English Verse: Specimens Illustrating its Principles and History
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Title: English Verse: Specimens Illustrating its Principles and History
Author: Raymond MacDonald Alden
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Language: English
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Transcriber's Notes:
This e-text uses the Latin-1 ISO 8859-1 character set. The following
conventions are used to represent non-Latin-1 characters used in the
original:
[=x] represents letter 'x' with macron.
[)x] represents letter 'x' with breve.
[gh] represents yogh.
[oe] represents oe ligature.
[^] represents a 'pause' mark in poetry.
^{x} represents the letter 'x' superscripted.
The following Latin-1 characters which may be unfamiliar are used in
this e-text:
Þ, þ - upper and lower case thorn.
Ð, ð - upper and lower case eth.
Footnotes have been numbered sequentially and moved to the end of each
chapter.
Minor corrections to punctuation and capitalisation have been made
without note. Variant spelling, especially in Anglo-Saxon and middle
English poems, is as per the original. The following corrections to
typographical errors have been made:
p.129: "I hope to get safely out of the turmoil" (had "... safety ...")
p.401: "It cannot be said, however," (Had "In ...")
p.457: "Lotos-Eaters" (Index entry, had "Lotus-Eaters")
ENGLISH VERSE
_SPECIMENS ILLUSTRATING ITS PRINCIPLES AND HISTORY_
CHOSEN AND EDITED
BY
RAYMOND MACDONALD ALDEN, PH.D.
_Associate Professor in Leland Stanford Junior
University_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1903,
BY
HENRY HOLT & CO.
TO
my Father and Mother
WHO HAVE GIVEN
BOTH THE INSPIRATION AND THE OPPORTUNITY
FOR ALL MY STUDIES
PREFACE
The aim of this book is to give the materials for the inductive study of
English verse. Its origin was in certain university courses, for which
it proved to be necessary--often for use in a single hour's work--to
gather almost numberless books, some of which must ordinarily be
inaccessible except in the vicinity of large libraries. I have tried to
extract from these books the materials necessary for the study of
English verse-forms, adding notes designed to make the specimens
intelligible and useful.
Dealing with a subject where theories are almost as numerous as those
who have written on it, it has been my purpose to avoid the setting
forth of my own opinions, and to present the subject-matter in a way
suited, so far as possible, to the use of those holding widely divergent
views. In the arrangement and naming of the earlier sections of the
book, some systematic theory of the subject--accepted at least
tentatively--was indeed indispensable; but I trust that even here those
who would apply to English verse a different classification or
terminology may be able to discard what they cannot approve and to make
use of the specimens from their own standpoint. Even where (as in these
introductory sections) the notes seem to overtop the text somewhat
threateningly, they are invariably intended--as the type indicates--to
be subordinate. Where it has been possible to do so, I have preferred to
present comments on the specimens in the words of other writers, and
have not confined these notes to opinions with which I wholly agree, but
only to those which seem worthy of attention. My own views on the more
disputed elements of the subject (such as the relations of time and
accent in our verse, the presence of "quantity" in English, and the
terminology of the subject) I have reserved for Part Three, where I
trust they will be found helpful by some readers, but where they may
easily be passed over.
To classify the materials of this subject is peculiarly difficult, and
one who tries to solve the problem will early abandon the hope of being
able to follow any system with consistency. Main divisions and
subdivisions will inevitably conflict and overlap. For practical
purposes, basing my arrangement in part on that found convenient in
university lectures (which it will be seen is not altogether unlike that
followed by Schipper in his _Englische Metrik_), I have divided the
specimens of verse into two main divisions, each of which is suggested
by a word in the sub-title of the book. Part One contains specimens
designed to illustrate the principles of English verse, arranged in
topical order. Part Two contains specimens designed to illustrate the
history of the more important forms of English verse, arranged--in the
several divisions--in chronological order. Part Three has already been
spoken of. Part Four contains extracts from important critical writers
on the place and function of the verse-element in poetry,--matters which
give us the _raison d'être_ for the whole study of versification.
If there had ever been hope of making the collection of specimens fairly
complete, even in a representative sense, this would have been
dissipated by the discovery, during the very time of the book's going
through the press, of a number of additional specimens which it seemed
wicked to omit. Doubtless every reader will miss some favorite selection
which might well have been included, and suggestions as to important
omissions will be received gratefully. The attempt has been to put
students on the track of all the more important lines of development of
English verse, and to indicate, by including a considerable number of
specimens from early periods, the continuity of this development from
the times of our Saxon forefathers to our own.
Little consistency can be claimed for the practice observed in the
matter of modernizing texts that date from transition periods like the
sixteenth century. In some cases the text has been modernized, or
retained in its original form, according as it seemed well to emphasize
either the permanent significance or the historical position of the
specimen in question. In other cases the form of the text was determined
merely by the best edition accessible for purposes of reproduction.
