human
Can you write a poem for me in the style of Cornelia A. P. (Cornelia Atwood Pratt) Comer?
assistant
Sure, here's a poem in the style of Cornelia A. P. (Cornelia Atwood Pratt) Comer:
  intelligible and useful.
subdivisions will inevitably conflict and overlap. For practical
Dates have been appended to the specimens in those sections where
In the notes on the specimens I have tried to distinguish between
B.--Time-intervals
i. Regular intervals between accents
ii. Irregular intervals
iii. Silent intervals (pauses)
One-stress iambic
Two-stress iambic
Two-stress trochaic
Two-stress anapestic
Two-stress dactylic
Two-stress irregular
Three-stress iambic
Three-stress trochaic
Three-stress anapestic
Three-stress dactylic
Four-stress iambic
Four-stress trochaic
Four-stress anapestic
Four-stress dactylic
Five-stress iambic
Five-stress trochaic
Five-stress anapestic
Five-stress dactylic
Six-stress iambic
Six-stress trochaic
Six-stress anapestic
Six-stress dactylic
Seven-stress iambic
Seven-stress trochaic
Seven-stress anapestic
Seven-stress dactylic
Eight-stress iambic
Eight-stress trochaic
Eight-stress anapestic
Eight-stress dactylic
i. Different feet regularly combined
ii. Individual feet altered
Various Stanza-forms
abccb
ababb
aabbb
aabcdd
aaaabb
ababab
ababcc
ababbcc (Rime royal)
ababcca
ababccb
abababab
ababbaba
ababbcbc
ababccdd
abababcc (ottava rima)
aabaabbab
ababcccdd
ababbcbcc (Spenserian stanza)
abababccc
aabaabcc
ababbcbcdd
aabbbcc
ababababbcbc
aabccbddbeebffgggf
ababccdeed
aabccbddbeeb
abcbdcdceccce
iii. End-rime
Double and triple rime
Broken rime
Internal rime
B.--As a Sporadic Element (Tone-color)
A.--Non-syllable-counting
i. "Rondel" type
ii. "Rondeau" type
"Most ponderous and substantial things"
the second syllable is suppressed or silent.
Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top
Of Horeb or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning, how the heavens and earth
Rose out of chaos.
"And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee,"--
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
English stress. Force, quantity, and pitch are combined in our
word-stress (or word-accent), both primary and secondary; but in
increased. An answer is thus won for the question: How do we
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
four syllables (as here used) as many recognizable varieties of
Association_, n.s. vol. vii. No. 3). Professor Bright's theory of
the accepted doctrine that the word and sentence accents must
ordinarily take precedence of the metrical accent.
"Mary had a little lamb,"
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.
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.
_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.
_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.
_"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.
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_!
"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._)
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
prominence that a verse seemed good to them if it contained the
with the revised forms as printed in Tottel's Miscellany (1557).
"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."
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."
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
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."
variable, makes the time-intervals as nearly equal as possible by
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.
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!
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.
ii. _Verse showing irregular intervals between accents_
Gegr[=e]tte ð[=a]    gumena gehwylcne,
hwate helm-berend,    hindeman s[=i]ðe,
sw[=æ]se ges[=i]ðas:    "Nolde ic sweord beran,
w[=æ]pen t[=o] wyrme,    gif ic wiste h[=u]
wið ð[=a]m [=a]gl[=æ]cean    elles meahte
gylpe wiðgr[=i]pan,    sw[=a] ic g[=i]o wið Grendle dyde;
oreðes ond attres;    forðon ic m[=e] on hafu
bord ond byrnan.    Nelle ic beorges weard
oferfl[=e]on    f[=o]tes trem,
ac unc sceal weorðan æt wealle,    sw[=a] unc wyrd get[=e]oð,
Metod manna gehwæs.    Ic eom on m[=o]de from,
þæt ic wið þone g[=u]ð-flogan    gylp ofersitte.
Ich herde men upo mold make muche mon,
hou he beþ itened of here tilyynge:
gode yeres & corn boþe beþ agon,
ne kepeþ here no sawe ne no song synge.
Nou we mote worche, nis þer non oþer won,
mai ich no lengore lyue wiþ mi lesinge.
Yet þer is a bitterore bit to þe bon,
for euer þe furþe peni mot to þe kynge.
(_The Farmer's Complaint_, ab. 1300; in Böddeker's _Altenglische
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.
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.
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.
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.
In his Preface to this poem Coleridge said: "The metre of the
iii. _Silent Time-intervals between Syllables (Pauses)_
(a) Pauses not filling the time of syllables.
In the early Elizabethan period the impression was still general
master, Chaucer." In Gascoigne's _Notes of Instruction concerning
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
discretion, and forceth not where the pause be untill the ende of
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
Trois fois cinquante jours le général naufrage
Dégasta l'univers; en fin d'un tel ravage
L'immortel s'émouvant, n'eût pas sonné si tôt
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.
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.
"This wicked traitor, whom I thus accuse;"
"To Canterbury with ful devout corage."
"But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives."
(_b_) Pauses filling the time of syllables.
A second class of silent time-intervals, or pauses, is to be
Of fustian he wered a gipoun
For him was lever have at his beddes heed
(CHAUCER: Prologue to _Canterbury Tales_, 75 f. and 293 f.)
The time doth pass, [^] yet shall not my love.
(WYATT: _The joy so short, alas!_)
Stay! [^] The king hath thrown his warder down.
Kneel thou down, Philip. [^] But rise more great.
In drops of sorrow. [^] Sons, kinsmen, thanes.
Than the soft myrtle. [^] But man, proud man.
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
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
(BURNS: _Auld Lang Syne._)
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
These, these will give the world another heart,
And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings?----
Call her once before you go,--
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know,--
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_.)
 According to a more elaborate system Mr. Ellis recognized nine
varieties of force or stress, which he named in order as follows:
 It is interesting to compare with these irregular lines another
predominance in English poetry.
(_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_.
And die
As one
And gone.
(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.
_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,...
Begin to woo,
Sweet singing Lark,
Be thou the clerk,
And know thy when
The raging rocks,
And shivering shocks,
Shall break the locks
Of prison-gates;
Shall shine from far,
And make and mar
The foolish Fates.
(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.
(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.
_Two-stress trochaic_.
Could I catch that
Nimble traitor,
Swift-foot Laura,
Soon then would I
Seek avengement.
(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.
_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.
(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.
_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!
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
As with his fleet he steered
Where with their courses hauled
All were together called,
Near to the mainland.
_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.
What I hate,
Be consecrate
To celebrate
Thee and Thy state,
No mate
For envy
In poor me?
(BROWNING: Song in _Caliban upon Setebos_. 1864.)
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.
_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.
(In combination with verse of four, five, and six stresses:)
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.
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.
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.
(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.
"The metres of the earlier years of Elizabeth's reign are so
overwhelmingly iambic," Professor Schelling observes, "that this
ed. Hannah, p. 55--all of them in more or less limping anapæsts,
but not of this measure. It is quite possible that the time to
(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.
(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.)
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.)
_Three-stress dactylic._
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.
_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.
Westward, westward Hiawatha
Sailed into the fiery sunset,
Sailed into the purple vapors,
Sailed into the dusk of evening.
Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
Long continuance, and increasing,
Hourly joys be still upon you!
Juno sings her blessings on you.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
_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!
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.
_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,
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.
_Five-stress anapestic._
As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being beloved!
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
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.
_Five-stress dactylic._
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 strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating yard-wand,
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
As it broadens and bows to the wave-ward, and breathes not, and
hearkens apart.
_Six-stress dactylic._
(For this, see chiefly Part Two.)
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.
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.
_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.
Here we have anacrusis in lines 2 and 4.
Beyond the path of the outmost sun, through utter darkness
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._
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
Poor plumeless ephemerals, comfortless mortals, as visions of
creatures fast fleeing,
(SWINBURNE: _The Birds_, from Aristophanes.)
'dance as 'twere to the music
Their own hoofs make.'"
