relations of verse and music. Both, we have +seen, are based on the recurrence of accented sounds at equal +time-intervals. There is some difference, however, in the emphasis which +one naturally places on the respective parts of the statement. In music +we feel that the fact of chief importance is that the measures shall be +equal in time, while the recurring accent seems a mere means of marking +this equality; but in verse we feel that the chief fact is that the +accents shall recur, the equality of time-intervals being in a sense a +secondary source of pleasure. In music, therefore, as we have seen, we +treat departures from regularity of time-intervals as somewhat more +exceptional than in verse. But the rhythm would suffer, would even +disappear, were either element wholly removed. + +If we look for further distinctions between verse and music, we find +them in the separate sounds which go to make up the unit-measures. Not +only are the measures of music of mathematically equal length, but all +the sounds bear exact time-relations to each other: each is either half +as long, or twice as long, or a quarter as long, or four times as long, +as its neighbor. On the other hand, the number of separate sounds in the +measure constantly varies; it is sufficient that the total length be +that of the full measure. In verse these conditions are reversed. The +separate syllables, while they doubtless vary in length, are not +mathematically coördinated as to duration by the ordinary reader. It is +almost as difficult to say just what the time-relation of any two +adjacent syllables is, as to be sure that one is stressed just twice as +strongly as the other. On the other hand, the _number_ of syllables in +the foot (in good modern English verse) is tolerably constant. + +For the sake of completeness, one may add two other fundamental +distinctions which, _apart_ from the elements of rhythm, differentiate +verse from music. Music, apart from rhythm, characteristically depends +on variation of pitch, and only incidentally (as in the case of the use +of different instruments in orchestration) on variation of +sound-quality; whereas verse, apart from rhythm, characteristically +depends on variation of sound-quality,--that is, on the different sounds +of the different words,--and only incidentally on changes of pitch. +Finally, the changing sounds of music are only vaguely symbolic, while +the changing sounds of verse are symbolic of definite ideas. + +For the sake of easy comparison we may put these observations in a rough +sort of table: + + MUSIC VERSE + _Rhythmical Sound_, + i.e. + + Recurrence of accented sounds Recurrence of _accented sounds_ + _at equal time-intervals_. at equal time-intervals. + + Separate sounds mathematically Separate sounds not mathematically + related in length, and constantly related in length, and + varying in number and arrangement. generally with unchanged number + and arrangement. + + Apart from rhythm, dependent on Apart from rhythm, dependent on + variation of _pitch_ (incidentally variation of sound-_quality_ + on sound-_quality_). (incidentally on _pitch_). + + Sounds vaguely symbolic. Sounds symbolic of definite ideas. + +Let us now consider more closely the time-values of the separate +syllables of verse, asking just what we mean by a "long" or a "short" +syllable in English. It has already been indicated that the ear +recognizes no such fixed proportions in the length of our syllables as +are recognized for musical notes, or as are postulated for the syllables +of Greek and Latin verse. It must also be remembered that the terms +"long" and "short," as commonly used of English vowels, are of little +significance for the matter of real quantity. They are applied for +historical reasons, and do not describe present facts. Thus we call the +_o_ in "hotel" _long_, and that in "cot" short; but it is fairly clear +that the _o_ of "cot" takes rather more time, as commonly uttered, than +that of "hotel." The so-called "short _o_" is, in fact, a sound so open +that it has lost the _o_-quality. In the same way what we call "long +_a_" is a short-_e_ sound diphthongized. We cannot be said to preserve +in modern English any single vowels with fixed long quantity, such as we +hear in German words like _Saal_ and _See_,--sounds which obviously take +more time in utterance than others. + +Can we speak accurately, then, of long syllables and short syllables in +modern English? It may be said that we have a large number of genuine +diphthongs; and such double sounds, especially where they are so open as +to require unusual effort on the part of the vocal organs (like _-ow_, +for example), may be assumed to take a longer time in utterance than +monophthongs. Even such a sound as is represented by _-au_ or _-aw_, +though it has but slight diphthongal quality, seems to sound longer than +most monophthongs. But in none of these cases does ordinary +pronunciation make the sound-length at all conspicuous, except where it +coincides with strong stress; and it requires a moment's reasoning to +convince one's self that the vowel in _fine_ is any longer than that in +_fan_. It is more than doubtful, then, whether our vowel sounds can be +regarded as of significance for metrical time. A word like "saw" or +"now," occurring in such a place in the verse as to be passed over with +the briefest and lightest utterance, would be pronounced with rapidity +by the ordinary reader, with no thought that the vowel-sound was too +"long." + +But in the earlier languages a syllable might be long, not only from the +presence of a long vowel, but also from the presence of two or more +consonants following the vowel. May this be said to hold good for modern +English? In general, prolonged consonantal sounds seem to be avoided, as +in the case of vowels. We pass over them rapidly, and have, for +instance, no such clearly stopped syllables due to double consonants as +are heard in Italian words like _madonna_. Yet we cannot doubt that two +or three consonants require more time than one, and in words like +_strength_, _flushed_, _fists_, and the like, every one would find the +consonantal length perceptible. More than this, two consonants often +serve to "close" the preceding syllable, by making it impossible to run +the consonant at the end of it over into the following syllable, and +hence really lengthen it. This, of course, is the reason why the first +syllable of the Latin _avis_ is said to be short, but that of _alvus_ to +be long. The Elizabethan metrists tried to apply these Latin rules of +"quantity by position" to all English words; and many modern English +writers, who have been trained from childhood in the appreciation of +Latin quantities, easily perceive the differing consonantal quantities +of English words. These quantities may, then, certainly be said to +exist; but in ordinary English pronunciation, and to the ordinary, +untrained English ear, they must be strongly marked in order to attract +attention. When thus strongly marked, they doubtless play some part in +the structure of verse. In some lines attributed to Raleigh, + + "His desire is a dureless content, + And a trustless joy," + +the syllable _trust_-occupies the time of two syllables; the typical +metre would require something like + + "And a pitiless joy." + +Now, the fact that _trust_-is a noticeably long syllable, especially +when closed by the following _l_, makes it well fitted to fill the place +of two syllables; and we should find the line distinctly less pleasing +if a short syllable were there instead. _Boundless_ would do as well, +because equally long; _trusty_ would not be quite so good; _silly_ would +be very bad. Conversely, when a noticeably long syllable occupies the +place of a light syllable, in rapid tri-syllabic verse, we feel that +the verse is injured. Mr. William Larminie criticises a line of Mr. +Swinburne's on this ground,-- + + "Time sheds them like snow on strange regions;"[53] + +the combination _-ange_, with its final _-nj_ sound, made still longer +by the following _r_, and preceded, too, by the combination _n-st_, has +too much quantity for the place where it stands in the verse. In the +verse of inferior writers many worse cases could easily be found. These +illustrations, then, may serve to show that while we do not coördinate +our consonantal syllable-lengths as absolute "shorts" and "longs," we +perceive certain degrees of length, and find these playing a part in our +verse. + +So much for intrinsic quantity as found in English syllables. But there +is much more to be said for syllables made long or short at the will of +the speaker, under certain conditions. If we address a friend in +surprise, saying, "_Why, John!_" we not only throw a heavy stress on +both the words, but also perceptibly prolong them. In like manner, we +realize that unimportant words, especially proclitics (like the +italicized words in the phrase "_The_ land _of the_ free") are not only +unstressed, but are hurried over in shorter moments than the accented +words. Examples like this suggest what may in fact be expressed in a +general statement, that accented syllables are very commonly prolonged. +This is not, as we have seen, from any essential connection between the +nature of accent and the nature of quantity. In certain cases, +unaccented syllables even show a tendency to length beyond that of those +bearing the stress, as in words like _follow_, _dying_, and others where +the final sound is easily prolonged. The coincidence of stress and +length, then, is due simply to the operation of the same cause--the +grammatical or rhetorical importance of the syllable in question. This +fact, that the important (stressed) syllables are likely to be held a +little longer than the others, will not warrant us in representing them +as _twice_ as long, in the exact mathematical relations of musical +notes; but it may explain why a musician like Lanier tried to represent +them in such notation. It must also be the cause of Mr. Robertson's +attempt to identify quantity and stress. His statement that "quantity in +fact, in spoken verse, consists of stress _and_ of the consonantal total +of syllables," may be regarded as much more satisfactory than those +already quoted from his essay. It is, however, not quite accurate. + +Still another kind of relative syllable-length remains to be considered, +and for metrical purposes it is probably the most important. The +_accents_ of English words not only vary in degree according to the +different stresses which they receive in different prose sentences, but +in verse they are made artificially to vary also so as to conform as +closely as possible to the scheme of the metre. Thus the first syllable +of the word _over_ is accented far more strongly when it occurs at the +opening of a dactylic verse, + + "Over the ocean wave," + +than when it occurs at the opening of an anapestic verse, + + "Over land, over sea." + +This being the case with accent, which tends to be strongly fixed in +English words, we might naturally expect that it would be still more +clearly the case with the element of time; and so it is. Syllables will +be lengthened and shortened by the reader in order to preserve as nearly +as possible the fundamental equal time-intervals between the principal +accents. This is most easily recognized, and most commonly practised, in +the case where syllables are shortened because there are more of them +than the normal scheme of the verse would imply. The old "tumbling +verse" of our ancestors depended on this principle, and so did the +revival of it in Coleridge's _Christabel_. For example: + + "A little door she opened straight, + All in the middle of the gate, + The gate that was ironed within and without, + Where an army in battle array had marched out." + +Here the rhythm of the last verse is brought into the four-beat measure +of the first verse, by passing lightly and rapidly over all syllables +save the four that mark the metre. In prose, the word _marched_ would be +stressed quite as much as the word _out_, but there is no difficulty in +reducing the stress in reading the verse.[54] It cannot be said, +however, that there is no difficulty in reducing its _length_, for the +final consonant combination _-cht_ takes up considerable time, and the +whole word follows a syllable (_had_) which has been closed and so +lengthened by the _d + m_. Sensitive readers would probably agree, +therefore, that the quantity in this verse is too much for the +smoothness of the rhythm. On the other hand, the long syllable _ironed_ +helps us to fill the place of the light syllable which is missing after +it, and we find the rhythm easier than it would be in this form: + + "The gate that was ironed both within and without." + +Once more, for the sake of convenience, let us attempt to put our +conclusions into the form of a summary. An English syllable may be said +to be _long_, not absolutely but _relatively_, from: + +[1. The naturally long character of its vowel-sound, due either + to open quality or diphthongization.] + +2. The presence of two or more consonants which require a + perceptible time for utterance. + +3. Prolongation by the speaker + (_a_) because of the importance of the syllable, or + (_b_) because of the time which it ought to occupy in + the scheme of the verse. + +The artificial lengthening and shortening of syllables, then, is +constantly and naturally practised in the reading of verse which has a +strong lyrical swing such as guides the reader into a sense of its +structure. In verse more subtle and less lyrical in character the +time-intervals are not so strongly marked, and by the ear not trained to +listen for rhythm they are not so easily observed. The five-stress +iambic line, especially when unrimed, has developed far more freedom and +subtlety in English poetry than any other measure, and it is to this +that one finds these writers invariably turning who wish to prove that +our verse is not based on regular time-intervals. A verse like this: + + "The lone couch of his everlasting sleep," + +if read as an ordinary prose phrase, has no obvious metrical character. +The second foot ("couch of") inverts the normal order of accent and +no-accent, and in common speech the second and third syllables would be +long and followed by a phrase-pause, while the fourth and fifth +syllables would be made very short and jointed closely to what follows. +There is no rhythm in such a group of words. But when we know that they +are part of a poem in five-stress verse, we can readjust them so as to +approach more closely to the rhythmical scheme in our minds. We cannot +accent either _of_ or _his_, without destroying the sense; nor can we +deprive either _lone_ or _couch_ of its accent; but we can _lengthen_ +the words _of his_ beyond their natural time in speech, pronouncing them +more deliberately, and we can also, perhaps, diminish the phrase-pause +after _couch_. This would tend to equalize the five time-intervals to +which the verse, as a verse, should fit itself. It would be too much to +say that this is what the ordinary reader would do, because the ordinary +reader is likely to have his mind fixed on expressing the sense, +neglecting the rhythm which is equally an element of the poetry; but it +is what the careful reader could do without difficulty. + +The first line of _Paradise Lost_, + + "Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit," + +always a favorite specimen for metrists to dissect, is of like +character. Mr. Robertson, in the essay already cited, makes considerable +use of this verse as showing the vanity of the usual method of dividing +verses into equal feet. He quotes approvingly Professor Shairp's account +of the way in which Clough analyzed the line: "The two feet 'first +disobe-' took up the time of four syllables, two iambic feet: the voice +rested awhile on the word 'first'; then passed swiftly over 'diso-,' +then rested again on 'be-' so as to recover the previous hurry." Now +this seems to be merely a description of the way in which the words +would be uttered in prose, and to neglect the rhythm of the poem in +which they stand. In the second foot one can and should give the +syllable _dis-_ full syllabic time, instead of hurrying over it as in +prose speech,--a rendering made easy by the fact that it frequently has +a marked secondary accent. Conversely, one can give _first_ somewhat +less time than it would occupy in prose, without thereby diminishing +its accent. The word _and_, in the fourth foot, would in prose utterance +be allowed almost no time-value; and it may be treated in the same way +in the verse, by permitting the pause at the comma to fill up the normal +time of the foot. It would seem to be better, however, to give _and_ a +fairly distinct utterance for metrical purposes (without, of course, +adding any stress), and thus to approach more closely to the scheme of +time-intervals. It is highly improbable that any one would read this +verse--or almost any other verse of _Paradise Lost_--with such exact +observance of the equal time-intervals as would appear in regular +lyrical poetry. We have already seen that blank verse departs more +constantly from the typical scheme of the measure than any other of our +verse-forms. Nevertheless, the reader with a well-trained ear listens +always for the flow of the typical metre underneath the surface +irregularities, and, by a delicate adjustment of syllable-lengths, can +bring the poet's words into far more rhythmical utterance than they +would find in prose. + +There is one other method of varying the time-elements in verse which +has already been suggested by what was said of the pause at the comma in +the line of _Paradise Lost_. It will be seen very generally that light +syllables, such as one wishes to utter in brief periods of time, are +found on either side of the phrase-pauses in our verse. + + "The first in valor, as the first in place" + +is a typical line in this respect. The natural pause, indicated by the +comma, takes up part of the time of the third foot, which there are no +syllables fitted wholly to fill. It might almost be said that, in +ordinary five-stress verse, such verses are quite as numerous as those +with five complete feet. The pause satisfies the ear, so far as the +time-intervals are concerned, quite as well as a long syllable. + +Pauses not only fill up the incomplete time of a foot containing only +short syllables, but they also fill the time of wholly missing +syllables. In the verse + + "Come from the dying moon, and blow" + +we start out with trisyllabic rhythm, but have only two syllables in the +second and in the third foot. It does not seem certain whether the +missing syllable after _dying_ is to have its place filled by a pause or +by a prolongation of either or both of the syllables _dy-ing_--perhaps +by all three means combined. In the same way the missing syllable after +_moon_ may have its place filled either by the prolongation of the _oo_, +or by the pause indicated by the comma, or by both. But in other cases +the pause occupies the entire syllable-moment; for examples, see under +Pauses in pages 20-22 above. The whole matter was well summed up in +Lanier's saying that "rhythm may be dependent on silences" as well as on +sounds. + +Let us now try to gather what we have been considering into the form of +definite statements regarding the place of the time-element in our +verse. + +1. _In the normal verse, accents appear at equal time-intervals._ This, +of course, does not preclude all manner of variations; the unit of +measure is not the distance between the accents as they are found in +each verse, but between the points where they belong in the typical +metre. + +2. _There is a tendency toward the coincidence of long and accented, and +of short and unaccented, syllables._ This we have seen to be true in two +different senses. In the first place, an accented syllable is likely to +be lengthened for the same reason that it is accented--because of its +relative importance in the place where it stands. In the second place, +syllables noticeably long are avoided in those places in the verse where +the accent does not fall, and are preferred where the stress is heavy. + +3. _In the reading of verse, the length of the syllables is varied +artificially, so as to tend to preserve the equal time-intervals._ + +4. _In like manner, pauses are introduced where syllables are short or +wanting, to preserve these intervals._ + +It is quite possible that these laws might be stated more fully and +definitely. In Anglo-Saxon verse the conditions were perhaps not so +different from those of modern English as we are likely to think; there +we know that the principal stresses of the verse always fell on long +syllables, and scholars like Sievers, by analyzing the remains of our +early poetry, have formulated certain other laws as to the position and +relations of the short syllables. If similar laws were to be formulated +for our modern verse, we should probably find them no more perplexing +than our ancestors would find those we have formulated for their verse. +In every case the "law" is only an attempt to express what the ear has +long known and obeyed. Mr. Goodell, in an article on "Quantity in +English Verse," in the _Proceedings of the American Philological +Society_ for 1885, attempted to do for our verse what has just been +suggested. He stated such laws as these: + +"The thesis becomes a triseme if the next syllable bears the ictus. No +syllable can be placed in this position which is incapable of +prolongation." + +"If the arsis is monosyllabic, a short vowel in the thesis followed by a +single consonant is not lengthened by the ictus; the arsis is instead +prolonged." + +"With arsis monosyllabic, the strong tendency is to make the thesis +short." + +Perhaps these rules are on the right track; the terminology is somewhat +difficult, and makes one hesitate to criticise carefully. But since, as +we have seen, the terms "long" and "short," as applied to English +syllables, have come to be so purely relative, since our syllabic +quantities vary so much at the will of the reader, and since the whole +matter of the reading of our verse is in good measure one of subjective +interpretation, it seems very doubtful whether any statements more +explicit than those already laid down would be found of practical +service. + +Finally, we come back to the question whether we shall use for English +verse the classical terminology which has for so long been applied to +it. Those who object to such terminology do so either on the ground that +it implies that English accented and unaccented syllables are equivalent +respectively to Latin long and short syllables, or on the still more +fundamental ground that there is nothing in our verse which can properly +be called a "foot." It is undoubtedly true that the use of terms based +on quantity has given rise to some confusion when applied to phenomena +based on accent, yet the terms are now understood with as fair a degree +of clearness as any terms relating to so disputed a subject as English +verse; and it seems very doubtful whether it is not easier to explain +them than to introduce new ones. Experiments in the latter direction +have not been very successful. The latest writer on the subject objects, +with considerable severity, to the classical nomenclature "hardly +pressed and barbarously misapplied." Our current prosody, he says later, +"ignores" the frequent occurrence of an accented syllable at the +beginning of a line of Shakspere's verse, "turning it off with the +statement that 'a trochaic foot may begin an iambic verse.'" Yet when we +reach the summary of the author's discussion of the subject, we find the +same phenomenon "turned off" with this statement: "In rising rhythm a +thought-moment may begin with a falling wave-group." One cannot avoid +querying whether this interesting combination of words conveys any +simpler and better idea to the normal English reader than the familiar +statement that "a trochaic foot may begin an iambic verse." The case is +instructive as to the danger of attempting a new terminology where one +is already established, and of imagining that one has thereby made the +discussion of the subject more scientific. + +The second of the objections to the usual terminology, that there is no +real _foot_ in English verse, has already been considered. If there are +no regular units of measure in our verse, then to attempt constantly to +find such units, and to use terms that imply their existence, is +certainly a mistake. But those are on the wrong track who would find the +divisions of the verse in the natural phrase-divisions of English +speech.[55] In "_arma virumque cano_" the syllable _vi-_ is far more +closely connected with the syllable _-rum_, for all prose purposes, than +with the preceding syllables; but in the verse the Romans thought of it +as being in the same foot with _arma_; and later in the verse the last +syllable of _cano_ is rhythmically connected (over the barrier of a +comma) with the first of _Troję_. Indeed, the Latin poets instinctively +avoided the regular coincidence of metrical units with word or sentence +units. Precisely the same thing is true of English verse. It has been +suggested more than once that the great preponderance, among English +dissyllables, of those accented on the first syllable, goes to explain +our preference for iambic over trochaic measures; and that one reason +why the rhythm of _Hiawatha_, for example, so soon wearies the ear, is +because its metrical divisions and word divisions so frequently +coincide. The fundamental principle of verse is that it sets up a new +order of progress which constantly conflicts with, yet without +destroying, the order of progress of common prose speech. + +So the _foot_ means, not a unit of measure for the words, but for the +syllables viewed as rhythmical sound; and the attempt has already been +made to show that it represents the time-interval between the regularly +recurring accents of the normal metre. When there are two syllables in +the interval, it is convenient to call the foot an iambus, a trochee, a +pyrrhic, or a spondee; when there are three, it is convenient to call +the foot an anapest or a dactyl. According to this system, the number of +feet in the metre will always depend on the number of regularly +recurring accents, which of course is not the case in classical prosody. +For the same reason, all exceptional feet can be named by one of the six +terms indicated, except where (as in Swinburne's "Choriambics") some +classical metre is deliberately imitated. There is no sufficient reason +for speaking of the choriambus as occurring in Shakspere's verse, +because where four syllables occur in such succession as to form a sort +of choriambus, they will be found to fill the place of _two_ ordinary +feet, not of one; hence it would be irrational to combine them into one +exceptional foot. But on this matter of convenience in the terminology +of verse, one cannot do better than to refer the reader to Mr. Mayor's +_Chapters on English Metre_, where a refreshingly simple system is set +forth, such as will not break down under any reasonable test. + +There is one defect, it may be freely admitted, in these classical names +of feet. They provide no place for the secondary accent. A foot made up +of a fully accented plus a slightly accented syllable must be called +either a spondee (the second syllable being thought of as approaching +the stress of the first) or a trochee (the syllable being thought of as +approaching no stress). The abundant use of secondary or compromised +accents--and one might say, too, of secondary or compromised +quantities--is a Germanic characteristic, for which no classical +terminology can provide. There is, theoretically, room for some new +names of feet recognizing these ambiguous syllables. Yet since degrees +of accent are purely relative, and no two readers would be sure of +agreeing as to which syllables are fully stressed, and which are +half-stressed, it is not likely that such additional terms would make +our terminology any more exact for practical purposes. The present +system does, in fact, represent a characteristic feature of modern +English as distinguished from early English verse; namely, that our +metres strive after a regular alternation of stress and no-stress, and +that the ear imagines this alternation even where (if it were a matter +of prose utterance) it can scarcely be said to exist. + +It would be absurd to strive with any warmth for the classical system of +terminology in English prosody. It is undoubtedly not an ideal system, +nor such a one as we should adopt if we were naming everything anew; few +existing terminologies are. The only object of the present defence of +its carefully limited use is to show that it does stand for some +fundamental facts in our verse, and to suggest that it is usually wiser +to make the best of the vocabulary we have than to fly to one we know +not of. The important thing, in any case, is not the question of terms, +but the end that we should not lose hold of the musical rhythms of our +verse, made up of delicately adjusted elements of accent and time. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[49] This discussion is in part a reproduction of an article with the +same title originally published in _Modern Language Notes_, December, +1899. + +[50] _Science of English Verse_, p. 65. + +[51] On the nature of our sense of rhythm, see Mr. T. L. Bolton's +account of his experiments relating to the subject, given in the +_American Journal of Psychology_, vol. vi, p. 145. He reaches the +conclusion that, in order to awaken the sense of rhythm, it is necessary +that "the accents in a line shall recur at regular intervals." + +[52] Similarly, so distinguished a scholar as Professor Skeat has lately +opposed the scansion of English verse by feet, in the _Transactions of +the Philological Society_ for 1897-1898. For an ample examination of his +views the reader must be referred to the new edition of Mr. Mayor's +_Chapters on English Metre_, chap. vii. + +[53] See Mr. Larminie's article on "The Development of English Metres" +in the _Contemporary Review_ for November, 1894. In this article there +is one of the clearest statements of the place of quantity in our verse +that one can easily find. Mr. Larminie seems disposed, however, to place +too much stress on the element of fixed or natural quantity, and +sometimes to use the terms "long" and "short" with merely traditional +meanings. The most characteristic feature of his discussion is, that he +establishes certain principles of quantity, and judges the poets by +their conformity to these principles. The inductive method is less +pretentious and perhaps safer: to inquire what the poets do, and how in +the reading of their verse we may preserve the rhythm which they +undoubtedly had in mind. Both methods are legitimate. One will lay down +rules for the poet, another for the reader; and there is perhaps as much +chance of one being followed as of the other. + +[54] At least no difficulty has generally been found; but Mr. Liddell +marks the word as one which _must_ be stressed from its grammatical +importance. He even finds Coleridge untrue to the metre in putting +_where_ in an unstressed place in the verse, on the ground that it means +"through which." It would perhaps be safe to guess that no +unsophisticated English reader has ever found difficulty in the accents +of the line in question. The matter is worthy of remark as illustrating +the tendency of one class of readers to emphasize _sense_-reading at the +expense of rhythm. On the other hand, for an illustration of the +opposite extreme see Professor Bright's article on "Grammatical Ictus in +English Verse," in the Furnivall _Miscellany_ (1901), where we are told, +in effect, that the metrical accent must always triumph over the +sense-accent. As usual, the truth seems to lie somewhere between the +extremes. + +[55] This seems to be a part of the old effort to seek a grammatical +rather than a musical origin for metre. On this subject the reader +should see the brilliant discussion of Professor Gummere in _The +Beginnings of Poetry_, from which a few paragraphs are quoted in Part +Four. + + + + +PART FOUR + + + + +THE PLACE AND FUNCTION OF THE METRICAL ELEMENT IN POETRY + + + The following extracts from important critical discussions are + selected with reference to their bearing on two questions: Is metre + an essential or only an incidental element of poetry? and, What are + its functions in the total content and effect of poetry? The + student of the subject will do well to analyze the answers to the + second question, determining under how many aspects of the metrical + element they can be grouped. + +Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them +lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is implanted +in man from childhood.... Next, there is the instinct for harmony and +rhythm, metres being manifestly sections of rhythm. Persons, therefore, +starting with this natural gift developed by degrees their special +aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave birth to Poetry. + +(ARISTOTLE: _Poetics_, iv. Butcher's translation, pp. 15, 17.) + + +Poetry, music, and dancing constitute in Aristotle a group by +themselves, their common element being imitation by means of +rhythm--rhythm which admits of being applied to words, sounds, and the +movements of the body. The history of these arts bears out the views we +find expressed in Greek writers upon the theory of music; it is a +witness to the primitive unity of music and poetry, and to the close +alliance of the two with dancing.... The intimate fusion of the three +arts afterward known as the "musical" arts--or rather we should perhaps +say, the alliance of music and dancing under the supremacy of +poetry--was