Dates have been appended to the specimens in those sections where
chronology is a significant element. It has not always been possible to
verify these dates with thoroughness, or to distinguish between the date
of writing and that of publication; but it is hoped that inaccuracies of
this sort will at least not be found of a character to misrepresent the
historical relations of the specimens. Dates are not ordinarily given
for the poems of writers still living.
In the notes on the specimens I have tried to distinguish between
material likely to be useful for all students of the subject and that
going more into detail, which is intended only for advanced or special
students. Notes of the second class are printed in smaller type. There
has been no attempt to give the notes of a bibliographical character any
pretension to completeness. One may well hesitate to add, in this
direction, to the admirable material presented in the _Methods and
Materials of Literary Criticism_ of Professors Gayley and Scott.
I have resisted strenuously all temptation to choose or to annotate
specimens on general grounds of æsthetic enjoyment, apart from the
distinct study of verse-forms. Yet it would be useless to deny having
sometimes made choice of particular verses, all other considerations
being equal, for their poetic or literary value over and above their
prosodical. I shall not claim for the collection what Boswell did for
Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, that "he was so attentive in the choice" of
the illustrative passages "that one may read page after page ... with
improvement and pleasure;" yet I may say that, so far from fearing that
the enjoyment of any poem will be injured by a proper attention to the
elements of its metrical form, it is my hope that many a haunting verse
may linger, a perpetual possession of beauty, in the memory of the
student who first found it here classified under a technical name.
Many obligations are to be acknowledged to scholars of whose advice I
have availed myself. Most kindly aid has been received from Professor G.
L. Kittredge and Dr. Fred N. Robinson, of Harvard University; from
Professor Felix E. Schelling, of the University of Pennsylvania; from my
friend, Mr. H. P. Earle, of Stanford University; and from my colleague,
Dr. Ewald Flügel. My obligation to Schipper's monumental works on
English verse will be obvious to every scholar. They suggested many of
the specimens of verse-forms, and are also represented by translations
or paraphrases in the notes; references to Schipper, without full
title, are to the _Englische Metrik_,--the larger work. I have also made
thankful use of Mr. John Addington Symonds's essays on Blank Verse, and
of Professor Corson's _Primer of English Verse_,--both somewhat
unscientific but highly suggestive works. The section on Artificial
French Forms obviously owes very much to Mr. Gleeson White's _Ballades
and Rondeaus_. A book to which my obligation is out of all proportion to
the number of actual quotations from it is Mr. J. B. Mayor's _Chapters
on English Metre_. This modest but satisfying volume seemed to me, when
I first was taking up the study of English verse, to be a grateful
relief from the thorny and often fruitless discussions with which the
subject had been overgrown; and in returning to it again and again, I
have never failed to renew the impression. Its suggestions underlie a
good part of the system of classification and terminology adopted for
this book. The new and enlarged edition came to hand too late for use,
but I was able to include references to it in the notes.
I must also record thanks to those authors and publishers who have
courteously given permission for the reproduction of their publications:
to Mr. John Lane, for permission to quote from the works of Mr. William
Watson and Mr. Stephen Phillips; to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and
Company, for permission to make extracts from the poems of Mr. William
Vaughn Moody and from Mr. Stedman's _Nature and Elements of Poetry_; to
Macmillan and Company, Limited, of London, for permission to make
extracts from Professor Butcher's _Aristotle's Theory of Poetry_ and
from Mr. Courthope's _Life in Poetry and Law in Taste_; to Professor F.
B. Gummere and The Macmillan Company of New York, for permission to
quote from the former's _Beginnings of Poetry_; to the Lothrop
Publishing Company of Boston, for permission to reprint Mr. Clinton
Scollard's villanelle, "Spring Knocks at Winter's Frosty Door," from the
volume entitled _With Reed and Lyre_; to Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
for permission to reprint her rondeau, "A Man must Live," from the
volume entitled _On This Our World_ (published by Small, Maynard and
Company); to Dr. Samuel Minturn Peck, for permission to reprint one of
the triolets called "Under the Rose," from his volume entitled _Cap and
Bells_; to the Frederick A. Stokes Company, for permission to reprint
Mr. Frank D. Sherman's "Ballade to Austin Dobson," from the volume
entitled _Madrigals and Catches_. Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Mr. W. E.
Henley, and Mr. Edmund Gosse have given generous permission to quote
freely from their poems. Mr. Henley was also good enough to suggest the
choice of the rondeau from his "Bric-à-Brac"; and Mr. Gosse, whose
unfailing courtesy follows up his numerous published aids to students of
English poetry, has also added some personal notes on the history of the
heroic couplet.