_Seven-stress dactylic._
This form of verse may be said to be wanting. Schipper quotes as
"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."
_Eight-stress iambic._
To make men swallow down their bane, before on danger deep they
_Eight-stress trochaic._
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.
Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door.
Night, in utmost noon forlorn and strong, with heart athirst and
fasting,
casting Night.
(SWINBURNE: _Night in Guernsey._)
"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._
Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow, or of frost that
out-lightens all flowers till it fade,
_Eight-stress dactylic._
Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of hate, of doing
and daring.
The breathlessly continuous character of such long anapestic or
In the morning, O so early, my beloved, my beloved,
(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!)
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._)
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.
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._)
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;
(SWINBURNE: _The Armada_, vii.)
This life of ours is a wild Æolian 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.)
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.
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.
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 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._)
The omission of one of the two light syllables from the foot in
_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.
_See, see_ where Christ's _blood streams_ in the firmament!
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.
The watery kingdom whose ambitious head
_Spits in_ the face of heaven.
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
(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?
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hug_est that swim_ the ocean stream.
"Leviathan, whom God the vastest made
Of all the kinds that swim the ocean stream,"--
So he with diff_iculty_ and labour hard
Moved on, with diff_iculty_ and labour he.
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.
_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.
"Girt with omnipotence, with radiance crowned,"
_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._)
inverted.
(4) The limit for trisyllabic substitution is three out of five.
(_Chapters on English Metre_, chap. V.)
expression, an exceptional foot must result in emphasis, whether
intended or not, either logical or emotional.... A great poet is
 On the historical problem of the distinction between elided and
observes: "The word strophe properly signifies a _turning_, and
recitation; one form at length crowding out the other.
Truth may seem, but cannot be;
Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
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.
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."
Like the swell of some sweet tune,
Morning rises into noon,
May glides onward into June.
Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.
The fear was on the cattle, for the gale was on the sea,
(KIPLING: _Mulholland's Contract._)
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,...
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.
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.
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!
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!
The effort to translate Dante in the original metre is especially
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."
"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!"
Suete iesu, king of blysse,
Myn huerte love, min huerte lisse,
Þou art suete myd ywisse,
Wo is him þat þe shal misse!
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.
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.
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.
sloughe."
(See in Flügel's _Neuenglisches Lesebuch_, vol. i. p. 199.)
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!
Þe grace of god ful of mi[gh]t
Þat is king and ever was,
Mote among us ali[gh]t
And [gh]ive us alle is swet grace.
Of al this world the wyde compas
Hit wol not in myn armes tweyne.--
Who-so mochel wol embrace
Litel thereof he shal distreyne.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
"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
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.)
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!
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.
"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._)
Blow, northerne wynd,
Sent þou my suetyng!
Blow, norþern wynd,
Blou! blou! blou!
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.
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 _Ælla_. ab. 1770.)
The twentieth year is well-nigh past,
Since first our sky was overcast;
Ah, would that this might be the last!
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!
My heart is wasted with my woe,
There is no rest for me below,
When the long dun wolds are ribb'd with snow,
And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow,
Alone I wander to and fro,
Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,
(Toll slowly)
(ELIZABETH B. BROWNING: _Rhyme of the Duchess May._ ab. 1845.)
"Ah! what white thing at the door has cross'd,
Ah! what is this that sighs in the frost?"
"A soul that's lost as mine is lost,
Little brother!"
Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven!)
Exultet fidelis chorus,
Egidio psallat coetus
Iste laetus,
(ST. BERNARD: _De Nativitate Domini._)
Tibi non equantur.
Tibi summa prudentia,
Prefulgens et potentia
Celesti dono dantur.
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.
Men may merci have, traytour not to save, for luf ne for awe,
Atteynt of traytorie, suld haf no mercie, wiþ no maner lawe.
(ROBERT MANNING of Brunne: _Chronicle._ ab. 1330.)
For Edward gode dede
Þe Baliol did him mede
a wikked bounte.
Turne we ageyn to rede
and on our geste to spede
a Maddok þer left we.  (_Ibid._)
Als þai 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 þe 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 þai wist what it mente
Ellis me thoght it were alle shente.
I made it not for to be praysed,
Bot at þe lewed menn were aysed.
If it were made in ryme couwee,
Or in strangere or entrelace,
Þat rede Inglis it ere inowe
Þat couthe not haf coppled a kowe,
Þat outhere in couwee or in baston
Som suld haf ben fordon,
So þat fele men þat it herde
Suld not witte howe þat it ferde.
... And forsoth I couth noght
So strange Inglis as þai wroght,
And menn besoght me many a tyme
To turne it bot in light ryme.
þai sayd, if I in strange it turne,
To here it manyon suld skurne.
For it ere names fulle selcouthe,
þat ere not used now in mouthe.
And therfore for the comonalte,
þat blythely wild listen to me,
On light lange I it begann,
For luf of the lewed mann.
rime-arrangement.
Stand wel, moder, under rode,
Byholt þy sone wiþ glade mode;
Blyþe, moder, myht þou be!
Sone, hou shulde y blyþe stonde?
Y se þin fet, y se þin honde
Nayled to þe harde tre.
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!
"'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,
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!
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.
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,
I am a man of war and might,
And know thus much, that I can fight,
Whether I am i' th' wrong or right,
No woman under heaven I fear,
New oaths I can exactly swear,
And forty healths my brains will bear
Most stoutly.
A wayle whyte ase whalles bon,
A grein in golde þat goldly shon,
A tortle þat min herte is on,
In toune trewe;
Hire gladshipe nes never gon,
Whil y may glewe.
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,
That ic mote come to the
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!
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.
No more, no more
This worldly shore
Upbraids me with its loud uproar!
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Under the walls of Paradise!
"Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres."
Hail, old Patrician Trees, so great and good!
Where the poetic birds rejoice,
And for their quiet nests and plenteous food
Pay with their grateful voice.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The following specimens illustrate various forms of stanzas
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
_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.
_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.)
_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
_ababbcbc_
In a chirche þer i con knel
Þis ender day in on morwenynge,
Me lyked þe servise wonder wel,
For þi þe lengore con i lynge.
I sei[gh] a clerk a book forþ bringe,
Þat 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.
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!
_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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
_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
_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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
With reference to his use of this stanza Shelley remarked, in the
"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.
_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.)
_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? Ælla 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?
Ælla, 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.
_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.)
_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.)
_aabccbddbeebffgggf_
Ne mai no lewed lued libben in londe,
be he never in hyrt so haver of honde,
So lerede us biledes.
y shal falle hem byfore & lurnen huere lay,
ant rewen alle huere redes.
ah bote y be þe furme day on folde hem byfore,
ne shaly nout so skere scapen of huere score;
so grimly he on me gredes,
þat y ne mot me lede þer wiþ mi lawe;
on alle maner oþes [þat] heo me wulleþ awe,
heore boc ase on bredes.
heo wendeþ bokes on brad,
ant makeþ men a moneþ a mad;
of scaþe y wol me skere,
ant fleo from my fere;
ne rohte hem whet yt were,
boten heo hit had.
This and the two following specimens, together with some included
_ababccdeed_
Iesu, for þi muchele miht
þou [gh]ef us of þi grace,
þat we mowe dai & nyht
þenken o þi face.
in myn herte hit doþ me god,
when y þenke on iesu blod,
þat ran doun bi ys syde,
from is herte doun to is fot;
for ous he spradde is herte blod,
his wondes were so wyde.
_aabccbddbeeb_
Lenten ys come wiþ love to toune,
wiþ blosmen & wiþ briddes roune,
þat al þis blisse bryngeþ;
dayes e[gh]es in þis dales,
notes suete of nyhtegales,
uch foul song singeþ.
þe þrestelcoc him þreteþ oo;
away is huere wynter woo,
when woderove springeþ.
þis foules singeþ ferly fele,
ant wlyteþ on huere wynter wele,
þat al þe wode ryngeþ.
_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.