exhibited even in the person of the artist. The office of +the poet as teacher of the chorus demanded a practical knowledge of all +that passed under the term "dancing," including steps, gestures, +attitudes, and the varied resources of rhythmical movement.... The poet, +lyric or dramatic, composed the accompaniment as well as wrote the +verses; and it was made a reproach against Euripides, who was the first +to deviate from the established usage, that he sought the aid of Iophon, +son of Sophocles, in the musical setting of his dramas. The very word +"poet" in classical times often implies the twofold character of poet +and musician, and in later writers is sometimes used, like our +"composer," in a strictly limited reference to music. + +Aristotle does full justice to the force of rhythmic form and movement +in the arts of music and dancing. The instinctive love of melody and +rhythm is, again, one of the two causes to which he traces the origin of +poetry, but he lays little stress on this element in estimating the +finished products of the poetic art. In the _Rhetoric_ he observes that +if a sentence has metre it will be poetry; but this is said in a popular +way. It was doubtless the received opinion, but it is one which he twice +combats in the _Poetics_, insisting that it is not metrical form that +makes a poem.... + +The general question whether metre is necessary for poetical expression +has been raised by many modern critics and poets, and has sometimes been +answered in the negative, as by Sidney, Shelley, Wordsworth. It is, +however, worth observing that from Aristotle's point of view, which was +mainly one of observation, the question to be determined was rather as +to the vehicle or medium of literary _mimesis_; and so far as the +_mimesis_ doctrine is concerned, it is undeniable that some kinds of +imaginative subject-matter are better expressed in prose, some in verse, +and that Aristotle, who had before him experimental examples of writings +poetic in spirit, but not metrical in form, had sufficient grounds for +advocating an extension of meaning for the term _poietes_. But as +regards the _Art_ of Poetry, his reasoning does not lead us to conclude +that he would have reckoned the authors of prose dialogues or romances +among poets strictly so called. As Mr. Courthope truly says, "he does +not attempt to prove that metre is not a necessary accompaniment of the +higher conceptions of poetry," and he, "therefore, cannot be ranged with +those who support that extreme opinion." Still there would appear to be +some want of firmness in the position he takes up as to the place and +importance of metre. In his definition of tragedy (chap. vi. 2) +"embellished language" is included among the constituent elements of +tragedy; and the phrase is then explained to mean language that has the +twofold charm of metre (which is a branch of rhythm) and of melody. But +these elements are placed in a subordinate rank and are hardly treated +as essentials. They are in this respect not unlike scenery or +spectacular effect, which, though deduced by Aristotle from the +definition, is not explicitly mentioned in it. The essence of the poetry +is the "imitation"; the melody and the verse are the "seasoning" of the +language.... Aristotle, highly as he rates the ęsthetic capacity of the +sense of hearing in his treatment of music, says nothing to show that he +values at its proper worth the power of rhythmical sound as factor in +poetry; and this is the more striking in a Greek, whose enjoyment of +poetry came through the ear rather than the eye, and for whom poetry was +so largely associated with music. After all, there can hardly be a +greater difference between two ways of saying the same thing than that +one is said in verse, the other in prose. There are some lyrics which +have lived and will always live by their musical charm, and by a strange +magic that lies in the setting of the words. We need not agree with a +certain modern school who would empty all poetry of poetical thought and +etherealize it till it melts into a strain of music; who sing to us we +hardly know of what, but in such a way that the echoes of the real +world, its men and women, its actual stir and conflict, are faint and +hardly to be discerned. The poetry, we are told, resides not in the +ideas conveyed, not in the blending of soul and sense, but in the sound +itself, in the cadence of the verse. Yet, false as this view may be, it +is not perhaps more false than that other which wholly ignores the +effect of musical sound and looks only to the thought that is conveyed. +Aristotle comes perilously near this doctrine. + +(S. H. BUTCHER: _Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art_. pp. +138-147.) + + +It is not riming and versing that maketh a poet, no more than a long +gown maketh an advocate; who, though he pleaded in armor, should be an +advocate and no soldier. But it is that feigning notable images of +virtues, vices, or what else, with that delightful teaching which must +be the right describing note to know a poet by; although, indeed, the +senate of poets hath chosen verse as their fittest raiment, meaning, as +in matter they passed all in all, so in manner to go beyond them: not +speaking (table-talk fashion, or like men in a dream) words as they +chanceably fell from the mouth, but poyzing each syllable of each word +by just proportion according to the dignity of the subject.... + +It is already said (and as I think, truly said) it is not riming and +versing that maketh poesy.... But yet, presuppose it were inseparable +(as, indeed, it seemeth Scaliger judgeth) truly it were an inseparable +commendation. For if _oratio_ next to _ratio_, speech next to reason, be +the greatest gift bestowed upon mortality, that cannot be praiseless, +which doth most polish that blessing of speech, which considers each +word, not only (as a man may say) by his forcible quality, but by his +measured quantity, carrying even in themselves a harmony, without +(perchance) number, measure, order, proportion, be in our time grown +odious. But lay aside the just praise it hath, by being the only fit +speech for music (music, I say, the most divine striker of the senses); +thus much is undoubtedly true, that if reading be foolish, without +remembering, memory being the only treasurer of knowledge, those words +which are fittest for memory are likewise most convenient for knowledge. +Now, that verse far exceedeth prose in the knitting up of the memory, +the reason is manifest. The words (besides their delight, which hath a +great affinity to memory), being so set, as one word cannot be lost, but +the whole work fails, which accuseth itself, calleth the remembrance +back to itself, and so most strongly confirmeth it. Besides, one word +so as it were begetting another, as be it in rime or measured verse, by +the former a man shall have a near guess to the follower.... So that, +verse being in itself sweet and orderly, and being best for memory, the +only handle of knowledge, it must be in jest that any man can speak +against it. + +(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _An Apologie for Poetrie_.) + + +Versification, or the art of modulating his numbers, is indispensably +necessary to a poet. Every other power by which the understanding is +enlightened, or the imagination enchanted, may be exercised in prose. +But the poet has this peculiar superiority, that to all the powers which +the perfection of every other composition can require, he adds the +faculty of joining music with reason, and of acting at once upon the +senses and the passions. I suppose there are few who do not feel +themselves touched by poetical melody, and who will not confess that +they are more or less moved by the same thoughts, as they are conveyed +by different sounds, and more affected by the same words in one order +than another. The perception of harmony is, indeed, conferred upon men +in degrees very unequal; but there are none who do not perceive it, or +to whom a regular series of proportionate sounds cannot give delight. + +(SAMUEL JOHNSON: _The Rambler_, No. 86.) + + +Various causes might be pointed out why, when the style is manly, and +the subject of some importance, words metrically arranged will long +continue to impart such a pleasure to mankind as he who proves the +extent of that pleasure will be desirous to impart. The end of poetry is +to produce excitement in coexistence with an overbalance of pleasure; +but, by the supposition, excitement is an unusual and irregular state of +the mind; ideas and feelings do not, in that state, succeed each other +in accustomed order.... Now the co-presence of something regular, +something to which the mind has been accustomed in various moods and in +a less excited state, cannot but have great efficacy in tempering and +restraining the passion by an intertexture of ordinary feeling, and of +feeling not strictly and necessarily connected with the passion. This is +unquestionably true; and hence, though the opinion will at first appear +paradoxical, from the tendency of metre to divest language, in a certain +degree, of its reality, and thus to throw a sort of half-consciousness +of unsubstantial existence over the whole composition, there can be +little doubt but that more pathetic situations and sentiments--that is, +those which have a greater proportion of pain connected with them--may +be endured in metrical composition, especially in rime, than in +prose.... This opinion may be further illustrated by appealing to the +reader's own experience of the reluctance with which he comes to the +reperusal of the distressful parts of _Clarissa Harlowe_, or the +_Gamester_; while Shakspere's writings, in the most pathetic scenes, +never act upon us as pathetic beyond the bounds of pleasure--an effect +which, in a much greater degree than might at first be imagined, is to +be ascribed to small, but continual and regular impulses of pleasurable +surprise from the metrical arrangement.[56] On the other hand (what it +must be allowed will much more frequently happen), if the poet's words +should be incommensurate with the passion, and inadequate to raise the +reader to a height of desirable excitement, then (unless the poet's +choice of his metre has been grossly injudicious), in the feelings of +pleasure which the reader has been accustomed to connect with metre in +general, and in the feeling, whether cheerful or melancholy, which he +has been accustomed to connect with that particular movement of metre, +there will be found something which will greatly contribute to impart +passion to the words, and to effect the complex end which the poet +proposes to himself. + +If I had undertaken a systematic defence of the theory here maintained, +it would have been my duty to develop the various causes upon which the +pleasure received from metrical language depends. Among the chief of +these causes is to be reckoned a principle which must be well known to +those who have made any of the Arts the object of accurate reflection; +namely, the pleasure which the mind derives from the perception of +similitude in dissimilitude. This principle is the great spring of the +activity of our minds, and their chief feeder.... It would not be a +useless employment to apply this principle to the consideration of +metre, and to show that metre is hence enabled to afford much pleasure, +and to point out in what manner that pleasure is produced. But my limits +will not permit me to enter upon this subject, and I must content myself +with a general summary. + +I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful +feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity; +the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the +tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which +was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does +itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful composition +generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on; but +the emotion, of whatever kind, and in whatever degree, from various +causes, is qualified by various pleasures, so that in describing any +passions whatsoever, which are voluntarily described, the mind will, +upon the whole, be in a state of enjoyment. If Nature be thus cautious +to preserve in a state of enjoyment a being so employed, the Poet ought +to profit by the lesson held forth to him, and ought especially to take +care that, whatever passions he communicates to his reader, those +passions, if his reader's mind be sound and vigorous, should always be +accompanied with an overbalance of pleasure. Now the music of harmonious +metrical language, the sense of difficulty overcome, and the blind +association of pleasure which has been previously received from works of +rime or metre of the same or similar construction, an indistinct +perception perpetually renewed of language closely resembling that of +real life, and yet, in the circumstance of metre, differing from it so +widely--all these imperceptibly make up a complex feeling of delight, +which is of the most important use in tempering the painful feeling +always found intermingled with powerful descriptions of the deeper +passions. This effect is always produced in pathetic and impassioned +poetry; while, in lighter compositions, the ease and gracefulness with +which the Poet manages his numbers are themselves confessedly a +principal source of the gratification of the reader. All that it is +necessary to say, however, upon this subject, may be effected by +affirming, what few persons will deny, that of two descriptions, either +of passions, manners, or characters, each of them equally well executed, +the one in prose and the other in verse, the verse will be read a +hundred times where the prose is read once. + +(WORDSWORTH: Preface to the _Lyrical Ballads_, 2d ed.) + + +The true question must be,[57] whether there are not modes of +expression, a construction, and an order of sentences, which are in +their fit and natural place in a serious prose composition, but would be +disproportionate and heterogeneous in metrical poetry; and, _vice +versa_, whether in the language of a serious poem there may not be an +arrangement both of words and sentences, and a use and selection of +(what are called) figures of speech, both as to their kind, their +frequency, and their occasions, which on a subject of equal weight would +be vicious and alien in correct and manly prose. I contend that in both +cases this unfitness of each for the place of the other frequently will +and ought to exist. And, first, from the origin of metre. This I would +trace to the balance in the mind effected by the spontaneous effort +which strives to hold in check the workings of passion. It might be +easily explained likewise in what manner this salutary antagonism is +assisted by the very state which it counteracts; and how this balance +of antagonists became organized into metre (in the usual acceptation of +that term) by a supervening act of the will and judgment, consciously +and for the foreseen purpose of pleasure. Assuming these principles as +the data of our argument, we deduce from them two legitimate conditions, +which the critic is entitled to expect in every metrical work. First, +that as the elements of metre owe their existence to a state of +increased excitement, so the metre itself should be accompanied by the +natural language of excitement. Secondly, that as these elements are +formed into metre artificially, by a voluntary act, with the design and +for the purpose of blending delight with emotion, so the traces of +present volition should throughout the metrical language be +proportionally discernible.... + +Secondly, I argue from the effects of metre. As far as metre acts in and +for itself, it tends to increase the vivacity and susceptibility both of +the general feelings and of the attention. This effect it produces by +the continued excitement of surprise, and by the quick reciprocations of +curiosity still gratified and still re-excited, which are too slight +indeed to be at any moment objects of distinct consciousness, yet become +considerable in their aggregate influence. As a medicated atmosphere, or +as wine during animated conversation, they act powerfully, though +themselves unnoticed. Where, therefore, correspondent food and +appropriate matter are not provided for the attention and feelings thus +roused, there must needs be disappointment felt;--like that of leaping +in the dark from the last step of a staircase, when we had prepared our +muscles for a leap of three or four. + +The discussion on the powers of metre, in the Preface, is highly +ingenious, and touches at all points on truth. But I cannot find any +statement of its powers considered abstractly and separately. On the +contrary, Mr. Wordsworth seems always to estimate metre by the powers +which it exerts during (and, as I think, in consequence of) its +combination with other elements of poetry. Thus the previous