Finally, it should be said that a considerable part of the studies
resulting in this book was carried on while the editor held the Senior
Fellowship in English on the Harrison Foundation in the University of
Pennsylvania. If, therefore, the book should prove of service to any,
the fact will be a single additional tribute to the munificence of that
foundation.
R. M. A.
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA,
November, 1902.
CONTENTS
PART ONE
PAGE
I. ACCENT AND TIME 3
A.--Kinds of Accent 3
B.--Time-intervals 11
i. Regular intervals between accents 12
ii. Irregular intervals 13
iii. Silent intervals (pauses) 16
II. THE FOOT AND THE VERSE 24
One-stress iambic 25
Two-stress iambic 26
Two-stress trochaic 27
Two-stress anapestic 28
Two-stress dactylic 30
Two-stress irregular 31
Three-stress iambic 32
Three-stress trochaic 33
Three-stress anapestic 34
Three-stress dactylic 37
Four-stress iambic 37
Four-stress trochaic 37
Four-stress anapestic 39
Four-stress dactylic 40
Five-stress iambic 41
Five-stress trochaic 41
Five-stress anapestic 42
Five-stress dactylic 42
Six-stress iambic 43
Six-stress trochaic 43
Six-stress anapestic 43
Six-stress dactylic 44
Seven-stress iambic 44
Seven-stress trochaic 45
Seven-stress anapestic 45
Seven-stress dactylic 46
Eight-stress iambic 46
Eight-stress trochaic 46
Eight-stress anapestic 48
Eight-stress dactylic 48
Combinations and Substitutions 49
i. Different feet regularly combined 49
ii. Individual feet altered 55
III. THE STANZA 62
Tercets 63
Quatrains 69
Refrain Stanzas 78
Various Stanza-forms
abccb 91
ababb 91
aabbb 91
aabcdd 91
aaaabb 92
ababab 92
ababcc 92
ababbcc (Rime royal) 93
ababcca 95
ababccb 95
abababab 96
ababbaba 96
ababbcbc 96
ababccdd 97
abababcc (ottava rima) 98
aabaabbab 101
ababcccdd 101
ababbcbcc (Spenserian stanza) 102
abababccc 107
aabaabcc 107
ababbcbcdd 107
aabbbcc 108
ababababbcbc 108
aabccbddbeebffgggf 109
ababccdeed 111
aabccbddbeeb 111
abcbdcdceccce 112
IV. TONE-QUALITY 113
A.--As a Structural Element 113
i. Assonance 113
ii. Alliteration 116
iii. End-rime 121
Double and triple rime 128
Broken rime 131
Internal rime 132
B.--As a Sporadic Element (Tone-color) 135
PART TWO
I. FOUR-STRESS VERSE 151
A.--Non-syllable-counting 151
B.--Syllable-counting (Octosyllabic Couplet) 160
II. FIVE-STRESS VERSE 174
A.---The Decasyllabic Couplet 174
B.--Blank Verse 213
III. SIX-STRESS AND SEVEN-STRESS VERSE 252
A.--The Alexandrine (Iambic Hexameter) 252
B.--The Septenary 259
C.--The "Poulter's Measure" 265
IV. THE SONNET 267
A.--The Regular (Italian) Sonnet 270
B.--The English (Shaksperian) Sonnet 290
V. THE ODE 298
A.--Regular Pindaric 299
B.--Irregular (Cowleyan) 307
C.--Choral 323
VI. IMITATIONS OF CLASSICAL METRES 330
A.--Lyrical Measures 331
B.--Dactylic Hexameter 340
VII. IMITATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL FRENCH LYRICAL FORMS 358
A.--The Ballade 360
B.--The Rondeau and Rondel 368
i. "Rondel" type 369
ii. "Rondeau" type 371
C.--The Villanelle 376
D.--The Triolet 381
E.--The Sestina 383
PART THREE
THE TIME-ELEMENT IN ENGLISH VERSE 391
PART FOUR
THE PLACE AND FUNCTION OF THE METRICAL ELEMENT IN
POETRY 413
Aristotle 413
Sir Philip Sidney 416
Samuel Johnson 417
Wordsworth 417
Coleridge 420
Shelley 422
William Hazlitt 423
Leigh Hunt 425
Theodore Watts 426
Edmund Gurney 427
W. J. Courthope 429
E. C. Stedman 432
F. B. Gummere 433
APPENDIX
TABLE ILLUSTRATING THE HISTORY OF THE HEROIC
COUPLET 437
PART ONE
ENGLISH VERSE
I. ACCENT AND TIME
A.--KINDS OF ACCENT
The accents of English syllables as appearing in verse are commonly
classified in two ways: according to degree of intensity, and according
to cause or significance.
Obviously there can be no fixed limits to the number of degrees of
intensity recognized in syllabic accent or stress. It is common to speak
of three such degrees: syllables having accent (stressed), syllables
having secondary accent, and syllables without accent (unstressed).