 The appendage to a stanza, based on one or more short lines, is
sometimes called a "bob-wheel." See Guest's _History of English
sound-quality may be used in either of two ways: as a regular
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 Çid bien e tan mesurado:
"Grado a ti, señor 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.
Meçio myo Çid 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!
This song was written in avowed imitation of the Spanish verse,
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._)
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.
Hwæt! we nu gehyrdan, hu þæt hælubearn
Þurh his hydercyme hals eft forgeaf,
Gefreode ond gefreoþade folc under wolcnum
Mære meotudes sunu, þæt nu monna gehwylc,
Cwic þendan her wunað, geceosan mot
Swa helle hienþu swa heofones mærþu,
Swa þæt leohte leoht swa ða laþan niht,
Swa þrymmes þræce swa þystra wræce,
Swa mid dryhten dream swa mid deoflum hream,
Swa wite mid wraþum swa wuldor mid arum,
Swa lif swa deað, swa him leofre bið
To gefremmanne, þenden flæsc ond gæst
Wuniað in worulde. Wuldor þæs age
Þrynysse þrym, þonc butan ende!
'Pastores pecum primi pressique pavore
Conspicuos cives carmen caeleste canentes
Audivere astris arrectis auribus; auctor
ðe leun stant on hille,      and he man hunten here,
oðer ðurg his nese smel,      smake that he negge,
bi wilc weie so he wile      to dele niðer wenden,
alle hise fet steppes      after him he filleð,
drageð dust wið his stert      ðer he steppeð,
oðer dust oðer deu,      ðat he ne cunne is finden,
driveð dun to his den      ðar he him bergen wille.
(_The Bestiary_, from MS. Arundel. In Mätzner's _Altenglische
See also the specimen from Böddeker, p. 14, above.
Cristes milde moder, seynte Marie,
mines lives leome, mi leove lefdi,
to þe ich buwe and mine kneon ich beie,
and al min heorte blod to ðe ich offrie.
Kaer Leir hehte þe burh:      leof heo wes þan kinge.
þa we an ure leod-quide:       Leirchestre cleþiað.
& seoððen þer seh toward:     swiðe muchel seorwe.
þat heo wes al for-faren:      þurh þere leodene væl.
Sixti winter hefde Leir:     þis lond al to welden.
þe king hefde þreo dohtren:      bi his drihliche quen.
nefde he nenne sune:      þer fore he warð sari.
his manscipe to holden:      buten þa þreo dohtren.
þa ældeste dohter haihte Gornoille:      þa oðer Ragau.
þa þridde Cordoille.
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.
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.
See notes on Dunbar as a metrist, in this edition, vol. i. pp.
cxlix and clxxii, and T. F. Henderson's _Scottish Vernacular
"But trusteth wel, I am a Southren man,
I can nat geste--rum, ram, ruf--by lettre."
_Fetching fude for to feid it fast furth of the Farie._"
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.
On the subject of the æsthetic values of rime, see the chapter on
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
importation from the Orient. In like manner, it has been held by
many that the poetry of Otfried (the first regularly rimed German
natural growth of the instinct for symmetry in all human taste,
the latter opinion is the correct one. The chief support of this
universally human, like poetry and music, and no more than these
extant specimens. The Latin poetry just referred to gives
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
place of useless popular songs, it seems probable that he was not
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
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
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
rhetorical ornament. It became actual by the transition from the
constructed according to the laws of rhythm, and in which the
rhetorical hom[oe]oteleuton had gained an ever-increasing
approaching that of singing, into the hymn-poetry which was
intimately related to such sermons. From the Latin hymn-poetry it
Me lifes onlah.      se þis leoht onwrah.
and þæt torhte geteoh.      tillice onwrah.
glæd wæs ic gliwum.      glenged hiwum.
blissa bleoum.      blostma hiwum.
Secgas mec segon.      symbel ne alegon.
feorh-gife gefegon.      frætwed wægon.
wic ofer wongum.      wennan gongum.
lisse mid longum.      leoma getongum.
This puzzlingly early appearance of rime in Anglo-Saxon verse, in
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.)
Woden hehde þa hæhste la[gh]e:      an ure ælderne dæ[gh]en.
he heom wes leof:      æfne al swa heore lif.
he wes heore walden:      and heom wurðscipe duden.
þene feorðe dæi i þere wike:      heo [gh]iven him to wurðscipe.
þus seide Hængest:      cnihten alre hendest.
On the verse of the _Brut_ see above, p. 119.
Ich æm elder þen ich wes · a wintre and alore.
Ic wælde more þaune ic dude · mi wit ah to ben more.
Wel lange ic habbe child ibeon · a weorde end ech adede.
Þeh ic beo awintre eald · tu [gh]yng i eom a rede....
Mest al þat ic habbe ydon · ys idelnesse and chilce.
Wel late ic habbe me bi þoht · bute me god do milce.
_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?
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 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 Æthiop.
(BROWNING: _The Flight of the Duchess_, xvii.)
Perishing gloomily,
Spurred by contumely,
Cold inhumanity,
Into her rest.--
Cross her hands humbly,
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.
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._
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
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.
Douglas, like his countryman Dunbar, was something of a metrical
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.)
(SWINBURNE: _The Armada_, vii.)
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.
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.
structural laws. On the other hand, it may take the form of
Dr. Guest treats sounds as having in themselves the suggestion of
that have no voice articulate, and divers letters of articulate
voices; and commonly men have given such names to those sounds as
"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 an article on "Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature"
"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)
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._)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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._)
 "Perfect rime" is a term applied to rimes between two words
and is still common in French verse.
Unaccented rime is most noticeable in some of the verse of the
 Rime also appears in a short passage in Cynewulf's _Elene_. Some
 See notes on the Septenary, in Part Two, p. 259.
"Garutun se iro guðhama:    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
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
pretty generally accepted by English and American scholars. He
proportion (some eleven hundred in _Beowulf_) which cannot be so
read without wrenching the natural reading. On this subject, see
Luick, and ten Brink in Paul's _Grundriss der Germanische
Aside from the two-part structure of the long line, the number of
Type A is represented by such a half-line as "stiðum wordum."
Type B inverts the rhythm of A, as in the half-line "n[=e]
Type E inverts the rhythm of D, as in the half-line "gylp-wordum
g[=o]dd[=æ]dum begietan      _gaudia in celo_,
s[=e]can and gesittan        _sedibus altis_,
lifgan in lisse              _lucis et pacis_,
br[=u]can bl[=æ]ddaga        _blandem et mitem_
ges[=e]on sigora Fr[=e]an    _sine fine_,
and him lof singan           _laude perenne_
See also the specimens on pp. 13 and 14, above.
Alle beon he bliþe   Þat to my song lyþe:
A song ihc schal [gh]ou singe   Of Mury þe 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 þat het Horn,   Fairer ne mi[gh]te non beo born,
Ne no rein upon birine,   Ne sunne upon bischine.
"Into schupes borde
At the furst worde."
"The se bigan to flowe,
And Horn child to rowe."
Anon out of þe north est þe noys bigynes:
When boþe breþes con blowe upon blo watteres,
Ro[gh] rakkes per ros with rudnyng anunder,
Þe see sou[gh]ed ful sore, gret selly to here,
Þe wyndes on þe wonne water so wrastel togeder,
Þat þe wawes ful wode waltered so hi[gh]e
And efte busched to þe abyme, þat breed fysches,
Durst nowhere for ro[gh] arest at þe bothem.
When þe breth and þe brok and þe bote metten,
Hit watz a ioyles gyn, þat Ionas watz inne;
For hit reled on roun upon þe ro[gh]e yþes.
Til þe kny[gh]t com hym-self, kachande his blonk,
Sy[gh] hym byde at þe 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 þur[gh] the forþ, þer þe felle byde,
Þe wylde wat[gh] war of þe wy[gh]e with weppen in honde.