difficulty +is left unanswered, what the elements are with which it must be combined +in order to produce its own effects to any pleasurable purpose.... For +any poetic purposes, metre resembles (if the aptness of the simile may +excuse its meanness) yeast, worthless or disagreeable by itself, but +giving vivacity and spirit to the liquor with which it is proportionally +combined.... + +Metre in itself is simply a stimulant of the attention, and therefore +excites the question, Why is the attention to be thus stimulated? Now +the question cannot be answered by the pleasure of the metre itself; for +this we have shown to be conditional, and dependent on the +appropriateness of the thoughts and expressions to which the metrical +form is superadded. Neither can I conceive any other answer that can be +rationally given, short of this: I write in metre, because I am about to +use a language different from that of prose.... + +Thirdly, I deduce the position from all the causes elsewhere assigned +which render metre the proper form of poetry, and poetry imperfect and +defective without metre. Metre, therefore, having been connected with +poetry most often, and by a peculiar fitness, whatever else is combined +with metre must, though it be not itself essentially poetic, have +nevertheless some property in common with poetry, as an intermedium of +affinity. + +(COLERIDGE: _Biographia Literaria_, chap. xviii.) + + +In the youth of the world, men dance and sing and imitate natural +objects, observing in these actions, as in all others, a certain rhythm +or order. And, although all men observe a similar, they observe not the +same order, in the motions of the dance, in the melody of the song, in +the combinations of language, in the series of their imitations of +natural objects. For there is a certain order or rhythm belonging to +each of these classes of mimetic representation, from which the hearer +and the spectator receive an intenser and purer pleasure than from any +other: the sense of an approximation to this order has been called taste +by modern writers.... + +Language, color, form, and religious and civil habits of action are all +the instruments and materials of poetry; and they may be called poetry +by that figure of speech which considers the effect as a synonym of the +cause. But poetry in a more restricted sense expresses those +arrangements of language, and especially metrical language, which are +created by that imperial faculty whose throne is curtained within the +invisible nature of man. And this springs from the nature itself of +language, which is a more direct representation of the actions and +passions of our internal being, and is susceptible of more various and +delicate combinations than color, form, or motion, and is more plastic +and obedient to the control of that faculty of which it is the +creation.... Sounds as well as thoughts have relation both between each +other and towards that which they represent, and a perception of the +order of those relations has always been found connected with a +perception of the order of the relations of thoughts. Hence the language +of poets has ever affected a certain uniform and harmonious recurrence +of sound, without which it were not poetry, and which is scarcely less +indispensable to the communication of its influence than the words +themselves, without reference to that peculiar order.... An observation +of the regular mode of the recurrence of harmony in the language of +poetical minds, together with its relation to music, produced metre, or +a certain system of traditional forms of harmony and language. Yet it is +by no means essential that a poet should accommodate his language to +this traditional form, so that the harmony, which is its spirit, be +observed. + +(SHELLEY: _A Defence of Poetry_.) + + +Poetry, in its matter and form, is natural imagery or feeling, combined +with passion and fancy. In its mode of conveyance, it combines the +ordinary use of language with musical expression. There is a question of +long standing in what the essence of poetry consists, or what it is that +determines why one set of ideas should be expressed in prose, another in +verse. Milton has told us his idea of poetry in a single line: + + "Thoughts that voluntary move + Harmonious numbers." + +As there are certain sounds that excite certain movements, and the song +and dance go together, so there are, no doubt, certain thoughts that +lead to certain tones of voice, or modulations of sound, and change "the +words of Mercury into the songs of Apollo." ... The jerks, the breaks, +the inequalities and harshnesses of prose are fatal to the flow of a +poetical imagination, as a jolting road or a stumbling horse disturbs +the reverie of an absent man. But poetry "makes these odds all even." It +is the music of language, answering to the music of the mind, untying, +as it were, "the secret soul of harmony." Wherever any object takes such +a hold of the mind as to make us dwell upon it, and brood over it, +melting the heart in tenderness, or kindling it to a sentiment of +enthusiasm; wherever a movement of imagination or passion is impressed +on the mind, by which it seeks to prolong and repeat the emotion, to +bring all other objects into accord with it, and to give the same +movement of harmony, sustained and continuous, or gradually varied, +according to the occasion, to the sounds that express it--this is +poetry. The musical in sound is the sustained and continuous; the +musical in thought is the sustained and continuous also. There is a near +connection between music and deep-rooted passion. Mad people sing. As +often as articulation passes naturally into intonation, there poetry +begins.... It is to supply the inherent defect of harmony in the +customary mechanism of language, to make the sound an echo to the sense, +when the sense becomes a sort of echo to itself--to mingle the tide of +verse, "the golden cadences of poetry," with the tide of feeling, +flowing and murmuring as it flows--in short, to take the language of the +imagination from off the ground; and enable it to spread its wings where +it may indulge its own impulses: + + "Sailing with supreme dominion + Through the azure deep of air," + +without being stopped, or fretted, or diverted with the abruptnesses and +petty obstacles, and discordant flats and sharps of prose, that poetry +was invented. It is to common language what springs are to a carriage, +or wings to feet. In ordinary speech we arrive at a certain harmony by +the modulations of the voice; in poetry the same thing is done +systematically by a regular collocation of syllables. It has been well +observed, that every one who declaims warmly, or grows intent upon a +subject, rises into a sort of blank verse or measured prose.... An +excuse might be made for rime in the same manner. It is but fair that +the ear should linger on the sounds that delight it, or avail itself of +the same brilliant coincidence and unexpected recurrence of syllables, +that have been displayed in the invention and collocation of images. It +is allowed that rime assists the memory.... But if the jingle of names +assists the memory, may it not also quicken the fancy? + +(WILLIAM HAZLITT: _On Poetry in General_.) + + +With regard to the principle of Variety in Uniformity by which verses +ought to be modulated, and oneness of impression diversely produced, it +has been contended by some that poetry need not be written in verse at +all; that prose is as good a medium, provided poetry be conveyed through +it, and that to think otherwise is to confound letter with spirit, or +form with essence. But the opinion is a prosaical mistake. Fitness and +unfitness for _song_, or metrical excitement, just make all the +difference between a poetical and prosaical subject; and the reason why +verse is necessary to the form of poetry is that the perfection of +poetical spirit demands it--that the circle of its enthusiasm, beauty, +and power is incomplete without it. I do not mean that a poet can never +show himself a poet in prose; but that being one, his desire and +necessity will be to write in verse; and that, if he were unable to do +so, he would not and could not deserve his title. Verse to the true poet +is no clog. It is idly called a trammel and a difficulty. It is a help. +It springs from the same enthusiasm as the rest of his impulses, and is +necessary to their satisfaction and effect.... Verse is the final proof +to the poet that his mastery over his art is complete. It is the +shutting up of his powers in "_measureful_ content"; the answer of form +to his spirit; of strength and ease to his guidance.... Verse, in short, +is that finishing, and rounding, and "tuneful planeting" of the poet's +creations which is produced of necessity by the smooth tendencies of +their energy or inward working, and the harmonious dance into which they +are attracted round the orb of the beautiful. Poetry, in its complete +sympathy with beauty, must of necessity leave no sense of the beautiful, +and no power over its forms, unmanifested; and verse flows as inevitably +from this condition of its integrity as other laws of proportion do from +any other kind of embodiment of beauty.... + +Every poet, then, is a versifier; every fine poet an excellent one; and +he is the best whose verse exhibits the greatest amount of strength, +sweetness, straightforwardness, unsuperfluousness, variety, and +oneness;--oneness, that is to say, consistency in the general +impression, metrical and moral; and variety, or every pertinent +diversity of tone and rhythm, in the process.... It is thus that +versification itself becomes part of the sentiment of a poem, and +vindicates the pains that have been taken to show its importance. I know +of no very fine versification unaccompanied with fine poetry; no poetry +of a mean order accompanied with verse of the highest. + +(LEIGH HUNT: _What is Poetry?_ Cook ed., pp. 37-40, 61.) + + +No literary expression can, properly speaking, be called poetry that is +not in a certain deep sense emotional, whatever may be its +subject-matter, concrete in its method and its diction, rhythmical in +movement, and artistic in form.... That poetry must be metrical or even +rhythmical in movement, however, is what some have denied. Here we touch +at once the very root of the subject.... While prose requires +intellectual life and emotional life, poetry seems to require not only +intellectual life and emotional life but rhythmic life.... Unless the +rhythm of any metrical passage is so vigorous, so natural, and so free +that it seems as though it could live, if need were, by its rhythm +alone, has that passage any right to exist? and should it not, if the +substance is good, be forthwith demetricized and turned into prose? ... +Aristotle ignored, and Plato slighted, the importance of versification +(though Plato on one occasion admitted that he who did not know rhythm +could be called neither musician nor poet).... On the whole, however, +the theory that versification is not an indispensable requisite of a +poem seems to have become nearly obsolete in our time. Perhaps, indeed, +many critics would now go so far in the contrary direction as to say +with Hegel (_Ęsthetik_, iii. p. 289) that "metre is the first and only +condition absolutely demanded by poetry, yea even more necessary than a +figurative picturesque diction." + +(THEODORE WATTS: Article on "Poetry" in _Encyclopędia Britannica_.) + + +Verse-rhythm in words is the imposition of a _sensible_ order on what +naturally and normally has only a _logical_ order; and there is piquancy +in the feeling that so little is this ideal control a fettering +instrument, that each order seems to gain verve and spontaneity from the +other, or rather from the latent sense that the other, though present +and operative, is powerless to hamper it. Much more important, however, +is it to notice how the sense that one single thing--the word-series--is +lending itself to this joint dominance may take the form of a sort of +transfigured surprise. (The root-principle here involved is the old one +of "unity in variety," the _single_ line of words, "dominated at once by +the idea which they express in their grammatical connection and by their +metrical adjustment," clearly possessing _two_ independent functions or +aspects. See the fuller discussion of "The Sound-element in Verse," in +chapter xix. of _The Power of Sound_.) ... When, as in verse, the sounds +are pointedly addressed _both_ to the ear and to the understanding, the +rarity of the combination of aspects contributes a strain of feeling +partly akin to that with which we follow an exhibition of skill, and +partly to that with which we receive an unexpected gratuity.... + +Nor is this all. Rhythm perpetually not only transfigures the poetical +expression of an idea, but makes the existence of that expression +possible. This is tolerably obvious in the case of what is often called +_par excellence_ poetical language--language which keeps clear of +prosaic homeliness and prosaic precision and of technical and abstract +terms, and confines itself to a more picturesque and loftier +vocabulary.... Clearly it is the rarity of rhythmic, as compared with +non-rhythmic, speech that supports such rarity of poetic as compared +with non-poetic diction; that is to say, verse, being in one +respect--namely, its effect on the ear--a marked exception from ordinary +language, thereby establishes for itself the means of being exceptional, +without seeming unnatural, in other ways.... + +... In dwelling on the non-reasonable part in poetical beauty, I am in +no way committed to the assertion that all its constituents are excluded +from prose, but only to the assertion that the metrical form makes a +difference of kind. It cannot be for nothing that the very idea of +"poetical prose" inspires dread; and the instances of prose-writing +where we find delight of the intangible and non-reasonable kind are +exceptions that only prove the rule. One has but to test by +self-examination the living force of words in a specimen of verse and of +poetical prose which may respectively seem to oneself first-rate of +their kind. For such typical passages may often be regarded as fairly on +a par in respect of the ideas and emotions which they reasonably +express; and the prose may unquestionably further resemble the poetry in +a certain subtle individuality of life in its more prominent words, so +far as this life can be quickened in them by the idea itself, aided by +such qualities of sound-arrangement as are possible apart from metre. So +far the poetical merits of the respective passages may be equal; yet +only one of them is Poetry.... Language, which in prose does little more +than transmit thought, like clear glass, becomes--even as that +becomes--by art's adjustments and the moulding of measured form, a lens, +where the thought takes fire as it passes. The poet speaks through a +medium which seems to intensify the point and to extend the range of +what he would tell us by some power outside his own volition. Such a +power, in fact, a rhythmic order, in its fundamental appeal to human +nerves, literally is.... The _ictus_ of the verse comes upon us as the +operative force which shocks the words into their unwonted life. + +... In considering the total contribution of metre to imaginative +language, it is impossible to overlook the quality of _permanence_. I do +not mean permanence merely in the sense that metrical words live in the +memory.... This is, of course, a most important fact; but I am here +dealing only with elements of effect that enter into the actual moment +of enjoyment.... It is a sense of combined parts, and their +indispensableness one to another, which gives us a sense of permanence +in an arch as compared with a casual heap of stones; it is a similar +indispensableness which gives to metrical language an air of permanence +impossible even to the most harmonious sentence whose sounds conform to +no genuine scheme. And again, in the case of this constituent as of the +others, we have no difficulty in seeing that its influence is really a +joint one of sound and sense--that, though founded in the nature of +metrical sound as such, it is not merely a sound-quality superposed _ab +extra_ on the intelligible beauty of the words, but depends for its +existence on their intelligible character.... We cannot glory in the +enshrining for memory of things that we do not care to remember. But for +that which is of true spiritual significance the fairly-fitted body of +sound is greeted as the inevitable investiture; and thus justified and +quickened, the strength of the mutually indispensable parts seems no +longer that of mere structure but of organic life. + +(EDMUND GURNEY: Essay on "Poets, Critics, and Class-Lists," in _Tertium +Quid_, vol. ii. pp. 162-179, _passim_.) + + +Why have poets always written in metre? The answer is, Because the laws +of artistic expression oblige them