Hef hy[gh]ly þe here, so hetterly he fnast,
Þat fele ferde for þe freke[gh], lest felle hym þe worre
Þe swyn sette[gh] hym out on þe segge even,
Þat þe burne & þe bor were boþe upon hepe[gh],
In þe wy[gh]t-est of þe water, þe worre had þat oþer;
For þe mon merkke[gh] hym wel, as þay mette fyrst,
Set sadly þe scharp in þe slot even,
Hit hym up to þe hult, þat þe hert schyndered,
& he [gh]arrande hym [gh]elde, & [gh]edoun þe water, ful tyt;
A hundreth hounde[gh] hym hent,
Þat 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.)
concludes with four riming lines. (See above, p. 109.)
For analysis of this revived alliterative verse, see a valuable
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
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!
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.
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.
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.
It was up in the morn we rose betimes
From the hall-floor hard by the row of limes.
And we were the brethren of Gregory;
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.
According to Stengel (in Gröber's _Grundriss der Romanischen
Philologie_), this octosyllabic French verse goes back to a lost
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 parloënt,
cument lur pere losengoënt."
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
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
against stubborn resistance; and it came not directly from the
Latin, but indirectly, through the French" (pp. 97, 98). Some of
language of its opening verses:
"Ici comencent les unze peynes
De enfern, les queus seynt pool v[ist]."
Ure feder þet in heovene is,
Þet is al soþ ful iwis!
Weo moten to theor weordes iseon,
Þet to live and to saule gode beon,
Þet weo beon swa his sunes iborene,
Þet he beo feder and we him icorene,
Þet we don alle his ibeden
And his wille for to reden.
This poem is sometimes said to show the first appearance of the
ðo herde Abraham stevene fro gode,
newe tiding and selkuð bode:
'tac ðin sune Ysaac in hond
and far wið him to siðhinges lond.
and ðor ða salt him offren me,
on an hil, ðor ic sal taunen ðe.
"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 þis wes said, þai went þare way,
and till þe toun soyn cumin ar thai
sa prevely bot noys making,
þat nane persavit þair cummyng.
þai scalit throu þe toune in hy
and brak up dures sturdely
and slew all, þat þai mycht ourtak;
and þai, þat na defens mycht mak,
fall pitwisly couth rair and cry,
and þai slew þame dispitwisly.
Dydyst ou[gh]t do nygromauncye.
Or to the devyl dedyst sacryfyse
þurghe wychcraftys asyse,
Or any man [gh]af þe mede
For to reyse þe devyl yn dede,
For to telle, or for to wrey,
þynge þat was don awey;
þou hast synnede and do a mys,
And þou art wurþy to be shent
þurghe þys yche commaundement.
Herknet to me, gode men,
Wives, maydnes, and alle men,
Of a tale þat ich you wile telle,
Wo so it wile here, and þer-to duelle.
Þe 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 þe wicteste man at nede,
Þat þurte riden on ani stede.
Þat ye mowen nou y-here,
And þe 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,
Þat Crist us shilde alle fro helle!
alternating rhymes, was a favorite form for many subjects in this
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.
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.
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.
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,
Butler made the octosyllabic couplet so entirely his own, for the
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.)
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.)
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.'
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
 The term "tumbling verse," used for obvious reasons, appears at
'In the hinder end of harvest upon Alhallow ene, Quhen our gude
Lutel wot hit anymon,
hou love hym haveþ ybounde,
Þat for us oþe rode ron,
ant boht us wiþ is wounde.
Þe love of hym us haveþ ymaked sounde,
ant ycast þe grimly gost to grounde.
Ever & oo, nyht & day, he haveþ us in is þohte,
He nul nout leose þat he so deore bohte.
His deope wounde bledeþ fast,
of hem we ohte munne!
He haþ ous out of helle ycast,
ybroht us out of sunne;
ffor love of us his wonges waxeþ þunne,
His herte blod he [gh]af for al mon kunne.
Ever & oo, etc.
"For miht is riht, the loud is laweless."
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.
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.
With Chaucer we have the first deliberate use of the five-stress
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_. The decasyllabic verse was fairly common in France
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,
bataille de Poitiers et avant le siège de Reims par les Anglais'
"'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.'
Paris has shown that the real date of the poem in question was
instrument.... Of still greater significance is the fact that
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
indeed there is no cesura at all, in the French sense of the
upon. Accentual verses of four, six, and seven feet were already
should be essentially the same in principle, but should have five
It is quite possible that a combination of all these views may be
verse was not so averse to the formation of a decasyllabic
five-stress line as to make it a serious innovation. This view is
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
"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."
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
The use of rimed couplets in Shakspere's dramas is especially
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.)
If Rome so great, and in her wisest age,
Fear'd not to boast the glories of her stage,
As skilful Roscius, and grave Æsop, 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.)
Schelling's view cannot be questioned; but that Jonson shows any
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.
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.)
"praise the easy vigor of a line
Where Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness join."
there." Waller's editor thus clearly discerns the very
"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."
Rough Boreas in Æolian 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.
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.
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.)
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.
"Waller was smooth, but Dryden taught to join
The varying verse, the full resounding line,
The long majestic march, the energy divine."
"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."
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.
fancy." (_Essays of Dryden_, ed. W. P. Ker, vol. i. p. 8.) In the
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
nations at this day confirms it, all the French, Italian, and
Again, while a play is a representation of Nature, it is "Nature
But it is very clear to all who understand Poetry, that serious
should go on consistently to "the last perfection of Art. It was
only custom which cozened us so long; we thought, because
Dryden was of course quite right in objecting to the claim that
imaginative poetry ought to seek the form closest to the language
It strikes a modern reader as curious that Dryden and his
contemporaries should have advocated the use of rime in tragedy
On the verse of Dryden's rimed plays, see Schipper, vol. ii. p.
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.
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.
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!
_Metamorphoses_ he told Spence he had read when very young, and
with the greatest delight. He explains the system in a letter to
"'(1) As to the hiatus, it is certainly to be avoided as often as
_does_ to change the termination of the rhyme....
"'(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
that, to preserve an exact harmony and variety, none of these
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_.)
Suppose you say your Worst of Pope, declare
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!
(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.
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.
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!"
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.
"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."
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.
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.
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."
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.'
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.
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.
intuitivism."
Of Mr. Symonds's remarks on the general nature of blank verse the
"It seems adapted specially for thought in evolution; it requires
"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.
lines as:
"Each palace, and sacred porch of the gods."
"By the divine science of Minerva."
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?
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.
This specimen shows the new measure introduced into the drama in
Kinwelmarshe, 1566; Turberville's translation of Ovid's _Heroical
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.
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!
Yet will I call on him: O spare me, Lucifer!
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.
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.
This Mr. Symonds cites as "a single instance of the elasticity,
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.
No attempt can be made to represent adequately the blank verse of
'How slow his soul sail'd on, how swift his ship'
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,
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; Cæsar but my second.
'Tis then your malice, Fates, who, but your own,
Envy and fear to have any power long known.
"He is all
(As he stands now) but the mere name of Cæsar,
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 Cæsar,
Cut off by Nero? I must seek my safety;
For 'tis the same again, if not beyond it.
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
The verse of Fletcher is highly individual among the Jacobean
quadruple endings, by the addition of one or more syllables.
"Methinks you are infinitely bound to her for her journey"
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.
"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.)
"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.)
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,
Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore
When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell
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.
The blank verse of Milton is characterized by greater freedom and
metrical paragraphs, or, as some would even call them, stanzas.
Professor Corson quotes an interesting passage from a letter of
with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
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,
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;
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.
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.
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.
despised. Technically its only fault is the use and abuse of the
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.
"Philips, Pomona's bard, the second thou
Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfetter'd verse
With British freedom sing the British song."
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.
diversification of manner than verse in rhyme: and why the modern
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
(STEPHEN PHILLIPS: _Paolo and Francesca_, III. iii. 1901.)
"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."
 See also an account of Zarncke's monograph (1865) _Ueber den
fünffussiger Iambus_, in Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_,
 On the verse of Keats in general, see the remarks of Mr. Robert
 On Shelley's metres, see Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, 2d
 On the verse of Surrey in general, see W. J. Courthope, in his
On the blank verse of Surrey, see also an article by Prof. O. J.
 The edition of 1616 has:
and omits the preceding line.
 On the technical problems of Shakspere's verse, see Fleay's
 On Milton's verse, see, besides the entire third essay in Mr.
 Aaron Hill (1685-1750), an admirer of Thomson, wrote a "Poem in
Praise of Blank Verse," opening:
"Mæcenas atavis edite regibus,"
'Ye nuten hwat ye biddeþ, þat of gode nabbeþ imone;
for al eure bileve is on stokke oþer on stone:
ac þeo, þat god iknoweþ, heo wyten myd iwisse,
þat hele is icume to monne of folke judaysse.'
'Loverd,' heo seyde, 'nu quiddeþ men, þat cumen is Messyas,
þe king, þat wurþ and nuþen is and ever yete was.
hwenne he cumeþ, 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
septenary--
"Tho Iesu Crist an eorthe was, mylde weren his dede;"
"Be stille, leve soster, thin herte the to-breke,"
In Westsex was þan 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 þe Inglis kynges, þat had it in þer hond,
And teld how þe Bretons, men of mykelle myght,
Þe lond wild wynne ageyn þorh force and fyght.
Hastisly ilkone þe kynges com fulle suythe,
Bolde men and stoute, þer hardinesse to kiþe.
In a grete Daneis felde þer þei samned alle,
Þat ever siþen hiderward Kampedene men kalle.
This poem is one of the very few representatives of distinctly
alexandrine verse in Middle English. The original poem being in
"Messengers he sent þorghout Inglond
Unto the Inglis kynges, þat had it in þer hond."
"After Ethelbert com Elfrith his broþer,
Þat was Egbrihtes sonne and [gh]it þer was an oþer."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
The septenary, or seven-stress verse (sometimes called the
"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
"Fortunae rota volvitur, descendo minoratus,
Alter in altum tollitur, nimis exaltatus."
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.
Þiss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum, forr þi þatt Orrm itt wrohhte,
annd itt iss wrohht off quaþþrigan, off goddspellbokess fowwre,
off quaþþrigan Amminadab, off Cristess goddspellbokess;
annd forrþi þatt Amminadab o latin spæche iss nemmnedd
o latin boc spontaneus annd onn ennglisshe spæche
þatt weppmann, þatt summ dede doþ wiþþ all hiss fulle wille,
forþi ma[gh][gh] Crist full wel ben þurrh Amminadab bitacnedd.
Torne we a[gh]en in tour sawes, and speke we atte frome
of erld Olyver and his felawes, þat Sarazyns habbeþ ynome.
þe Sarazyns prykaþ faste away, as harde as þay may hye,
and ledeþ wiþ hymen þat riche pray, þe flour of chyvalrye.
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.
"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,
Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themselves for shows,
When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light,
Before the face of Ilion, and her bright turrets show'd.
A thousand courts of guard kept fires, and every guard allow'd
"He spake, and yelling, held afront the single-hoofed horses."
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,
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.)
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.
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.
specimens the metre of Cowper's _John Gilpin_.
In which, from burning heat, or tempest driving far and wide,
The innocent boy, else shelterless, his lonely head must hide.
This is a rare instance of the use of the long septenary in
O poets, from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless singing!
(ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING: _Cowper's Grave_. 1833.)
"Meat or drink, save my life, or bread, I reck not what:
If there be nothing else, some man give me a cat."
After the Elizabethan period the Poulter's Measure practically
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,
(EARL OF SURREY: _How no Age is Content with his Own Estate_, in
Her forehead jacinth like, her cheeks of opal hue,
Her skin like burnish'd gold, her hands like silver ore untried.
The origin of the sonnet in southern Europe is a matter of some
all--Petrarch. On the different forms of the Italian sonnet, see
Tomlinson's essay, just cited.
The Italian form is always marked by the division into octave and
(_abbaabba_); the sestet on either two or three, the most common
arrangements being _cdecde, cdcdcd, cdedce_, and _cddcee_.
conclusion, and as the two divisions are of unequal length it is
In this group the student of the subject should note the detailed
In view of the connection of Petrarch's sonnets with Wyatt's
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 pietà, non che perdono.
Ma ben veggi' or sí come al popol tutto
Favola fui gran tempo, onde sovente
Di me medesmo meco mi vergogno;
E del mio vaneggiar vergogna è 'l frutto,
E 'l pentirsi, e 'l conoscer chiaramente
Che quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno.
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.
followed, of course, the regular Italian structure, but used
unhesitatingly the form of sestet with the concluding couplet
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.)
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
Drummond was a sonneteer of great skill, and used many original
combinations of rime-schemes,--some forty in all,--yet usually
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.
Donne's series of "Holy Sonnets" was one of the few Elizabethan
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.
"He caught the sonnet from the dainty hand
Of Love, who cried to lose it, and he gave
The notes to Glory."
Compare, also, Wordsworth's saying that in Milton's hand
"The Thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains--alas, too few!"
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.
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!
Bowles (1762-1850) wrote numerous sonnets, and was influential in
"My heart has thanked thee, Bowles! for those soft strains
Whose sadness soothes me."
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.
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.
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!
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.)
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?
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.)
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.
'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.
"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."
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.
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.
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.)
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.
Surrey's form seems more consonant with common English taste for
"correct" original.
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.
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.
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!
Rossetti called this sonnet "perhaps the best in the language."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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,
Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.
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_.)
 It will perhaps be found of interest to reproduce the "Ten
"1. The sonnet must consist of fourteen decasyllabic lines.
"10. The end must be more impressive than the commencement."
unskilled writer.
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.
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.
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-
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.
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?
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.
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 said in his Discourse: "The following ode is an attempt
writers. There is nothing more frequent among us than a sort of
rambling incoherent thoughts, expressed in a like parcel of
Pindar, both as to the exact observation of the measures and
numbers of his stanzas and verses, and the perpetual coherence of
"Though there be no necessity that our triumphal odes should
certainly a pleasure in beholding anything that has art and
difficulty in the contrivance, especially if it appears so
"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
deformed poems since, which, instead of being true pictures of
Pindar, have (to use the Italian painters' term) been only
caricatures of him."
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 Alcæus, 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.)
Introduction, p. lxxv.)
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.)
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.
Then gentle winds arose
With many a mingled close
Of wild Æolian 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 Typhæan 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!
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.
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.)
In the Year of the great Crime,
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.)
movements which are destructive of its character. Some persons,
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.
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....
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Shelley's _Queen Mab_, and the like.
The original impulse toward this classical or pseudo-classical
verse was a product of the Renaissance, when all forms of art not
found in the poetry of the classical languages, was treated as a
product of the dark ages,--the invention of "Goths and Huns." See
representative of this phase of thought in England. The new forms
traces the beginning of the movement to Alberti (1404-1484). A
from rime (compare the remarks of Milton in the prefatory note to
della Poesia Nuova_, a systematic attempt to introduce the
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?
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.
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.
"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."
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
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
Harvey does not despair of finding a system that shall be at the
O ye Nymphes most fine who resort to this brooke,
For to bathe there your pretty breasts at all times:
And ye Virgins trymme who resort to Parnass,
Whence the learned well Helicon beginneth:
Webbe was another of those who believed "that if the true kind of
Greatest in thy wars,
Greater in thy peace,
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.
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
"Goe numbers boldly passe, stay not for ayde
Of shifting rime, that easie flatterer,
Whose witchcraft can the ruder eares beguile".
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
"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."
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
"All men alike hate slops, particularly gruel;"
"Faded ev'ry violet, all the roses;
Gone the glorious promise; and the victim,
Broken in this anger of Aphrodite,
Yields to the victor."
God, on verdurous Helicon
Dweller, child of Urania,
Thou that draw'st to the man the fair
(ROBINSON ELLIS: _Poems of Catullus_, LXI. 1871.)
"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,
To Pasithea's arms immortal with a tremulous hovering."
"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
--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,
(SWINBURNE: _Sapphics_, in _Poems and Ballads_.)
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.
"All travellers doo gladlie report great praise to Ulisses
For that he knewe manie mens maners, and saw many citties."