to do so. When the poet has been +inspired from without in the way in which we saw Scott was inspired to +conceive the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_--that is to say, when he has +found his subject-matter in an idea, universally striking to the +imagination, when he has received this into his own imagination, and has +given it a new and beautiful form of life there, then he will seek to +express his conception through a vehicle of language harmonizing with +his own feelings and the nature of the subject, and this kind of +language is called verse. For example, when Marlowe wishes to represent +the emotions of Faustus, after he has called up the phantom of Helen of +Troy, it is plain that some very rapturous form of expression is needed +to convey an adequate idea of such famous beauty. Marlowe rises to the +occasion in those "mighty lines" of his: + + "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, + And burned the topless towers of Ilium?" + +But it is certain that he could only have ventured on the sublime +audacity of saying that a face launched ships and burned towers by +escaping from the limits of ordinary language, and conveying his +metaphor through the harmonious and ecstatic movements of rhythm and +metre.... + +I think Wordsworth's analysis of emotion is clearly wrong. The reason +why the harrowing descriptions of Richardson are simply painful, while +Shakspere's tragic situations are pleasurable, is that the imagination +shrinks from dwelling on ideas so closely imitated from real objects as +the scenes in _Clarissa Harlowe_, but contemplates without excess of +pain the situation in _Othello_, for example, because the imitation is +poetical and ideal. Prose is used by Richardson because his novel +professedly resembles a situation of real life; metre is needed by +Shakspere to make the ideal life of his drama real to the imagination. +Wordsworth, if I may say so, has put the poetical cart before the +horse.... + +The propriety of poetical expression is the test and the touch-stone of +the justice of poetical conception.... Poetry lies in the invention of +the right metrical form--be it epic, dramatic, lyric, or satiric--for +the expression of some idea universally interesting to the imagination. +When the form of metrical expression seems _natural_--natural, that is, +to the genius of the poet and the inherent character of the +subject--then the subject-matter will have been rightly conceived.... +Apply this test of what is natural in metrical expression to any +composition claiming to be poetically inspired, and you will be able to +decide whether it fulfils the universal conditions of poetical life, or +whether it is one of those phantoms, or, as Bacon calls them, idols of +the imagination, which vanish as soon as the novelty of their appearance +has exhausted its effect. For instance, the American poet, Walt Whitman, +announces his theme, and asks for the sympathy of the reader in these +words: + + "Oneself I sing, a simple, separate person, + Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En Masse. + Poets to come, orators, singers, musicians to come, + Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for, + But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than + before known, + Arouse! for you must justify me!..." + +To this appeal I think the reader may reply: The subject you have chosen +is certainly an idol of the imagination. For if you had anything of +universal interest to say about yourself, you could say it in a way +natural to one of the metres, or metrical movements, established in the +English language. What you call metre bears precisely the same relation +to these universal laws of expression, as the Mormon church and the +religion of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young bear to the doctrines of +Catholic Christendom.[58] ... + +Why do we so often find men in these days, either using metre ... where +they ought to have expressed themselves in prose, or expressing +themselves in verse in a style so far remote from the standard of +diction established in society that they fail to touch the heart? I +think the explanation of this curious phenomenon is that, though metre +can only properly be used for the expression of universal ideas, there +is in modern society an eccentric or monastic principle at work, which +leads men to pervert metre into a luxurious instrument for the +expression of merely private ideas. + +(WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE: _Life in Poetry, Law in Taste_, pp. 71-83.) + + +Language is colloquial and declarative in our ordinary speech, and on +its legs for common use and movement. Only when it takes wings does it +become poetry. As the poet, touched by emotion, rises to enthusiasm and +imaginative power or skill, his speech grows _rhythmic_, and thus puts +on the attribute that distinguishes it from every other mode of artistic +expression--the guild-mark which, rightly considered, establishes the +nature of the thing itself.... Our new empiricism, following where +intuition leads the way, comprehends the function of _vibrations_: it +perceives that every movement of matter, seized upon by universal force, +is _vibratory_; that vibrations, and nothing else, convey through the +body the look and voice of nature to the soul; that thus alone can one +incarnate individuality address its fellow; that, to use old Bunyan's +imagery, these vibrations knock at the ear-gate, and are visible to the +eye-gate, and are sentient at the gates of touch of the living temple. +The word describing their action is in evidence; they "thrill" the body, +they thrill the soul, both of which respond with subjective, +interblending vibrations, according to the keys, the wave-lengths, of +their excitants. Thus it is absolutely true that what Buxton Forman +calls "idealized language,"--that is, speech which is imaginative and +rhythmical,--goes with emotional thought; and that words exert a +mysterious and potent influence, thus chosen and assorted, beyond their +normal meanings.... + +Aside from the vibratory mission of rhythm, its little staff of +adjuvants, by the very discipline and limitations which they impose, +take poetry out of the plane of common speech, and make it an art which +lifts the hearer to its own unusual key. Schiller writes to Goethe that +"rhythm, in a dramatic work, treats all characters and all situations +according to one law.... In this manner it forms the atmosphere for the +poetic creation. The more material part is left out, for only what is +spiritual can be borne by this thin element." In real, that is, +spontaneous minstrelsy, the fittest assonance, consonance, time, even +rime, ... come of themselves with the imaginative thought.... Such is +the test of genuineness, the underlying principle being that the +masterful words of all poetic tongues are for the most part in both +their open and consonantal sounds related to their meanings, so that +with the inarticulate rhythm of impassioned thought we have a +correspondent verbal rhythm for its vehicle. The whole range of poetry +which is vital, from the Hebrew psalms and prophecies, in their original +text and in our great English version, to the Georgian lyrics and +romances and the Victorian idyls, confirms the statement of Mill that +"the deeper the feeling, the more characteristic and decided the +rhythm." The rapture of the poet governs the tone and accent of his + + "high and passionate thoughts + To their own music chanted." + +(EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN: _The Nature and Elements of Poetry_, pp. +51-55.) + + +We agree, then, to call by the name of poetry that form of art which +uses rhythm to attain its ends, just as we call by the name of flying +that motion which certain animals attain by the use of wings; that the +feelings roused by poetry can be roused by unrhythmic order of words, +and that rhythmic order of words is often deplorably bad art, or +"unpoetic," have as little to do with the case as the fact that a +greyhound speeding over the grass gives the spectator quite the +exhilaration and sense of lightness and grace which is roused by the +flight of a bird, and the fact that an awkward fowl makes itself +ridiculous in trying to fly, have to do with the general proposition +that flying is a matter of wings.... As a matter of fact, all writers on +poetry take rhythm for granted until some one asks why it is necessary; +whereupon considerable discussion, and the protest signed by a +respectable minority, but a minority after all, that rhythm is not an +essential condition of the poetic art. This discussion, as every one +knows, has been lively and at times bitter. A patient and comprehensive +review of it in a fairly impartial spirit has led to the conclusion, +first, that no test save rhythm has been proposed which can be put to +real use, even in theory, not to mention the long reaches of a +historical and comparative study; secondly, that all defenders of the +poem in prose are more or less contradictory and inconsistent, making +confusion between theory and practice; and thirdly, that advocates of a +rhythmic test, even in abstract definition, seem to have the better of +the argument.... + +All reports of primitive singing, that is, of singing among races on a +low plane of culture, make rhythm a wholly insistent element of the +verse.... Rhythm is obscured or hidden by declamation only in times when +the eye has usurped the functions of the ear, and when a highly +developed prose makes the accented rhythm of poetry seem either +old-fashioned or a sign of childhood. Not that one wishes to restore a +sing-song reading, but rather a recognition of metrical structure, of +those subtle effects in rhythm which mean so much in the poet's art; +verse, in a word, particularly lyric verse, must not be read as if it +were prose. Dramatic verse is a difficult problem.... For in drama one +wishes nowadays to hear not rhythm, but the thought, the story, the +point.... As thought recedes, as one comes nearer to those primitive +emotions which were untroubled by thought, they get expression more and +more in cadenced tones. And again, this cadenced emotional expression, +as it grows stronger, grows wider; the barriers of irony and reserve, +which keep a modern theatre tearless in the face of Lear's most pathetic +utterance, break down; first, as one recedes from modern conditions, +comes the sympathetic emotion of the spectators expressed in sighs and +tears; ... then comes the partial activity of the spectators by their +deputed chorus; and at last the throng of primitive times, common +emotion in common expression, with no spectators, no audience, no +reserve or comment of thought,--for thought is absorbed in the +perception and action of communal consent; and here, by all evidence, +rhythm rules supreme.... + +If, now, the curve of evolution in Aryan verse begins with an absolutely +strict rhythm and alternate emphasis of syllables, often, as in Iranian, +to the neglect of logical considerations; if the course of poetry is to +admit logical considerations more and more, forcing in at least one case +the abandoning of movable accent and the agreement of verse-emphasis +with syllabic-emphasis, an undisputed fact; if poetry, too, first shakes +off the steps of dancing, then the notes of song, finally the strict +scanning of the verse, until now recited poetry is triumphantly logical, +with rhythm as a subconscious element; if, finally, this process exactly +agrees with the gradual increase of thought over emotion, with the +analogous increase of solitary poetry over gregarious poetry,--then, +surely, one has but to trace back this curve of evolution, and to +project it into prehistoric conditions, in order to infer with something +very close to certitude that rhythm is the primal fact in the beginnings +of the poetic art.... + +The hold of rhythm upon modern poetry, even under conditions of analytic +and intellectual development which have unquestionably worked for the +increased importance of prose, is a hold not to be relaxed, and for good +reason. The reason is this. In rhythm, in sounds of the human voice, +timed to movements of the human body, mankind first discovered that +social consent which brought the great joys and the great pains of life +into a common utterance.... The mere fact of utterance is social; +however solitary his thought, a poet's utterance must voice this consent +of man with man, and his emotion must fall into rhythm, the one and +eternal expression of consent. This, then, is why rhythm will not be +banished from poetry so long as poetry shall remain emotional utterance; +for rhythm is not only sign and warrant of a social contract stronger, +deeper, vaster, than any fancied by Rousseau, but it is the expression +of a human sense more keen even than the fear of devils and the love of +gods--the sense and sympathy of kind.[59] + +(Francis B. Gummere: _The Beginnings of Poetry_, chap. ii, "Rhythm as +the Essential Fact of Poetry." Pp. 30, 31, 82-85, 114, 115.) + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[56] Compare with this a passage in a letter of Goethe's to Schiller +about _Faust_: "Some tragic scenes were done in prose; by reason of +their naturalness and strength they are quite intolerable in relation to +the other scenes. I am, therefore, now trying to put them into rime, for +there the idea is seen as if under a veil, and the immediate effect of +this tremendous material is softened." (Translation of Professor F. B. +Gummere, in _The Beginnings of Poetry_, p. 73.) + +[57] In these chapters of the _Biographia Literaria_, Coleridge was +replying to the theories of Wordsworth as set forth in his Preface. + +[58] Compare the amusingly vigorous remarks of Mr. Swinburne on the want +of metre in Whitman's poems: + +"'Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me?' inquires Mr. Whitman. ... No, my +dear good sir: ... not in the wildest visions of a distempered slumber +could I have dreamed of doing anything of the kind. ... But metre, +rhythm, cadence, not merely appreciable but definable and reducible to +rule and measurement, though we do not expect from you, we demand from +all who claim, we discern in the works of all who have achieved, any +place among poets of any class whatsoever.... The question is whether +you have any more right to call yourself a poet, or to be called a poet, +... than to call yourself or to be called, on the strength of your +published writings, a mathematician, a logician, a painter, a political +economist, a sculptor, a dynamiter, an old parliamentary hand, a civil +engineer, a dealer in marine stores, an amphimacer, a triptych, a +rhomboid, or a rectangular parallelogram." + +(_Studies in Prose and Poetry_, pp. 133, 134.) + +[59] Professor Gummere also gives this analysis of Karl Bücher's essay +on "Labor and Rhythm" (_Arbeit und Rhythmus_, Leipzig, 1896): "Fatigue, +which besets all work felt as work by reason of its continued +application of purpose, vanished for primitive man, as it vanishes now +for children, if the work was once freed from this stress of application +and so turned to a kind of play. The dance itself is really hard work, +exacting and violent; what makes it the favorite it is with savages as +with children? Simply its automatic, regular, rhythmic character, the +due repetition of a familiar movement which allows the mind to relax its +attitude of constant purpose. The purpose and plan of work involve +external sources and external ends; rhythm is instinctive, and springs +from the organic nature of man; it is no invention. The song that one +sings while at work is not something fitted to the work, but comes from +movements of the body in the specific acts of labor; and this applies +not only to the rhythm, but even to the words. So it was in the festal +dance.... That poetry and music were always combined by early man, and, +along with labor, made up the primitive three-in-one, an organic whole, +labor being the basal fact, with rhythm as an element common to the +three; and that not harmony or pitch, but this overmastering and +pervasive rhythm, exact, definite, was the main factor of early +song,--these are conclusions for which Bücher offers ample and +convincing evidence." (_Ib._ pp. 108, 109.) + + + + +APPENDIX + +TABLE ILLUSTRATING THE HISTORY OF THE HEROIC COUPLET + + +The following table is designed, in the first place, to illustrate the +history of the decasyllabic couplet in English verse, by making possible +a comparison of the characteristic details of its form in different +periods; and, in the second place, to suggest a method by which, through +the careful tabulation of facts, one may substantiate or correct general +statements as to the qualities of verse. + +Any such statistics as are here presented must be accepted, if at all, +with no little caution. The table is based on passages of one hundred +lines each, believed to be fairly representative of the verse of the +several authors. No passage of this length, however, can be known to be +perfectly typical. A still greater difficulty is found in the +necessarily subjective character of any such tabulation. Most lines of +English decasyllabic verse can be read--with reference to the +distribution of accents and pauses--in more than one way. It is +unlikely, therefore, that any two readers would reach the same results +in trying to form a table of this kind. The _absolute_ validity of the +figures is therefore doubtful; but on condition that they all have been +computed by the same person, consistently with a single standard of +judgment, their relative validity, for purposes of _comparison_, may be +fairly assumed. + +The facts here set down for each specimen of verse group themselves in +four divisions. In the first place, each line of verse is either +"run-on" or "end-stopped"; and, in riming couplets, it is also of +interest to know whether the second line of the couplet is run-on into +the following couplet. In the second place, the cesural pause occurs +either near the middle of the line or elsewhere, or--it may be--is +omitted altogether. In the third place, the line may have a feminine +ending. In the fourth place, it may contain some other foot than the +regular iambus. + +There is some room for difference of judgment as to whether a given line +is "end-stopped" or "run-on"; but with occasional exceptions the +presence or want of a mark of punctuation may be made the determining +element. Obviously one may find such clear phrase-pauses, without +punctuation, as will justify the caption "end-stopped." + +There is far more divergence of judgment in the recognition of the +cesura. Some writers on prosody treat practically every line of ten +syllables as having a cesural pause, and certainly some slight +phrase-pause may almost always be found. In the following table, +however, the cesura has been recognized only when there is a grammatical +or rhetorical pause so considerable as--in most cases--to require a mark +of punctuation. Such a verse, then, as-- + + "Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky" + +is counted as having "no cesura." The cesura is counted as "medial" when +occurring after the fourth, fifth, or sixth syllable; elsewhere it is +regarded as "variant." The significance of this distinction is very +clear in the comparison of the heroic couplet of the "classical" with +that of the "romantic" school of poets.