But the Queene in meane while with carks quandare deepe anguisht,
Thee wights doughtye manhood leagd with gentilytye nobil,
His woords fitlye placed, with his hevnly phisnomye pleasing,
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?
That fro the great linnadge of gods his pettegre shooteth."
Stanyhurst's _Vergil_ is one of the curiosities of Elizabethan
"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."
"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."
"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 _Æneis_, that he late translated in English."
Tityrus, happilie thou lyste tumbling under a beech tree,
All in a fine oate pipe these sweete songs lustilie chaunting:
Forth thou comest in thy awful beauty; the stars at thy rising
Oaks of the mountains decay, and the hard oak crumbles asunder;
Ocean shrinks and again grows; lost is the moon from the heavens;
(WILLIAM TAYLOR: Paraphrase of _Ossian's Hymn to the Sun_. 1796.)
When English hexameters were revived at the end of the eighteenth
Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon thee enamoured!
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!"
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."
"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;
Southey followed the example of William Taylor in attempting to
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
The editor of the Riverside edition of _Evangeline_ remarks
interestingly: "The measure lends itself easily to the lingering
(See Poe's Works, ed. Stedman and Woodberry, vol. vi. p. 104.)
Dying hectic of leaves and the chilly blue of the asters,--
Hearing, perchance, the croak of a crow on the desolate tree-top,
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
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
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,
So that the whole great wicked artificial civilised fabric--
All its unfinished houses, lots for sale, and railway out-works--
(ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH: _The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich_. 1848.)
It was Clough's hexameters, together with some "English Hexameter
"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?"
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.
All for fear of the shame and the taunts my crime has awakened?
"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
"These lame hexameters the strong-wing'd music of Homer!
No--but a most burlesque barbarous experiment."
Compare the amusing lines of Walter Savage Landor:
English by dam and by sire; bit, bridle, and saddlery, English;
Seldom my goosequill, of goose from Germany, fatted in England,
Fashioned by Milton's own hand, a fuller, a deeper, a louder.
.... Peace be with all! but afar be ambition to follow the Roman,
Lumbering shapeless jackboots which nothing can polish or supple.
Hovering over the water he came, upon glittering pinions,
spondees into his hexameters than Longfellow and others had done.
"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."
Lover whose vehement kisses on lips irresponsive are squandered,
Lover that wooest in vain Earth's imperturbable heart;
Sea that breakest for ever, that breakest and never art broken,
Like unto thine, from of old, springeth the spirit of man,--
(WILLIAM WATSON: _Hymn to the Sea_, ii.)
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.
ordinary unemphatic English accent is exactly a raising of pitch,
something quite different in character from the ordinary accent."
_carpenter_ is distinctly short, Mr. Stone replies: "You are
the second part of the 1901 edition of Robert Bridges's _Milton's
For further discussion of the relations of classical and English
Critical Method_, 1897; and the discussion in Part Three of the
present volume.
 Puttenham's treatise on English poetry, which followed Webbe's
writings ought the wiser." And he expounds the English accentual
 For Kingsley's exposition of his theories, see the _Letters and
too-much-forgotten maxim of Pope--
'Those move easiest that have learned to dance,'
Française_, and other works of M. Théodore de Banville. To M. de
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.
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.
Compare, also, Chaucer's _Fortune_ ("_Balades de visage sanz
"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
which include:
"many an ympne for your halydayes,
That highten Balades, Roundels, Virelayes."
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,--
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?
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,
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?
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._)
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!
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.
Austin, it was you they blest:
Fame to you belongs!
Time has proven you're the best
One to write their songs.
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!
This specimen represents the ballade in ten-line stanzas.
distinction between _rondeau_ and _rondel_ is artificial but
convenient.
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.
This is the "roundel" sung by the birds "to do Nature honour and
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._)
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._)
Ma foi, c'est fait de moi, car Isabeau
M'a conjuré de lui faire un rondeau.
Cela me met en peine extrême.
Quoi! treize vers, huit en _-èau_, cinq en _-ème!_
Je lui ferais aussitôt un bateau.
En voilà cinq pourtant en un monceau,
Faisons-en huit, en invoquant Brodeau,
Et puis mettons, par quelque stratagème:
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'onzième:
Et si je crois que je fais le douzième,
En voilà treize ajustés au niveau.
Ma foi, c'est fait!
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.
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
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."
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,
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,
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"!
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.
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
influenced by the work of Passerat (1534-1602), whose most famous
J'ay perdu ma tourterelle;
Est-ce-point elle que j'oy?
Je veux aller après elle.
Tu regrettes ta femelle;
Hélas! aussy fay-je moy:
J'ay perdu ma tourterelle.
Si ton amour est fidèle,
Aussy est ferme ma foy;
Je veux aller après 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 après elle.
Mort, que tant de fois j'apelle,
Prens ce que se donne à toy:
J'ai perdu ma tourterelle.
Je veux aller après 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.
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.
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._)
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.
If you really learn to make it!
Once a neat refrain you get,
As you see!--I pay my debt
With another rhyme. Deuce take it,
If you really learn to make it!
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 _à 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._)
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!
Originally, the triolet was often used for serious sentiment. The
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!
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
_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.
 On the early history of these forms in France, see Stengel's
 On these ballades of Graunson, a "knight of Savoy," see the
It has already been observed that Mr. Lanier did good service in
represents the metrist who makes use of the old conventions of
For the sake of completeness, one may add two other fundamental
Let us now consider more closely the time-values of the separate
"His desire is a dureless content,
And a trustless joy,"
"And a pitiless joy."
"Time sheds them like snow on strange regions;"
"Over the ocean wave,"
than when it occurs at the opening of an anapestic verse,
"Over land, over sea."
"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."
"The gate that was ironed both within and without."
Once more, for the sake of convenience, let us attempt to put our
to open quality or diphthongization.]
perceptible time for utterance.
(_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
"The lone couch of his everlasting sleep,"
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
"The first in valor, as the first in place"
syllables. In the verse
"Come from the dying moon, and blow"
prolongation."
destroying, the order of progress of common prose speech.
quantities--is a Germanic characteristic, for which no classical
 This discussion is in part a reproduction of an article with the
 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
 At least no difficulty has generally been found; but Mr. Liddell
 This seems to be a part of the old effort to seek a grammatical
The following extracts from important critical discussions are
student of the subject will do well to analyze the answers to the
Poetry, music, and dancing constitute in Aristotle a group by
themselves, their common element being imitation by means of
"composer," in a strictly limited reference to music.
spectacular effect, which, though deduced by Aristotle from the
(S. H. BUTCHER: _Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art_. pp.
(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _An Apologie for Poetrie_.)
I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful
(WORDSWORTH: Preface to the _Lyrical Ballads_, 2d ed.)
The true question must be, whether there are not modes of
proportionally discernible....
The discussion on the powers of metre, in the Preface, is highly
(COLERIDGE: _Biographia Literaria_, chap. xviii.)
In the youth of the world, men dance and sing and imitate natural
(SHELLEY: _A Defence of Poetry_.)
"Thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers."
"Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air,"
(WILLIAM HAZLITT: _On Poetry in General_.)
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
... In considering the total contribution of metre to imaginative
"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
"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
Arouse! for you must justify me!..."
themselves in verse in a style so far remote from the standard of
expression of merely private ideas.
Aside from the vibratory mission of rhythm, its little staff of
"high and passionate thoughts
To their own music chanted."
"unpoetic," have as little to do with the case as the fact that a
developed prose makes the accented rhythm of poetry seem either
 Compare with this a passage in a letter of Goethe's to Schiller
 In these chapters of the _Biographia Literaria_, Coleridge was
pervasive rhythm, exact, definite, was the main factor of early
song,--these are conclusions for which Bücher offers ample and
distribution of accents and pauses--in more than one way. It is
"run-on" or "end-stopped"; and, in riming couplets, it is also of
phrase-pause may almost always be found. In the following table,
"Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky"
"By these the springs of property were bent"
the fourth foot is counted a pyrrhic; so also in this--
"There is a path on the sea's azure floor"
the third foot is counted a pyrrhic and the fourth a spondee.
generalizations which statistics will not support.
Obviously the same system can be applied to blank verse, with the
|   (ab.   |Spenser | Hall    |Jonson  |Waller
Run-on   |          |        |         |        |
Run-on   |          |        |         |        |
Run-on   |           |           |        |       |
Run-on   |           |           |        |       |
 Here a word of caution is needed. It will be observed that the
 This combination (of pyrrhic and spondee) is of course very
Accents, arbitrary variation of, 400;
relation of different kinds, 7;
relation to quantity, 405 f.;
on verse of Butler, 167 f.
AKENSIDE: _Pleasures of the Imagination_, 238;
ALAMANNI, influence on Wyatt, 65.
ALBERTI, classical metres of, 330.
Alcaic stanza, 77.
developed by Browning, 258;
in Spenserian stanza, 103;
used at end of stanzas other than Spenserian, 107.
in mediæval Latin, 117;
ALSCHER, on Wyatt, 11.
substituted for iambus, 58 f.
Anapestic verse, two-stress, 28 f.;
in _vers de société_, 39.
ANDERSON, R., on verse of Joseph Hall, 182.
Anglo-Saxon verse, alliteration in, 116 f.;
relation of accent and quantity in, 405 f.;
ARCHER, W., on Watson's sonnets, 290.
ARISTOPHANES, Swinburne on verse of, 45 f.
on Chapman's septenary, 262;
on Longfellow's hexameters, 348;
ARNAUT, the troubadour, sestina of, 383.
Asclepiadean verse, 331.
in Celtic verse, 115;
in verse of Romance languages, 113 f.
ATTERBURY, on Dryden's influence, 197;
BACON, F., on significant sounds, 136.
BAÏF, DE, A., classical metre of, 331.
BARCLAY: _Ship of Fooles_, 94.
BEAUMONT, F.: _Knight of the Burning Pestle_, 263*.
BEAUMONT, J., on heroic couplet, 190 f.;
BEERS, on heroic stanza, 73.
BENTLEY, on Milton's verse, 58.
abandoned in Restoration drama, 196-199;
early use of term, 215;
in lyrical poems, 246;
revival in 18th century, 238;
unpopular in 18th century, 204 f.
BOLTON, T. L., on nature of rhythm, 393 n.
theory of metrical accent, 401 n.
BRONSON, on Greek and English ode, 300;
on odes of Collins, 305.
_Sonnets from the Portuguese_, 283*;
_Canzone_, influence of, on the sonnet, 267.
CAREW: _In Praise of his Mistress_, 89*.
CATULLUS, metres of, imitated, 339.
Caudated sonnet, 276.
Celtic verse, alliteration in, 117;
his variant of Spenserian stanza, 108.
CHAUCER: _Balade de bon conseyl_, 360f.*;
free cesura in verse of, 17;
French lyrical forms used by, 362;
influence on form of Spenserian stanza, 103;
octosyllabic couplet of, 166;
omission of opening syllable in verse of, 20;
on alliteration, 120;
"rime royal" introduced by, 94;
Classical metres, imitations of, 330-357.
his analysis of a line of blank verse, 403.
on sonnet of White, 281;
on sonnets of Bowles, 278;
on verse of Skelton, 32;
CONGREVE: _Discourse on Pindaric Ode_, 302 f.;
Consonants, as lengthening English syllables, 396-399.
CORSON, on blank verse of Browning, 247 f.;
on _In Memoriam_ stanza, 76 f.;
on Mrs. Browning's sonnets, 284;
on Spenserian stanza of Keats, 105;
on variety in verse movement, 61;
on verse of Cowper, 240;
on Wordsworth's Immortality Ode, 313 f.
Couplet (see under Decasyllabic and Octosyllabic).
COURTHOPE, on Aristotle's view of metre, 415;
on verse of Pope, 201;
on verse of Surrey, 216.
COWLEY, Congreve on the odes of, 303;
introduction of irregular ode by, 308;
COWPER: _Alexander Selkirk_, 34*;
on Milton's verse, 58 f.;
CRASHAW: _Wishes for the Supposed Mistress_, 64*.
Riddle of (strophic), 63 n.
Dactylic verse, two-stress, 30;
DAVIES, Sir J.:  _Nosce Teipsum_, 73.
in Elizabethan age, 190;
Saintsbury on qualities of, 194f.
DE QUINCEY, on Milton's verse, 233n.
on French lyrical forms, 358f.;
DONNE, critics on the verse of, 183;
influence of, on lyrical forms of 17th century, 90;
DOWDEN, on Shakspere's verse, 184.
verse of, characteristic, 395.
heroic couplet of, 194f.;
his introduction of rimed dramatic verse, 196-199;
_Ode for St. Cecilia's Day_, imitated by Young, 88;
on heroic stanza, 72;
on verse of Denham and Waller, 188;
on verse of Donne, 183;
DU BARTAS: _La Première Semaine_, 18*.
DUNBAR: _Lament for the Makaris_, 78*;
rime royal of, 94;
Elegiacs (hexameter and pentameter), 346, 355f.
ELLIS, A. J., on degrees of accent, 3, 4n.
on classical metres, 339.
avoidance of in heroic verse, 187, 202;
in couplets of the romantic poets, 208-212;
in Shakspere's verse, 223.
ETHEREDGE: _Comical Revenge_, 196.
Feet,  as measures of verse, 24;
combinations and substitutions of, 49;
early examples of, 175;
introduced by Chaucer, 177.
FLETCHER, J. (and SHAKSPERE): _Two Noble Kinsmen_, 85*.
French alexandrine, relation to English, 252f.
French lyrical forms, imitation of, 358-385.
French verse, decasyllabic, 177f.;
influence on heroic couplet, 187, 190;
perfect rime in,  121 n.;
French words, accent of, 11.
Galliambic verse, 339.
GASCOIGNE (and KINWELMARSHE): _Jocasta_, 218.
German hexameters, influence of, 345, 349.
Germanic verse, alliteration in, 116f.;
avoidance of syllable-counting in, 151;
irregular time-intervals in, 12.
his view of metre in the drama, 418 n.
GOLLANCZ, I., on the stanza of _The Pearl_, 109.
GOODELL, T. G.: _Quantity in English Verse_, 406.
on Cowleyan ode, 309;
on decadent blank verse, 230;
on Dryden's blank verse, 235;
on heroic stanza, 73;
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;
GRAUNSON, French ballades of, 362.
on verse of Dryden, 194;
GREIN, on Riming Poem, 126 n.
GUEST, on Poulter's Measure, 265;
on significance of sounds, 136.
GUMMERE, F. B., on early English five-stress verse, 180;
on the function of metre in poetry, 427-429.
HARVEY, G., influence on imitation of classical metres, 332 f.
HAWES, rime royal of, 94.
HEGEL, on metre in poetry, 427.
HERFORD, on verse of Leigh Hunt, 208.
Heroic couplet (see Decasyllabic couplet).
HERRICK: _His Poetry his Pillar_, 27*;
on heroic couplet, 203 n.
Hom[oe]oteleuton, relation to rime, 125.
HORACE, stanza of, imitated, 77.
Hudibrastic couplet, 167.
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.;
Hypermetrical syllables, 58-60.
Iambic verse, one-stress, 25;
substituted for trisyllabic foot, 60.
INGELOW, J.: _Give us Love and Give us Peace_, 49*.
_In Memoriam_ stanza, 76.
Italian verse, influence on Chaucer, 178 f.;
_terza rima_ derived from, 65.
_Jesu for thi muchele miht_, 111*.
on Dryden's Killigrew Ode, 310;
on verse-form in poetry, 417;
_Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme_, 123;
influence on classical school of verse, 186;
KAWCZYNSKI, on alliteration, 117;
on origin of alexandrine, 252.
KENT, A. J., on verse of Leigh Hunt, 208 f.
KITTREDGE, G. L., on French decasyllabic couplet, 178.