[60] + +It is in the last group of facts, those relating to substituted feet, +that the subjective element is most embarrassing. There can be no very +general agreement among readers as to the degree of accent necessary to +change a pair of syllables from an "iambus" to a "pyrrhic" or a +"spondee." The other two forms of substitution (inverted accent, giving +"trochees," and trisyllabic feet, giving "anapests") are somewhat more +definitely determinable. In the following table the naming of all these +feet is based on what is believed to be the natural reading of the +verse, with a due regard for both rhetorical and metrical accent. In the +verse-- + + "By these the springs of property were bent" + +the fourth foot is counted a pyrrhic; so also in this-- + + "Their busy teachers mingled with the Jews," + +although here a certain secondary accent on the eighth syllable is +possible. In such a verse as-- + + "There is a path on the sea's azure floor" + +the third foot is counted a pyrrhic and the fourth a spondee.[61] + +One may get, then, from a table of this sort, a general view of the +character of any particular piece of verse, in respect to the poet's +preference for run-on lines, for feminine endings, for breaking the +verse into two equal parts, for varying the cesura, or for substituting +exceptional feet. The description would be more nearly complete if there +were also indicated the _places_ in the verse where substituted feet +occur; a trochee in the second foot is a very different thing from one +in the first; but it is difficult to tabulate facts of this order +without complicating one's results beyond the point of serviceable +clearness. + +Some students of verse are doubtless offended by the use of statistics +in connection with a subject of this kind; and it is easy to ridicule +the obvious incongruity of mathematical methods and poetry. A recent +magazine critic makes merry over certain statistical studies in rhythm, +carried on in a laboratory by recording the beats in nursery-rimes on +the one hand and in hymns on the other. "There is a certain class of +problems," he observes most justly, "whose external aspects may possibly +yield to statistical tabulation, but which in the last resort must be +spiritually discerned."[62] Poetry is unquestionably of this class. Yet +this would not seem to forbid the study, by scientific methods, of those +"external aspects" admittedly susceptible of tabulation. One is not +likely to recommend elementary students to count trochees and cesuras in +order to increase their appreciation of good verse. But when one comes +to the point of generalizing as to the laws or history of verse-forms, +it is well to have a method of correction, representable in figures +black and white, for the vague impressions which are all that +appreciative reading can give. Perhaps the real service of such a method +as has just been described is to prevent one from making hasty +generalizations which statistics will not support. + +Obviously the same system can be applied to blank verse, with the +omission of the second category in the table. A convenient method of +making such a study is to use sheets of paper ruled for twenty-five +lines and seven columns. Each horizontal line represents a line of verse +analyzed. The columns are headed "Cesura," "T," "P," "S," "A," "Run-on," +and "Fem. Ending." A cesural pause between the third and fourth +syllables is indicated by the figures 3/4 in the first column. A trochee +in the first foot is indicated by the figure 1 in the "T" column; a +spondee in the fourth foot by the figure 4 in the "S" column; and so on. +A simple check-mark in the sixth or seventh column indicates +respectively a case of _enjambement_ or of feminine ending. When the +tabulation is complete, one can easily note the proportion of run-on +lines and exceptional cesuras, and can also determine at a glance not +only the number of exceptional feet but the parts of the verse in which +they occur. + +In the following table the figures regarding the couplets of Spenser are +based on his _Mother Hubbard's Tale_; those relating to Joseph Hall, on +the Satires of his _Virgidemiarum_ (see p. 182); those relating to Leigh +Hunt, on _The Story of Rimini_; those relating to Keats, on _Endymion_; +to Browning, on _Sordello_. + + ---------+----------+--------+---------+--------+----------- + | Chaucer | |Joseph | | + | (ab. |Spenser | Hall |Jonson |Waller + | 1385) |(1591) |(1597) |(1616) |(ab. 1650) + ---------+----------+--------+---------+--------+----------- + Run-on | | | | | + Lines | 16 | 14 | 10 | 26 | 16 + ---------+----------+--------+---------+--------+----------- + Run-on | | | | | + Couplets | 7 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 2 + ---------+----------+--------+---------+--------+----------- + Medial | | | | | + Cesura | 33 | 31 | 37 | 48 | 50 + ---------+----------+--------+---------+--------+----------- + No | | | | | + Cesura | 58 | 64 | 58 | 29 | 42 + ---------+----------+--------+---------+--------+----------- + Variant | | | | | + Cesura | 9 | 5 | 5 | 23 | 8 + ---------+----------+--------+---------+--------+----------- + Feminine | | | | | + Endings | 64 | 6 | 0 | 6 | 0 + ---------+----------+--------+---------+--------+----------- + [a] | | | | | + Trochees | 15 | 13 | 18 | 22 | 23 + ---------+----------+--------+---------+--------+----------- + [a] | | | | | + Pyrrhics | 26 | 29 | 24 | 35 | 46 + ---------+----------+--------+---------+--------+----------- + [a] | | | | | + Spondees | 0 | 13 | 14 | 18 | 14 + ---------+----------+--------+---------+--------+----------- + [a] | | | | | + Anapests | 4 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0 + ---------+----------+--------+---------+--------+----------- + + ---------+-----------+-----------+--------+-------+--------- + | | | Leigh | | + |Dryden |Pope | Hunt | Keats |Browning + |(ab. 1680) |(ab. 1725) | (1816) |(1818) |(1840) + ---------+-----------+-----------+--------+-------+--------- + Run-on | | | | | + Lines | 11 | 4 | 13 | 40 | 58 + ---------+-----------+-----------+--------+-------+--------- + Run-on | | | | | + Couplets | 1 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 27 + ---------+-----------+-----------+--------+-------+--------- + Medial | | | | | + Cesura | 52 | 47 | 46 | 53 | 30 + ---------+-----------+-----------+--------+-------+--------- + No | | | | | + Cesura | 40 | 44 | 35 | 27 | 25 + ---------+-----------+-----------+--------+-------+--------- + Variant | | | | | + Cesura | 8 | 9 | 19 | 20 | 45 + ---------+-----------+-----------+--------+-------+--------- + Feminine | | | | | + Endings | 0 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 0 + ---------+-----------+-----------+--------+-------+--------- + [a] | | | | | + Trochees | 15 | 25 | 29 | 29 | 34 + ---------+-----------+-----------+--------+-------+--------- + [a] | | | | | + Pyrrhics | 46 | 27 | 40 | 37 | 34 + ---------+-----------+-----------+--------+-------+--------- + [a] | | | | | + Spondees | 1 | 11 | 9 | 19 | 19 + ---------+-----------+-----------+--------+-------+--------- + [a] | | | | | + Anapests | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 + ---------+-----------+-----------+--------+-------+--------- + +[a] No account is taken in the table of more than a single occurrence of +the same exceptional foot in any one line. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[60] Here a word of caution is needed. It will be observed that the +regularly balanced line of the classical couplet requires not only a +medial pause, but also a pause at the end. Hence where we find, as in +the verse of Keats, a large number of medial cesuras but at the same +time a very large number of "run-on" lines, the characteristic effect of +the medial pause is almost entirely lost, and the number of medial +pauses is not significant. + +[61] This combination (of pyrrhic and spondee) is of course very +frequent; and where both substitutions occur together, the general +average of accents is maintained, only with exchange of position. On the +other hand, where there appears a large number of pyrrhics with almost +no spondees (as in the case of Dryden), a different sort of verse is +indicated,--one where the lines gain a certain lightness and rapidity +from the lack of the full number of fully accented syllables. + +[62] "Divination by Statistics," in the _Atlantic Monthly_, January, +1902. + + + + +INDEX + +_Names of poems are arranged alphabetically under authors. An asterisk +in connection with the page number indicates that the poem is quoted at +least in part._ + + + _Abraham and Isaac_ (Mystery Play), 112*. + + Accents, arbitrary variation of, 400; + conflict of, 7-11; + deficiency in, 55,56; + degrees of, 3-5; + excess of 55, 57; + hovering, 9-11; + inversion of, 7, 8, 55, 56, 57 f.; + kinds of, 3, 6; + relation of different kinds, 7; + relation to quantity, 405 f.; + secondary, 3, 5, 156, 409; + time-intervals of, 11, 393-396; + wrenched, 8-11. + + ADDISON: _Campaign_, 199*; + _Cato_, 236*; + on verse of Butler, 167 f. + + ĘLFRIC, verse of, 116 f. + + AKENSIDE: _Pleasures of the Imagination_, 238; + _Virtuoso_, 104. + + ALAMANNI, influence on Wyatt, 65. + + ALBERTI, classical metres of, 330. + + Alcaic stanza, 77. + + Alexandrine, 252-259; + developed by Browning, 258; + French, 18; + in five-stress verse, 195, 208, 258; + in sonnet, 272 f.; + in Spenserian stanza, 103; + unrimed, 255; + used at end of stanzas other than Spenserian, 107. + + Alliteration, 113, 116-121; + in medięval Latin, 117; + sporadic, 135. + "Alliterative long line," 119, 156. + + ALSCHER, on Wyatt, 11. + + Anacrusis, 25. + + Anapest, 24; + substituted for iambus, 58 f. + + Anapestic verse, two-stress, 28 f.; + three-stress, 34-36; + four-stress, 39 f.; + five-stress, 42; + six-stress, 43; + seven-stress, 45; + eight-stress, 48; + in _vers de société_, 39. + + ANDERSON, M. B.: _Inferno_, 68 f.*. + + ANDERSON, R., on verse of Joseph Hall, 182. + + Anglo-Saxon verse, alliteration in, 116 f.; + relation of accent and quantity in, 405 f.; + rime in, 124, 125 f.; + stanzas in, 62 n.; + two theories of, 151-154; + types of, 152 f. + + ARCHER, W., on Watson's sonnets, 290. + + Areopagus, 332 f. + + ARISTOPHANES, Swinburne on verse of, 45 f. + + ARISTOTLE, his theory of metre, 413-416. + + ARNOLD, M.: _East London_, 286*; + _Empedocles on Ętna_, 325-327*; + _Forsaken Merman_, 5*, 22 f.*, 53 f.*; + _Future_, 115*; + on Chapman's septenary, 262; + on English hexameters, 351-353; + on Longfellow's hexameters, 348; + _Sohrab and Rustum_, 58*, 249 f.*. + + ARNAUT, the troubadour, sestina of, 383. + + "Ascending rhythm," 24. + + ASCHAM: _Schoolmaster_, 330, 341. + + Asclepiadean verse, 331. + + Assonance, 113-115; + in Celtic verse, 115; + in verse of Romance languages, 113 f. + + ATTERBURY, on Dryden's influence, 197; + on Waller, 188 f. + + _Aurora lucis rutilat_, 160*. + + + BACON, F., on significant sounds, 136. + + BAĻF, DE, A., classical metre of, 331. + + Ballade, 360-367. + + Ballads, stanza of, 70, 264; + verse of, 10, 157. + + BANVILLE, DE, T., 358, 359. + + BARBOUR: _Bruce_, 162 f*. + + BARCLAY: _Ship of Fooles_, 94. + + BARNES: _Parthenophil_, 273. + + _Baston_, 83. + + BEAUMONT, F.: _Knight of the Burning Pestle_, 263*. + + BEAUMONT, J., on heroic couplet, 190 f.; + verse of, 191 n. + + BEERS, on heroic stanza, 73. + + BENTLEY, on Milton's verse, 58. + + _Beowulf_, 13*. + + BERNARD (ST.): _De Nativitate Domini_, 80*. + + BERNART, DE VENTADORN, 110. + + BEST, J. R.: _Bon Rondeau_, 373*. + + _Bestiary_, 118*. + + _Bewick and Grahame_ (ballad), 157*. + + BLAIR: _Grave_, 236 f.*. + + Blank verse, 213-251; + abandoned in Restoration drama, 196-199; + early use of term, 215; + in lyrical poems, 246; + its decadence, 230, 234; + revival in 18th century, 238; + unpopular in 18th century, 204 f. + + _Blow, northern wind_, 78*. + + Bob-wheel, 110 n. + + BÖDDEKER: _Altenglische Dichtungen_, cited, 14, 69, 78, 84, 86, 110, + 111, 175. + + BOLTON, T. L., on nature of rhythm, 393 n. + + BOWLES, W. L.: _Sonnet_, 277*; + sonnets of, 278. + + BRIGHT, J. W., on "pitch-accent," 5 f.; + theory of metrical accent, 401 n. + + BROME, R., blank verse of, 230. + + BRONSON, on Greek and English ode, 300; + on odes of Collins, 305. + + BROWNING, E. B.: _Cowper's Grave_, 264*; + _Rhyme of the Duchess May_, 80*; + _Sonnets from the Portuguese_, 283*; + sonnets of, 284. + + BROWNING, R.: _Abt Vogler_, 50*; + _Agamemnon_, 327 f.*; + blank verse of, 247-249; + _Caliban upon Setebos_, 31 f.*, 57*, 145 f.*; + _Cavalier Tunes_, 40*; + _Epistle of Karshish_, 248*; + _Fifine at the Fair_, 257 f.*; + _Flight of the Duchess_, 129*; + _Fra Lippo Lippi_, 249*; + _Guardian Angel_, 95*; + _Heretic's Tragedy_, 145*; + _In a Balcony_, 248*; + _Love among the Ruins_, 90*; + _Misconceptions_, 37*; + _One Word More_, 41*; + _Pacchiarotto_, 128 f.*; + _Paracelsus_, 8*, 59*, 145*; + _Prospice_, 29*, 50*; + _Ring and the Book_, 57*, 59*, 247*; + _Saul_, 42*; + sonnets of, 286, 287; + _Sordello_, 211*; + _Statue and the Bust_, 67*; + _Why I am a Liberal_, 287*. + + BÜCHER, K.: _Labor and Rhythm_, 436 n. + + BURNS: _Auld Lang Syne_, 21*; + _Birks of Aberfeldy_, 78*; + _Bonnie Doon_, 70*; + _Chevalier's Lament_, 39*; + _Cotter's Saturday Night_, 104*; + _Duncan Gray_, 79*; + _Tam O'Shanter_, 171*; + _To a Louse_, 87*. + + BUTCHER, S. H., on Aristotle's view of metre, 413-416. + + BUTLER: _Hudibras_, 137*, 167*. + + BYRON: _Childe Harold_, 105*; + _Destruction of Sennacherib_, 39*; + _Don Juan_, 100*, 128*; + double rimes of, 128, 129; + _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, 206*; + _Farewell, if ever_, 97*; + _Francesca of Rimini_, 68*; + _Prisoner of Chillon_, 171*; + _She Walks in Beauty_, 92*; + _Song of Saul_, 40*; + _Stanzas for Music_, 44*; + use of _ottava rima_, 101. + + + CAMPION, T.: _Anacreontics_, 27*; + _Iambic Dimeter_, 334 f.*; + _Observations in the Art of English Poesie_, 335 f.; + _Trochaic Dimeter_, 335*. + + CANNING: _Rovers_, 131*. + + CANNING (and FRERE): _Sapphics_, 337*. + + _Canzone_, influence of, on the sonnet, 267. + + CAREW: _In Praise of his Mistress_, 89*. + + CAREY, P.: _Triolet_, 382 f.*. + + Catalexis, 22, 25; + in the ode, 319. + + CATULLUS, metres of, imitated, 339. + + Caudated sonnet, 276. + + Celtic verse, alliteration in, 117; + assonance in, 115; + rime in, 124. + + Cesura, 17-19; + in alexandrine, 253, 258; + kinds of, 19. + + _Chant Royal_, 367 f. + + CHAPMAN: _All Fools_, 215*; + _Hymn to Cynthia_, 343*; + _Iliad_, 262*. + + CHATTERTON: _Ęlla_, 79*, 107 f.