LACHMANN, on Anglo-Saxon verse, 151 f.
LANDOR: _Children Playing in a Churchyard_, 64*;
on Milton's sonnets, 276.
LANGTOFT, P. DE, Chronicle of, 82.
LANIER, S.: _Ballad of Trees and the Master_, 131*;
_Science of English Verse_ cited, 21, 49.
on quantity in English, 399;
relation to ballad metre, 264.
Latin verse, influence on octosyllabic couplet, 160f.;
influence on stanza, 63;
used with Anglo-Saxon, 153.
Lays, four-stress couplet in, 164 f.
LE GALLIENNE, R., irregular verse of, burlesqued, 329 n.
LEGOUIS, E., on Spenser's verse, 17.
LEWIS, C. M., on octosyllabic couplet, 160 f.;
on sources of Chaucer's verse, 179.
LINDSAY, D.: _Satyre of the Three Estates_, 85*.
LLOYD, R., verses against blank verse, 239 n.*.
on Gray's _Progress of Poesy_, 307;
on Spenserian stanza, 103.
LUICK, on revival of alliterative verse, 156.
LYDGATE, rime royal of, 94.
Lyrical verse characteristic, 395.
Lyrics, complex measures of early English, 110 f.
MACAULAY, G. C., on verse of Fletcher, 227 n.
Malaysian verse, pantoum derived from, 386.
MALHERBE, influence on heroic verse, 187.
simplifying of French metrical forms by, 82 f.
MARLOWE, blank verse  of, 221;
_Marriage of Wit and Science_, 255 f.*.
MASSINGER, blank verse of, 230;
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.
Metre, its place and function in poetry, 413-436.
Metrical romances, tail-rime in, 84.
MIDDLETON, blank verse of, 228;
MILL, J. S., on rhythm in poetry, 433.
MILTON: _At a Solemn Music_, 329;
MINOT, L.: _Battle of Halidon Hill_, 96*.
MITCHELL, S. WEIR: _Psalm of the Waters_, 36*.
_Go Where Glory Waits Thee_, 33 f.*.
MORRIS, R., on early octosyllabic verse, 162.
MOUSSET, classical metres of, 331.
NASH, T., on English hexameters, 342;
NEWCOMER, A. G., on wrenched accent, 10.
NEWMAN, metre of his _Iliad_ translation, 262.
Norse verse, influence on Anglo-Saxon, 126;
OCCLEVE, rime royal of, 94.
OLDHAM, J.: _Satires upon the Jesuits_, 192*.
possible source of sonnet, 267.
varied to preserve metrical time, 404 f.
PEACOCK, T. L.: _Misfortunes of Elphin_, 33*.
Pitch-accent, so-called, 5 f.
on English hexameter, 349;
on verse of Denham and Waller, 188;
on verse of Dryden, 194;
_Preservation of King Henry VII_., 343.
RIEGER, on rime in Anglo-Saxon, 126 n.
as organizer of stanza, 63;
defended by Daniel, 336 n.;
in Middle English alexandrines, 255;
ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER: _Chronicle_, 265.
Romance languages, assonance in, 113.
Romance metres, regular time-intervals in, 12, 14 n.
ROSSETTI: _Ballad of Dead Ladies_, 362 f.*;
on Drayton's sonnet, 293;
Swinburne's form of, 376.
SACKVILLE:  _Mirror for Magistrates_, 94.
SAINTSBURY, on alexandrine, 258 f.;
on Dryden's dactyls, 40;
on heroic stanza, 73;
influence on Pope's verse, 201;
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 the octosyllabic couplet, 161;
on Poulter's Measure, 265;
on rime in Cynewulf, 126 n.;
on rime royal, 94;
on Romance stanza-forms, 110 f.;
on the stanza, 62;
on tumbling verse, 158 n.;
on types of alexandrine, 255;
SCHRÖER, on early blank verse, 218.
Scottish verse, alliteration in, 120.
internal rime in, 132;
SHAKSPERE: _As You Like It_, 57*;
heroic verse of, 184;
SHAKSPERE (and FLETCHER): _Two Noble Kinsmen_, 85*.
heroic verse of, 210;
use of Spenserian stanza, 106;
view of verse-form in poetry, 422 f.
SHENSTONE, heroic stanza of, 73;
view of verse-form in poetry, 416 f.
SIEVERS, on Anglo-Saxon verse, 152 f.;
on stanzaic and stichic verse, 63.
SKEAT, on sources of Chaucer's couplet, 178;
theory of English verse, 394 n.
rime royal of, 94.
_Song of Songs_ (French version), 81*.
English form of, 290;
Italian form of, 270;
revived in 18th century, 277;
Sound-qualities of verse made expressive of sense, 135-137.
SPEDDING, J., on English hexameter, 351.
free cesura in, 17;
interest in classical metres, 332 f.;
tumbling verse of, 159;
unrimed sonnets of, 219;
stanzas influenced by, 107 f.
hexameters of, 342 f.
complex forms of, under French influence, 110;
formed by refrains, 78;
how determined and described, 62;
STEDMAN, E. C., on rhythm in poetry, 432 f.
STENGEL, on French alexandrine, 252;
on French decasyllabic verse, 177 f.;
on octosyllabic verse, 160.
Stichic verse, 62.
STILLINGFLEET, B., sonnets of, 277.
on quantity in English verse, 356 f.
Stress (see Accent).
_Suete iesu, king of blysse_, 69*.
SURREY, EARL OF, accents in verse of, 10;
inventor of English sonnet, 290;
on choral ode of Milton, 325;
on English hexameters, 353 f.;
on sonnets of Wordsworth, 280;
Syllable-counting, in Surrey's verse, 216;
Syllables, artificially varied in length when in metre, 401-404;
kinds of accented, 3.
on heroic verse of the romantic poets, 210;
_Sonnets on the Thought of Death_, 287 f.*.
Tail-rime (see _Rime couée_).
TAYLOR, W., on German and English hexameters, 345;
TEN BRINK, on Anglo-Saxon verse, 151 f.;
on early five-stress verse, 175;
on verse of court romances, 164 f.;
on verse of _King Horn_, 155.
elegiac distich of, 346*;
on English hexameters, 353;
on quantity in English, 338;
THACKERAY, irregular verse in ballads of, 158 n.;
THOMSON, as imitator of Spenser's verse, 104;
THOMSON, J.: _City of Dreadful Night_, 95*.
TILLBROOK, S., on Southey's hexameters, 347 n.
the basis of metrical feet, 408.
TODHUNTER, on Shelley's verse, 106.
TOMLINSON, on the sonnet, 267 f.
_Trial before Pilate_ (Mystery Play), 157*.
TRIGGS, on verse of _De Muliere Samaritana_, 253 f.
Triple endings in Elizabethan drama, 226-228.
Trochaic verse, two-stress, 27 f.;
substituted for iambus, 57 f.
relation to decasyllabic, 179 f.
TURBERVILLE: _Heroical Epistles_, 219.
Variety in verse, significant, 61.
Vowels, long and short in English, 396 f.
WADDINGTON: _Manuel des Pechiez_, 163 n.*.
WALLER: _Battle of the Summer Islands_, 187*;
influence on heroic couplet, 187-190;
_Of the Danger of his Majesty_, etc., 186*.
WARD, on verse of Cowper, 240.
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*.
WATTS, T., on verse-form in poetry, 426 f.;
WENDELL, B., on Shakspere's verse, 223 f.
on French lyrical forms, 359 f.
WOOD, H., on the heroic couplet, 189 f.
WOODBERRY, on the heroic couplet, 207.
WORDSWORTH: _Intimations of Immortality_ (ode), 312 f.*;
_The World is too much with us_, 279 f.*;
WYATT, accents in verse of, 10 f.;
_Of his love that pricked his finger_, 98*;
_ottava rima_ introduced by, 98;
sonnet introduced by, 272;
text of poems of, 10 f.;
_Torment of the Unhappy Lover_, 101 f.*;
unaccented rime in, 122 n.
stanza of odes of, 88.