*; + his variant of Spenserian stanza, 108. + + CHAUCER: _Balade de bon conseyl_, 360f.*; + _Balade on Gentilesse_, 362; + _Balade to Rosemound_, 362; + _Complaint to his Empty Purse_, 362; + _Compleynt of Venus_, 362; + _Compleynte unto Pite_, 93*, 177, 178; + decasyllabic verse of, 177-179; + _Fortune_, 362; + free cesura in verse of, 17; + French lyrical forms used by, 362; + _House of Fame_, 165 f.*; + influence on form of Spenserian stanza, 103; + _Knights Tale_, 138 f.*; + _Lak of Stedfastnesse_, 362; + _Legend of Good Women_, 176* (ballade in, 362); + _Monk's Tale_, 97*; + octosyllabic couplet of, 166; + omission of opening syllable in verse of, 20; + on alliteration, 120; + _Parlement of Foules_, 369*; + perfect rime in, 121 n.; + _Prologue_, 20*, 176*; + _Proverb_, 71*; + "rime royal" introduced by, 94; + _Sir Thopas_, 84*. + + _Chevy Chase_ (ballad), 70*. + + Choral odes, 323-328. + + Choriambus, 408. + + _Cid, Poema del_, 114*. + + Classical metres, imitations of, 330-357. + + CLOUGH, A. H.: _Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich_, 350*; + hexameter of, 351; + his analysis of a line of blank verse, 403. + + COLERIDGE: _Ancient Mariner_, 133*, 263*; + _Christabel_, 15*, 401*; + _Fancy in Nubibus_, 296*; + hexameters of, 346; + his theory of metre, 420-422; + _Hymn before Sunrise_, 241*; + _Hymn to the Earth_, 345 f.*; + _Kubla Khan_, 138*, 147*; + _Ode on the Departing Year_, 311*; + on sonnet of White, 281; + on sonnets of Bowles, 278; + sonnets of, 296; + _To a Friend_, 75*. + + COLLINS: _Ode to Evening_, 246; + _Ode to Liberty_, 170*, 303 f.*; + on verse of Skelton, 32; + _Passions_, 310*. + + "Common metre," 261 f. + + _Confessio Goliae_, 259*. + + CONGREVE: _Discourse on Pindaric Ode_, 302 f.; + _Pindaric Ode_, 301 f.*. + + Consonants, as lengthening English syllables, 396-399. + + CONSTABLE: _Diana_, 273. + + CORSON, on blank verse of Browning, 247 f.; + on double rime, 129 f.; + on _In Memoriam_ stanza, 76 f.; + on Mrs. Browning's sonnets, 284; + on _ottava rima_, 98, 99; + on rime, 122; + on Spenserian stanza of Keats, 105; + on variety in verse movement, 61; + on verse of Cowper, 240; + on Wordsworth's Immortality Ode, 313 f. + + COTTON, C.: _Rondeau_, 372 f.*; + Virelai of, 385. + + Couplet (see under Decasyllabic and Octosyllabic). + + COURTHOPE, on Aristotle's view of metre, 415; + on the sonnet, 268, 272; + on verse-form in poetry, 429-432; + on verse of Pope, 201; + on verse of Surrey, 216. + + COWLEY, Congreve on the odes of, 303; + introduction of irregular ode by, 308; + _Resurrection_, 307 f.*; + _Solitude_, 88*. + + Cowleyan ode, 298, 307-323. + + COWPER: _Alexander Selkirk_, 34*; + anapests of, 35; + blank verse of, 240 f.; + _John Gilpin_, 264; + _My Mary_, 79*; + on Milton's verse, 58 f.; + _Sonnet to Mrs. Unwin_, 278*; + _Table Talk_, 205*; + _Task_, 239 f.*. + + CRABBE: _Borough_, 206f.*. + + CRASHAW: _Wishes for the Supposed Mistress_, 64*. + + _Creation and Fall_ (Mystery Play), 95*. + + Cretic, 31. + + "Crown of Sonnets," 275. + + CYNEWULF: _Crist_, 116*; + _Elene_, rime in, 126 n.; + Riddle of (strophic), 63 n. + + + Dactyl, 24. + + Dactylic verse, two-stress, 30; + three-stress, 37; + four-stress, 40; + five-stress, 42; + six-stress, 44; + seven-stress, 46; + eight-stress, 48. + + DANIEL: _Care-charmer Sleep_, 291 f.*; + _Civil War_, 99*; + _Defence of Rime_, 33 n.; + _Delia_, 273, 292. + + DANTE, _terza rima_ of, 65, 67-69. + + DAVENANT: _Gondibert_, 71*, 72. + + DAVIES, Sir J.: _Nosce Teipsum_, 73. + + Decasyllabic couplet, 174-213; + Chaucer's, 177; + in Elizabethan age, 190; + in the drama, 196-199; + of the romantic poets, 209f., 212; + Saintsbury on qualities of, 194f. + + _De Muliere Samaritana_, 253*. + + DENHAM: _Against Love_, 63*; + _Cooper's Hill_, 191f.*. + + _Deo Gracias_, 96*. + + _Deor's Lament_, 62n. + + DE QUINCEY, on Milton's verse, 233n. + + "Descending rhythm," 25. + + DESCHAMPS, 358. + + DOBSON, A., ballades of, 367; + _Dance of Death_, 368; + on French lyrical forms, 358f.; + on _ottava rima_, 101; + on Pope, 203; + _Rose Leaves_, 381f.*; + _Too Hard it is to Sing_, 269f.*; + _When I Saw you Last, Rose_, 378*; + _With Pipe and Flute_, 374*. + + DONNE, critics on the verse of, 183; + _Holy Sonnets_, 274f.*; + influence of, on lyrical forms of 17th century, 90; + _La Corona_, 275; + _Satires_, 183*. + + DOUGLAS, G.: _Palace of Honour_, 101*, 133*. + + DOWDEN, on Shakspere's verse, 184. + + Drama, rime in, 184; + verse of, characteristic, 395. + + DRAYTON: _Agincourt_, 86*; + _Amouret Anacreontic_, 26*; + _Idea_, 273, 293; + _Love's Farewell_, 292*; + _Polyolbion_, 256f.*. + + DRUMMOND, W.: _Sonnet_, 274*. + + DRYDEN: _Absalom and Achitophel_, 56f.*, 193f.*; + _Alexander's Feast_, 310; + _All for Love_, 196, 234*; + _Annus Mirabilis_, 72*; + blank verse of, 234f.; + _Conquest of Granada_, 196; + _Evening's Love_, 40*; + heroic couplet of, 194f.; + his introduction of rimed dramatic verse, 196-199; + _Indian Queen_, 196; + _Marriage ą la Mode_, 195f.*, 234*; + _Ode for St. Cecilia's Day_, imitated by Young, 88; + _Ode on Mistress Killigrew_, 309f.*; + odes of, 310; + on heroic stanza, 72; + on verse of Denham and Waller, 188; + on verse of Donne, 183; + _Song for St. Cecilia's Day_, 52f.*, 142*. + + DU BARTAS: _La Premičre Semaine_, 18*. + + DUNBAR: _Lament for the Makaris_, 78*; + rime royal of, 94; + _Tua Mariit Wemen_, 119f.*. + + + EDWARDS, T., sonnets of, 277. + + Elegiacs (hexameter and pentameter), 346, 355f. + + _Eleven Pains of Hell_, 161. + + ELIOT, GEORGE: _Spanish Gypsy_, 28*, 37*, 114*. + + Elision, 59f. + + ELLIS, A. J., on degrees of accent, 3, 4n. + + ELLIS, R.: + _Attis_, 339*; + _Hymenęus of Catullus_, 339*; + on classical metres, 339. + + "End-stopped" lines, 19, 187-190. + + _Enjambement_, 19: + avoidance of in heroic verse, 187, 202; + in Chaucer, 177; + in couplets of the romantic poets, 208-212; + in Milton, 233; + in Shakspere's verse, 223. + + ETHEREDGE: _Comical Revenge_, 196. + + + _Fair Helen_ (ballad), 9*, 79*. + + _Farmer's Complaint_, 14. + + Feet, as measures of verse, 24; + combinations and substitutions of, 49; + names of, 24, 55f., 408f. + + Feminine ending, 25, 33; + in Elizabethan blank verse, 226-228. + + Feminine rime, 121, 128f. + + FITZGERALD: _Rubįiyįt_, 77*. + + Five-stress verse, 174-251; + early examples of, 175; + introduced by Chaucer, 177. + + FLETCHER, G.: _Lycia_, 273. + + FLETCHER, J., blank verse of, 226-228; + couplets of, 210; + _Faithful Shepherdess_, 184f.*; + _Valentinian_, 225*. + + FLETCHER, J. (and SHAKSPERE): _Two Noble Kinsmen_, 85*. + + FLETCHER, J. B., on Spenser, 17. + + FLETCHER, P.: _Piscatory Eclogues_, 107*. + + Foot, significance of the term, 24, 393-395, 406-408. + + _Fortunae rota volvitur_, 259*. + + Four-stress verse, 151-173. + + French alexandrine, relation to English, 252f. + + French influence, on stanza forms, 63, 82f., 110. + + French lyrical forms, imitation of, 358-385. + + French verse, decasyllabic, 177f.; + influence on heroic couplet, 187, 190; + perfect rime in, 121 n.; + regular cesura in, 17, 18; + influence on octosyllabic couplet, 154, 160f., 163 n. + + French words, accent of, 11. + + FRERE, J. H.: _Monks and the Giants_, 100*. + + FROISSART, 358. + + + Galliambic verse, 339. + + _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, 133*, 157*. + + GASCOIGNE: _Notes of Instruction_ cited, 17, 94 n., 265, 291 n.; + _Steel Glass_, 18*, 218. + + GASCOIGNE (and KINWELMARSHE): _Jocasta_, 218. + + GAY, J.: _Fables_, 168f.*. + + _Genesis and Exodus_, 162*. + + German hexameters, influence of, 345, 349. + + Germanic verse, alliteration in, 116f.; + avoidance of syllable-counting in, 151; + irregular time-intervals in, 12. + + GLOVER: _Leonidas_, 238. + + GODRIC (ST.): _Sainte Marie_, 126*; + verse of, 161. + + _God Ureisun_, 118*. + + GOETHE, hexameters of, 345, 349; + his view of metre in the drama, 418 n. + + GOLDSMITH: _Deserted Village_, 204*; + Essay on Versification, 336; + on blank verse, 205; + _Retaliation_, 39*. + + GOLLANCZ, I., on the stanza of _The Pearl_, 109. + + GOODELL, T. G.: _Quantity in English Verse_, 406. + + GOSSE, E.: _After Anyte of Tegea_, 370*; + _Ballad of Dead Cities_, 364*; + on Cowleyan ode, 309; + on decadent blank verse, 230; + on Dryden's blank verse, 235; + on heroic stanza, 73; + on ode, 298; + on rime in the drama, 197; + on sonnet of Walsh, 277; + on verse of Denham, 192; + on verse of Goldsmith, 204; + on verse of Oldham, 193; + on verse of Parnell, 168; + on verse of Swift, 170; + on verse of Waller and contemporaries, 189, 190, 191 n.; + _Praise of Dionysus_, 368; + _Sestina_, 384 f.*; + _Villanelle_, 379 f.*. + + GOWER, ballades of, 362; + _Confessio Amantis_, 165*; + couplets of, 166. + + _Grace of God_, 71*. + + GRAUNSON, French ballades of, 362. + + GRAY: _Bard_, 307; + _Elegy in a Churchyard_, 72*; + on verse of Dryden, 194; + _Progress of Poesy_, 306 f.*; + _Sonnet on West_, 295 f.*. + + Greek ode, imitated in English, 300, 323-328. + + GREENE: _Morando_, 219. + + GREIN, on Riming Poem, 126 n. + + GRIMALD: _Death of Zoroas_, 218. + + GRIMM, on rime, 124. + + GUEST, on Poulter's Measure, 265; + on significance of sounds, 136. + + GUMMERE, F. B., on early English five-stress verse, 180; + on rhythm in poetry, 433-436. + + GURNEY, E., on Browning's rimes, 129 f.; + on the function of metre in poetry, 427-429. + + + HALL, J.: _Virgidemiarum_, 182*, 343*. + + HAMMOND, J.: _Love Elegies_, 73. + + HARVEY, G., influence on imitation of classical metres, 332 f. + + _Havelok the Dane_, 164*. + + HAWES, rime royal of, 94. + + HAWTREY, hexameter of, 351, 352*, 354. + + HAZLITT, W., on verse-form in poetry, 423-425. + + HEGEL, on metre in poetry, 427. + + _Heliand_, 124. + + HENLEY, W. E.: _Easy is the Triolet_, 381*; + _Villanelle_, 378 f.*; + _Ways of Death_, 370 f.*; + _What is to Come_, 375*. + + HERBERT, G.: _Gifts of God_, 90*; + _Sonnet on Sin_, 295*. + + HERDER, on rime, 123. + + HERENC: _Doctrinal_, 252. + + HERFORD, on verse of Leigh Hunt, 208. + + Heroic couplet (see Decasyllabic couplet). + + Heroic stanza, 71-73. + + HERRICK: _His Poetry his Pillar_, 27*; + _His Recantation_, 26*; + _Thanksgiving to God_, 90*; + _To Julia_, 64*; + _To the Lark_, 26*; + _Upon his Departure_, 25*. + + Hexameter (dactylic), 340-356. + + _Hildebrandlied_, 124, 152. + + HILL, A.: _Praise of Blank Verse_, 239 n.*. + + HOBBES: _Homer_, 73. + + HOLMES, O. W.: _Chambered Nautilus_, 108*; + on heroic couplet, 203 n. + + Hom[oe]oteleuton, relation to rime, 125. + + HOOD, T.: _Bridge of Sighs_, 30*, 130*. + + HORACE, stanza of, imitated, 77. + + Horatian ode, 298. + + Hudibrastic couplet, 167. + + HUGO, V., pantoums of, 386. + + HUNT, L., on Coleridge's verse, 16 n.; + on sonnets of Bowles, 278; + on sonnets of Drummond, 274; + on verse-form in poetry, 425 f.; + _Story of Rimini_, 207 f.*; + _The Fish to the Man_, 283*; + _Wealth and Womanhood_, 266*. + + _Hymn to the Virgin_ ("Blessed beo thu"), 260*; + ("Of on that is"), 87*. + + Hypermetrical syllables, 58-60. + + + Iambic verse, one-stress, 25; + two-stress, 26 f.; + three-stress, 32 f.; + four-stress, 160-173; + five-stress, 174-251; + six-stress, 252-258; + seven-stress, 44 f., 260-264; + eight-stress, 46. + + Iambus, 24; + substituted for trisyllabic foot, 60. + + Inclusive rime, 74-76. + + INGELOW, J.: _Give us Love and Give us Peace_, 49*. + + _In Memoriam_ stanza, 76. + + Inversion of accent, 7, 8, 55, 56, 57 f. + + Italian sonnet, 267-271. + + Italian verse, influence on Chaucer, 178 f.; + rimes in, 130; + _terza rima_ derived from, 65. + + + JAMES I. (of England): _Reulis and Cautelis_ cited, 94 n., 120, 157 n. + + JAMES I. (of Scotland): _King's Quhair_, 93*. + + _Jesu for thi muchele miht_, 111*. + + JOHNSON, S.: _London_, 205; + on blank verse, 205; + on Cowleyan ode, 308 f.; + on Dryden's Killigrew Ode, 310; + on tone-color, 137; + on verse-form in poetry, 417; + _Vanity of Human Wishes_, 205. + + JONSON, B.: _Elegy_, 74*; + _Epigrams_, 185*; + _Epitaph_, 92*; + _Epitaph on Salathiel Pavey_, 71*; + _Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme_, 123; + influence on classical school of verse, 186; + _Pindaric Ode_, 299 f.*; + _Sad Shepherd_, 225; + _Sejanus_, 224*. + + _Judas_, 254. + + + KAWCZYNSKI, on alliteration, 117; + on origin of alexandrine, 252. + + KEATS: _Chapman's Homer_, 282; + _Endymion_, 209*; + _Eve of St. Agnes_, 105*; + _Grasshopper and Cricket_, 282*; + _Hyperion_, 242*; + _Isabella_, 100*; + _Lamia_, 8*; + _Mermaid Tavern_, 38*; + _Ode to Psyche_, 143*; + Sonnets of, 282; + _Sonnet to Haydon_, 22*. + + KENT, A. J., on verse of Leigh Hunt, 208 f. + + _King Horn_, 154*. + + KINGSLEY, C.: _Andromeda_, 354*. + + KIPLING, R.: _Last Chantey_, 21 f.*; + _Mulholland's Contract_, 65*; + _Song of the English_, 49*; + _Wolcott Balestier_, 44 f.*. + + KITTREDGE, G. L., on French decasyllabic couplet, 178. + + + LACHMANN, on Anglo-Saxon verse, 151 f. + + LANDOR: _Children Playing in a Churchyard_, 64*; + _English Hexameters_, 353*; + on Milton's sonnets, 276. + + LANG, A.: _Ballade of Primitive Man_, 365 f.*; + _Ballades of Blue China_, 363, 365, 366; + on Pope, 202 f. + + LANGLAND: _Piers Plowman_, 119*. + + LANGTOFT, P. DE, Chronicle of, 82. + + LANIER, S.: _Ballad of Trees and the Master_, 131*; + his theory of English verse, 391-393, 400; + _Science of English Verse_ cited, 21, 49. + + LARMINIE, W., on assonance, 115; + on quantity in English, 399; + on rime, 123. + + Latin _septenarius_, 259; + relation to ballad metre, 264. + + Latin verse, influence on octosyllabic couplet, 160f.; + influence on stanza, 63; + rime in, 124 f.; + used with Anglo-Saxon, 153. + + LAYAMON: _Brut_, 118*, 127*; + verse of, 119. + + Lays, four-stress couplet in, 164 f. + + LE GALLIENNE, R., irregular verse of, burlesqued, 329 n. + + _Legend-Cycle_, 255. + + LEGOUIS, E., on Spenser's verse, 17. + + _Lenten ys come_, 111*. + + LENTZNER, on the sonnet, 268, 286, 287. + + Leonine rime, 132. + + LEWIS, C. M., on octosyllabic couplet, 160 f.; + on sources of Chaucer's verse, 179. + + LIDDELL, M., his theories of English verse, 394 f., 401 n., 407. + + LINDSAY, D.: _Satyre of the Three Estates_, 85*. + + _Little Soth Sermun_, 261. + + LLOYD, R., verses against blank verse, 239 n.*. + + LODGE: _Phyllis_, 273. + + LOK, sonnets of, 273. + + LONGFELLOW: _Evangeline_, 348*; + _Golden Legend_, 48*, 51*; + hexameters of, 348 f., 355; + _Hiawatha_, 37*, 408; + _Maidenhood_, 64*; + _Saga of King Olaf_, 30 f.*; + _Sonnets on Divina Commedia_, 289*. + + _Love in Idleness_, pantoum from, 386-388*. + + LOWELL: _Commemoration Ode_, 317*; + on Gray's _Progress of Poesy_, 307; + on Spenserian stanza, 103. + + LUICK, on revival of alliterative verse, 156. + + _Lutel wot hit anymon_, 174 f.*. + + LYDGATE, rime royal of, 94. + + LYLY: _Woman in the Moon,_ 219. + + Lyrical verse characteristic, 395. + + Lyrics, complex measures of early English, 110 f. + + + MACAULAY, G. C., on verse of Fletcher, 227 n. + + MACDONALD, G.: _Triolet_, 383*. + + MACHAULT, 178, 358. + + Malaysian verse, pantoum derived from, 386. + + MALHERBE, influence on heroic verse, 187. + + MANNING, R.: _Chronicle_, 82*, 254*; + _Handlying Synne,_ 163*; + simplifying of French metrical forms by, 82 f. + + MARLOWE, blank verse of, 221; + couplets of, 210; + _Faustus_, 57*, 219 f.*; + _Hero and Leander_, 181*, 190; + _Jew of Malta_, 139*; + _Tamburlaine_, 219*. + + _Marriage of Wit and Science_, 255 f.*. + + MASON, W., sonnets of, 277. + + MASSINGER, blank verse of, 230; + _New Way to Pay Old Debts_, 229*. + + MASSON, on Milton's tailed sonnet, 276. + + MAYOR, J. B.: _Chapters on English Metre_ cited, 409; + on Browning's blank verse, 249; + on Ellis's view of accent, 4 n.; + on substitutions of feet, 60. + + MEREDITH, G.: _Phaėthon_, 339. + + Metre, its place and function in poetry, 413-436. + + Metrical romances, tail-rime in, 84. + + MEYER, C. F., on rime, 123, 124. + + MIDDLETON, blank verse of, 228; + _Changeling_, 227*. + + MILL, J. S., on rhythm in poetry, 433. + + MILTON: _At a Solemn Music_, 329; + blank verse of, 232 f.; + _Il Penseroso_, 166 f.*; + _L'Allegro_, 38*; + _Lycidas_, 99*, 142*; + _Nativity Ode_, 33*, 107*; + _On his Blindness_, 275*; + _On Time_, 329; + _Paradise Lost_, 4*, 7*, 15*, 57*, 58*, 59*, 140*, 141*, 230 f.*; + _Passion_, 94; + _Psalm II_., 66*; + _Psalm VI_., 74*; + _Samson Agonistes_, 231 f.*, 323-325*; + _Sonnet on Piedmont Massacre_, 141*; + sonnets of, 276. + + MINOT, L.: _Battle of Halidon Hill_, 96*. + + _Misfortunes of Arthur_, 219. + + MITCHELL, S. WEIR: _Psalm of the Waters_, 36*. + + MOLZA, FRANCESCO, 216. + + "_Monk's Tale_ stanza," 97. + + _Monologue d'outre Tombe_, 386*. + + MOODY, W. V.: _Menagerie_, 91*; + _Ode in Time of Hesitation_, 321-323*. + + MOORE, T.: _Believe me, if all those endearing young charms_, 40*; + _Down in yon Summervale_, 121 n.*; + _Go Where Glory Waits Thee_, 33 f.*. + + MORRIS, R., on early octosyllabic verse, 162. + + MORRIS, W.: _Earthly Paradise_, 93 f.*, 173*; + _Fair Spring Morning_, 329; + _Folk-Mote by the River_, 159*; + _Jason_, 213*. + + MOULTON, R. G., on Browning's _Caliban_, 32. + + MOUSSET, classical metres of, 331. + + Music, its relation to verse, 391-396, 407 n., 413 f., 434-436. + + _Must I be Carried to the Skies_, 262*. + + Mystery plays, verse of, 94 f., 112, 265. + + + NASH, T., on English hexameters, 342; + Preface to _Menaphon_, 215. + + _Ne mai no lewed_, etc., 109 f.*. + + NEWCOMER, A. G., on wrenched accent, 10. + + NEWMAN, metre of his _Iliad_ translation, 262. + + NORDEN, on rime, 125. + + Norse verse, influence on Anglo-Saxon, 126; + stanza in, 63. + + _Nutbrowne Maide_ (ballad), 132*. + + + OCCLEVE, rime royal of, 94. + + Octosyllabic couplet, 160-173. + + Ode (The), 298-329. + + OLDHAM, J.: _Satires upon the Jesuits_, 192*. + + Onomatop[oe]ia, 135 f. + + _Ormulum_, 260*. + + O'SHAUGHNESSY, A.: _Fountain of Tears_, 36*. + + OTFRIED, verse of, 123, 124. + + _Ottava rima,_ 98-101; + possible source of sonnet, 267. + + OTWAY: _Venice Preserved_, 235*. + + _Owl and the Nightingale_, 162*. + + + Pantoum, 385-388. + + PARIS, G., on Machault, 178. + + PARNELL: _Night-Piece on Death_, 168*. + + PASSERAT, J.: _Villanelle_, 377*. + + _Passion of our Lord_, 254. + + _Pater Noster_, 161*. + + _Patience_, 155*. + + PATMORE: _Amelia_, 319 n.*; + _Ode_, 318*; + on the ode, 319; + _Unknown Eros_, 319. + + Pauses, 16-23; + varied to preserve metrical time, 404 f. + + PAYNE, J., virelai of, 385. + + PEACOCK, T. L.: _Misfortunes of Elphin_, 33*. + + _Pearl, The,_ 109*. + + PECK, S. M.: _Under the Rose_, 382*. + + PEELE: _Arraignment of Paris_, 218*. + + PETRARCA: _Sonnet_, 271*. + + Phalęcian verse, 331, 338. + + PHILIPS, J.: _Cider_, 238. + + PHILLIPS, S.: _Marpessa_, 251; + _Paolo and Francesca_, 250 f.*. + + _Ph[oe]nix_, 153*. + + Pindaric ode, 298, 299-307. + + Pitch-accent, so-called, 5 f. + + PITT, W., 131 n. + + POE: _Lenore_, 134*; + on English hexameter, 349; + _Rationale of Verse_, 392; + _Raven_, 47*. + + _Poema Morale_, 127*, 260. + + POPE, A.: _Essay on Criticism_, 12*, 57*, 142*, 199 f.*; + _Iliad_, 200 f.*; + on verse of Denham and Waller, 188; + on verse of Dryden, 194; + rules of verse, 201 f.; + _Solitude_, 27*. + + Poulter's Measure, 255, 265 f. + + Pre-Raphaelites, 10. + + _Preservation of King Henry VII_., 343. + + PRIOR: _Better Answer_, 39*. + + Provenēal, lyrical forms of, 358, 383. + + PUTTENHAM, G.: _Arte of English Poesie_ cited, 8 n., 18, 94 n., 334 n. + + Pyrrhic, 49, 55, 56. + + + Quantity in English, 391-406; + in English verse, 330, 332 f., 338, 354 f., 356, 357. + + Quatrains, 69-77. + + _Quinque Gaudia_, 85*. + + + RALEIGH, W.: _Pilgrim to Pilgrim_, 35*. + + RANCHIN: _Triolet_, 381*. + + READ, T. B.: _Drifting_, 88*. + + Refrain stanzas, 78-90. + + _Regulae de Rhythmis_, 81*. + + Rhythm, arts of, 413 f.; + change of, 53-55, 61. + + _Rhythmus_, meaning of, 124. + + RICH, B.: _Don Simonides_, 219. + + RIEGER, on rime in Anglo-Saxon, 126 n. + + Rime, 113, 121-135; + as organizer of stanza, 63; + broken, 131 f.; + defended by Daniel, 336 n.; + feminine, 121, 128 f.; + functions of, 122; + imperfect, 122 n.; + in Butler's _Hudibras_, 167 f.; + in drama, 196-199; + internal, 132-135 + (in ballads, 70; + in Middle English alexandrines, 255; + in septenary, 259-261); + objections to, 122 f.; + origin of, 123-125; + suspected by classicists, 214, 232, 330; + triple, 121, 128-131. + + _Rime couée_, 80-86; + in French, 81; + in Latin, 80 f. + + Rime royal, 93 f.; + in Chaucer's _Balade_, 361. + + _Riming Poem_ (Anglo-Saxon), 125 f.*. + + ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER: _Chronicle_, 265. + + ROBERTSON, J. M., his theories of English verse, 24 n., 392-394, + 400, 403. + + _Robin Hood_ (ballad), 70*, 263*. + + _Roland, Chanson de_, 113 f.*. + + Romance languages, assonance in, 113. + + Romance metres, regular time-intervals in, 12, 14 n. + + Rondeau, 368, 371-376. + + Rondel, 368-371. + + ROSSETTI: _Ballad of Dead Ladies_, 362 f.*; + _Blessed Damozel_, 7*; + _House of Life_, 284*, 285*; + _Love's Nocturn_, 146*; + _My Sister's Sleep_, 75*; + on Drayton's sonnet, 293; + _Penumbra_, 135*; + _Rose Mary_, 91*; + _Sister Helen_, 80*; + sonnets of, 285; + _Sunset Wings_, 89*; + _To Death_ (rondeau), 374*; + _Willowwood_, 9*. + + Roundel, in Chaucer, 369; + Swinburne's form of, 376. + + ROWLANDS, S., verse of, 190. + + "Run-on" lines, 19 (see also _Enjambement_). + + RUSSELL, T., sonnets of, 277. + + + SACKVILLE: _Mirror for Magistrates_, 94. + + SACKVILLE (and NORTON): _Gorboduc_, 217*. + + SAINTSBURY, on alexandrine, 258 f.; + on Blair, 237; + on Dryden's couplet, 194 f.; + on Dryden's dactyls, 40; + on heroic stanza, 73; + on Shenstone, 35 f.; + on Thomson, 238. + + SANDYS, G., heroic couplets of, 189 f., 191; + influence on Pope's verse, 201; + _Metamorphoses_, 191*; + _Paraphrase of Luke_, 63*. + + Satire, heroic couplet in, 181, 182, 183, 206. + + _Satire on People of Kildare_, 91*. + + Scandinavian verse, influence in England, 126. + + SCHELLING, F. E., on Campion's classical metres, 335 f.; + on influence of Jonson's verse, 186; + on Raleigh's anapests, 35. + + SCHILLER, elegiac distich of, 346; + on rhythm in the drama, 433. + + SCHIPPER, on accent, 3; + on Anglo-Saxon alliteration, 117; + on early imitation of classical verse, 330 f.; + on Layamon, 119; + on the octosyllabic couplet, 161; + on Poulter's Measure, 265; + on rime, 123-125; + on rime in Cynewulf, 126 n.; + on rime royal, 94; + on _Riming Poem_, 126; + on Romance stanza-forms, 110 f.; + on the sonnet, 270; + on the stanza, 62; + on tumbling verse, 158 n.; + on types of alexandrine, 255; + on "unaccented rime," 121 n. + + SCHLEGEL., A. W., on tone-color, 137. + + SCHRÖER, on early blank verse, 218. + + SCOLLARD, C.: _Villanelle_, 380*. + + SCOTT, W.: _Hunting Song_, 13*; + _Lady of the Lake_, 29*, 172*. + _Scottish Field_ (ballad), 120 f.*. + + Scottish verse, alliteration in, 120. + + _Sdruciolla_, 215. + + SEAMAN, O.: _Battle of the Bays_, 329 n.*. + + Septenary, 259-264; + in drama, 218; + internal rime in, 132; + mingled with alexandrine, 252, 253 f., 261, 265; + unrimed, 260, 262. + + SERAFINO: _Strambotti_, 272. + + Sestina, 383-385. + + SHAKSPERE: _As You Like It_, 57*; + blank verse of, 223 f.; + _Henry V._, 140*; + heroic verse of, 184; + _It was a lover_, etc., 9*; + _Julius Cęsar_, 58*; + _King John_, 20*; + _Love's Labor's Lost_, 38*, 183 f.*; + _Macbeth_, 20*; + _Measure for Measure_, 20*, 222*; + _Merchant of Venice_, 57*; + _Midsummer Night's Dream_, 26*, 31*, 139*; + _Much Ado_, 215; + _Ph[oe]nix and the Turtle_, 63*, 74*; + _Rape of Lucrece_, 93*; + _Richard II._, 20*; + _Romeo and Juliet_, 7*, 57*; + _Sonnets_, 293*, 294*; + sonnets of, 294 f.; + _Tempest_, 37*, 222 f.*; + _Troilus and Cressida_, 138*; + _Twelfth Night_, 51 f.*; + _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, 221*; + _Venus and Adonis_, 92*. + + SHAKSPERE (and FLETCHER): _Two Noble Kinsmen_, 85*. + + SHARP, W., on the sonnet, 268 n. + + SHELLEY: _Adonais_, 105 f.*; + _Alastor_, 243*; + _Arethusa_, 28*; + _Epipsychidion_, 210*; + _Flight of Love_, 50 f.*; + heroic verse of, 210; + _Ode to Naples_, 314 f.*; + _Ode to West Wind_, 66 f.*; + _Ozymandias_, 281 f.*; + _Queen Mab_, 329; + _Sensitive Plant_, 69*; + sonnets of, 282; + _To a Skylark_, 34*; + use of Spenserian stanza, 106; + view of verse-form in poetry, 422 f. + + SHENSTONE, heroic stanza of, 73; + _Pastoral Ballad_, 35*; + _Schoolmistress_, 104. + + SHERMAN, F. D.: _Ballade to Austin Dobson_, 366 f.*. + + SIDNEY: _Anacreontics_, 332*; + _Asclepiadics_, 331*; + _Astrophel and Stella_, 74*, 77*, 256*, 272*, 273*, 291*; + _Dorus and Zelmane_, 340 f.*; + hexameters of, 341; + _Mopsa_, 266*; + _Phaleuciakes_, 331*; + _Psalm VIII_., 69*; + sonnets of, 273; + _Thyrsis and Dorus_, 65 f.*; + view of verse-form in poetry, 416 f. + + SIEVERS, on Anglo-Saxon verse, 152 f.; + on stanzaic and stichic verse, 63. + + _Sir Fyrumbras_, 261*. + + _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_, 109, 155 f.*. + + SKALAGRIMSSON, Egil, 126. + + SKEAT, on sources of Chaucer's couplet, 178; + theory of English verse, 394 n. + + SKELTON: _Colyn Cloute_, 32*; + rime royal of, 94. + + _Song of Songs_ (French version), 81*. + + Sonnet, 267-297; + bipartite structure of, 268, 270, 280, 282, 285, 286, 290, 293; + English form of, 290; + Italian form of, 270; + revived in 18th century, 277; + sequences, 273; + "Ten Commandments" of, 268 n. + + Sonnets on the sonnet, 278, 279, 284, 288. + + Sound-qualities of verse made expressive of sense, 135-137. + + SOUTHEY: _Curse of Kehama_, 329; + hexameters of, 347 f.; + _Sapphics_, 337*; + _Vision of Judgment_, 347*. + + Spanish verse, 28, 115; + assonance in, 114. + + SPEDDING, J., on English hexameter, 351. + + SPENSER: _Amoretti_, 293*; + _Faerie Queene_, 102*; + free cesura in, 17; + interest in classical metres, 332 f.; + _Mother Hubbard's Tale_, 181*; + _Shepherd's Calendar_, 15*, 89*, 158 f.*, 179 f.*; + _Tetrasticon_, 332*; + tumbling verse of, 159; + unrimed sonnets of, 219; + _Virgil's Gnat_, 98 f.*. + + Spenserian sonnet, 293*. + + Spenserian stanza, 102-106; + stanzas influenced by, 107 f. + + Spondee, 56, 57. + + STANYHURST, R.: _Ęneid_, 341 f.*; + hexameters of, 342 f. + + Stanzas, 62-112; + complex forms of, under French influence, 110; + formed by refrains, 78; + how determined and described, 62; + tail-rime, 80-86. + + STEDMAN, E. C., on rhythm in poetry, 432 f. + + STENGEL, on French alexandrine, 252; + on French decasyllabic verse, 177 f.; + on octosyllabic verse, 160. + + STETSON, C. P.: _A Man Must Live_, 375 f.*. + + STEVENSON, R. L., on tone-color, 138. + + Stichic verse, 62. + + STILLINGFLEET, B., sonnets of, 277. + + _Stond wel, moder_, 84*. + + STONE, W. J.: _Odyssey_, 356*; + on quantity in English verse, 356 f. + + Stress (see Accent). + + Substitution of feet, 55-61. + + SUCKLING: _A Soldier_, 86*. + + _Suete iesu, king of blysse_, 69*. + + SURREY, EARL OF, accents in verse of, 10; + _Ęneid_, 215 f.*; + _How no Age is Content_, 266*; + inventor of English sonnet, 290; + _Psalm LV_., 255*; + _Restless State of a Lover_, 71*; + _Sonnet_, 290*; + verse of, 216. + + SWIFT: _Death of Dr. Swift_, 169 f.*. + + SWINBURNE: _Armada_, 51*, 134*; + _Atalanta in Calydon_, 9*, 146*; + _Ballad of Franēois Villon_, 367*; + _Birds_, 45*; + _Century of Roundels_, 42*; + _Choriambics_, 340*; + _Death of Wagner_, 60*; + _Garden of Cymodoce_, 43*; + _Hendecasyllabics_, 338; + _Hesperia_, 44*; + _Last Oracle_, 43*; + _Laus Veneris_, 78*; + _Leper_, 9*; + _March_, 13*, 48*; + _Night in Guernsey_, 47*; + on choral ode of Milton, 325; + on English hexameters, 353 f.; + on sonnets of Wordsworth, 280; + _On the Cliffs_, 329; + on Whitman, 431 n.; + _Roundel_, 376*; + _Sapphics_, 340*; + _Seaboard_, 51*; + _Song in Season_, 28*; + _Thalassius_, 329; + _Tristram of Lyonesse_, 212*; + _Winter in Northumberland_, 130 f.*, 147*. + + Syllable-counting, in Surrey's verse, 216; + want of, in early English verse, 16, 112, 151. + + Syllables, artificially varied in length when in metre, 401-404; + kinds of accented, 3. + + SYMONDS, J. A., on blank verse, 214, 232, 233; + of 18th century, 239; + of _Gorboduc_, 217; + of Jonson, 225; + of Keats, 242; + of Marlowe, 220 f.; + of Shakspere, 222; + of Tennyson, 246; + of Webster, 229; + on heroic verse of the romantic poets, 210; + _Sonnets on the Thought of Death_, 287 f.*. + + + Tailed sonnet, 276. + + Tail-rime (see _Rime couée_). + + TAYLOR, B.: _Home Pastorals_, 349*; + _National Ode_, 320 f.*. + + TAYLOR, W., on German and English hexameters, 345; + _Ossian's Hymn to the Sun_, 344 f.*. + + TEN BRINK, on Anglo-Saxon verse, 151 f.; + on Chaucer's verse, 177, 178; + on early five-stress verse, 175; + on verse of court romances, 164 f.; + on verse of _King Horn_, 155. + + TENNYSON: _Alcaics on Milton_, 337*; + blank verse of, 246; + _Boadicea_, 339; + _Break, break, break_, 21*; + _Charge of the Light Brigade_, 30*; + _Coming of Arthur_, 143; + _Daisy_, 77; + elegiac distich of, 346*; + _Enoch Arden_, 58*, 59*, 144*; + _Geraint and Enid_, 59*; + _Hendecasyllabics_, 337 f.*; + _In Memoriam_, 75 f.*; + _Locksley Hall_, 13*, 46 f.*; + _Lotos-Eaters_, 106*; + _Maud_, 32*, 42*, 43*, 52*, 317; + _Merlin and Vivien_, 58*; + _Montenegro_, 285 f.*; + _Northern Farmer_, 44*; + _[OE]none_, 59*; + on English hexameters, 353; + on quantity in English, 338; + _Oriana_, 80*; + _Palace of Art_, 74*; + _Passing of Arthur_, 244*; + _Princess_, 8*, 58*, 134*, 144 f.*, 245*, 246*; + _Queen Mary_, 245*; + _Sapphics_, 339*; + sonnets of, 286; + _Tears, Idle Tears_, 246*; + _To Maurice_, 77*; + _Two Voices_, 64*; + _Vision of Sin_, 41*, 54 f.*; + _Wellington Ode_, 315 f.*. + + Tercets, 63-69. + + Terminology, classical in English verse, 24 n., 406-409. + + _Terza rima,_ 65-69. + + THACKERAY, irregular verse in ballads of, 158 n.; + _Sorrows of Werther_, 47*; + _What Makes my Heart_, etc., 132*. + + THOMSON, as imitator of Spenser's verse, 104; + _Castle of Indolence_, 103*, 143*; + _Seasons_, 237 f.*. + + THOMSON, J.: _City of Dreadful Night_, 95*. + + TILLBROOK, S., on Southey's hexameters, 347 n. + + Time-element in English verse, 391-409. + + Time-intervals, 11-23; + irregular, 13-16; + regular, 12 f.; + the basis of metrical feet, 408. + + TODHUNTER, on Shelley's verse, 106. + + TOLOMEI, C., 331. + + TOMLINSON, on the sonnet, 267 f. + + Tone-color, 135-147. + + Tone-quality, 113-147. + + TOTTEL: _Songs and Sonnets_, 10, 87*, 98*, 218, 266*, 271*, 290*, 372. + + _Trial before Pilate_ (Mystery Play), 157*. + + TRIGGS, on verse of _De Muliere Samaritana_, 253 f. + + Triolet, 381-383. + + Triple endings in Elizabethan drama, 226-228. + + Triplet, used in heroic verse, 195, 208. + + TRISSINO, G., 214, 330. + + Trochaic verse, two-stress, 27 f.; + three-stress, 33 f.; + four-stress, 37 f.; + five-stress, 41; + six-stress, 43; + seven-stress, 45, 259; + eight-stress, 46 f. + + Trochee, 24; + substituted for iambus, 57 f. + + _Troy Book_, 156. + + Truncation, 25, 33. + + "Tumbling verse," 157 f., 159; + relation to decasyllabic, 179 f. + + TURBERVILLE: _Heroical Epistles_, 219. + + + UDALL, N.: _Ralph Roister Doister_, 14*. + + + VAN DYKE, H., on Tennyson's _Wellington Ode_, 317. + + Variety in verse, significant, 61. + + _Vers baļfins_, 331. + + _Vers de société_, 39, 365. + + _Versi sciolti_, 214, 330 f. + + Villanelle, 376-380. + + VILLON, 358, 363, 365, 367, 374. + + Virelai, 385. + + VOITURE, 358, 371; + _Rondeau_, 371*. + + Vowels, long and short in English, 396 f. + + + WACE, _Brut_, 160*. + + WADDINGTON: _Manuel des Pechiez_, 163 n.*. + + WALLER: _Battle of the Summer Islands_, 187*; + _Go, Lovely Rose_, 89*; + influence on heroic couplet, 187-190; + _Of the Danger of his Majesty_, etc., 186*. + + WARD, on verse of Cowper, 240. + + WARNER, W.: _Albion's England_, 261*. + + WARTON brothers, revivers of sonnet, 277. + + WARTON, T., on verse of Joseph Hall, 182; + _Sonnet on Dugdale's Monasticon_, 276 f.*. + + WATSON (of Cambridge), distich of, 341*. + + WATSON, T.: _Tears of Fancy_, 273. + + WATSON, W.: _Hymn to the Sea_, 355*; + _Sonnet on History_, 297*; + _Sonnet to the Sultan_, 289*. + + WATTS, T., on verse-form in poetry, 426 f.; + _Sonnet's Voice_, 288*. + + _Wayle whyte, A,_ 86*. + + WEBBE, W.: _Discourse of English Poetrie_ cited, 46, 334, 341, 344; + _Eclogue of Vergil_, 344*; + _Sapphics_, 333*. + + WEBSTER: _Duchess of Malfi_, 228*. + + WENDELL, B., on Shakspere's verse, 223 f. + + WHITE, G., on _chant royal_, 368; + on French lyrical forms, 359 f. + + WHITE, J. B.: _Sonnet to Night_, 281*. + + WHITMAN, W., verse of, 431. + + WOOD, H., on the heroic couplet, 189 f. + + WOODBERRY, on the heroic couplet, 207. + + WORDSWORTH: _Intimations of Immortality_ (ode), 312 f.*; + _I wandered lonely_, 92*; + _Norman Boy_, 264*; + on blank verse, 232; + on theory of metre, 417-420; + _Peter Bell_, 91*; + _Pet Lamb_, 257*; + _Scorn not the Sonnet_, 279*; + _Solitary Reaper_, 97 f.*; + _Sonnet, The_, 278 f.*; + sonnets of, 278, 280; + _The World is too much with us_, 279 f.*; + _Tintern Abbey_, 243*; + _White Doe of Rylstone_, 171 f*. + + WYATT, accents in verse of, 10 f.; + _How to use the court_, 65*; + _Of his love that pricked his finger_, 98*; + _O goodly hand_, 87*; + _ottava rima_ introduced by, 98; + _Power of Love_, 96*; + _Rondeau_, 372*; + _Sonnet_, 271*; + sonnet introduced by, 272; + text of poems of, 10 f.; + _The joy so short_, 20*; + _Torment of the Unhappy Lover_, 101 f.*; + unaccented rime in, 122 n. + + + YOUNG: _Night Thoughts_, 238; + _Ocean_, 87 f.*; + stanza of odes of, 88. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's English Verse, by Raymond MacDonald Alden, Ph.D. + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH VERSE *** + +***** This file should be named 32262-8.txt or 32262-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/2/6/32262/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Louise Pattison and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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