Schipper makes four groups: Principal Accent (_Hauptaccent_ or
_Hochton_), Secondary Accent (_Nebenaccent_ or _Tiefton_), No Accent
(_Tonlosigkeit_), and Disappearance of Sound (_Stummheit_). In
illustration he gives the word _ponderous_, where the first syllable has
the chief accent, the last a secondary accent, the second no accent;
while in the verse
"Most ponderous and substantial things"
the second syllable is suppressed or silent.
Mr. A. J. Ellis, in like manner, recognized three principal classes of
syllables: those stressed in the first degree, those stressed in the
second degree, and those unstressed.[1] In the following lines from
_Paradise Lost_ he indicated these three degrees, as he recognized them,
by the figures 2, 1, 0, written underneath.
Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
0 2 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 2
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
0 1 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 2
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
1 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2
With loss of Eden, till one greater man
0 1 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 2
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
0 2 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 2
Sing, heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top
2 2 0 2 1 0 0 2 0 1
Of Horeb or of Sinai, didst inspire
0 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed
1 2 0 0 2 2 0 2 0 2
In the beginning, how the heavens and earth
0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 2
Rose out of chaos.[2]
2 0 0 2 0
It is worthy of note that the secondary accent seems originally to have
been a more important factor in English verse than it is commonly
considered to be in modern periods. In Anglo-Saxon verse the combination
of a primary stress, a secondary stress, and an unstressed syllable, is
a recognized type. In modern verse the reader is likely to make an
effort to reduce all syllables to the type of either stress or
no-stress. In such a verse as the following, however (from Matthew
Arnold's _Forsaken Merman_),--
"And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee,"--
we may find such a combination as that just referred to as familiar in
Anglo-Saxon rhythm. The syllables "_soul, Merman_" are respectively
cases of primary stress, secondary stress, and no-stress. On this matter
see further the remark of Luick, cited on p. 156, below.
The element of Pitch is not ordinarily included in the treatment of
versification, as it is not ordinarily recognized as having any
significance peculiar to verse. According to Professor J. W.
Bright, however, there is such a thing as a "pitch-accent" which
plays an important part in verse where the word-accent conflicts
with that of the regular metre. Under certain exigencies, he says,
"_un-governed, pre-cisely, re-markable,_ and _Je-rusalem_ ... are
naturally pronounced with a pitch-accent upon the first syllables,
and with the undisturbed expiratory word-accent upon the second. It
will of course be understood that when the word-accent is defined
as expiratory this term does not exclude the inherent pitch of
English stress. Force, quantity, and pitch are combined in our
word-stress (or word-accent), both primary and secondary; but in
the secondary stress used as ictus there is a noticeable change in
the proportions of these elements, the pitch being relatively
increased. An answer is thus won for the question: How do we
naturally pronounce two stresses in juxtaposition on the same word,
or on adjacent words closely joined grammatically? This is further
illustrated in the specially emphasized words of such expressions
as 'The idea!'" where Professor Bright marks the pitch-accent on
the first syllable of "idea," retaining the stress-accent on the
second syllable. In the line
"Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit"
he marks a pitch-accent where the word-stress and metrical stress
are in conflict, that is, on the syllables "dis-" and "and." "The
rhythmic use of 'disobedience,'" he says, "illustrates with its
four syllables (as here used) as many recognizable varieties of
stress. The first syllable has a secondary word-accent, raised to a
pitch-accent for ictus; the second is wholly unaccented; the third
has the chief word-accent, employed as ictus (the accent of the
preceding word, "first," is subordinate to the rhythm); the fourth
has a secondary word-accent which remains unchanged in the thesis."
The conclusion is that "ictus in conflict requires a pitch-accent."
(All these quotations are from an article on 'Proper Names in Old
English Verse,' in the _Publications of the Modern Language
Association_, n.s. vol. vii. No. 3). Professor Bright's theory of
pitch-accent is a part of his general theory of opposition to what
he calls the "sense-doctrine" of the reading of verse,--that is,
the accepted doctrine that the word and sentence accents must
ordinarily take precedence of the metrical accent.
According to cause or significance, accents are commonly classed in
three groups: Etymological or Word Accent, Syntactical or Rhetorical
Accent, and Metrical Accent. Accents of the first class are due to the
original stress of the syllable in English speech; those of the second
class are due to the importance of the syllable in the sentence; those
of the third class are due to the place of the syllable in the metrical
scheme. In the verse
"Mary had a little lamb,"
the first syllable may be said to be stressed primarily for etymological
reasons, the seventh primarily for syntactical or rhetorical reasons,
and the third (which would not be accented in prose) for metrical
reasons.
The general law of English verse is that only those syllables which bear
the accent of the first class (that is, which are stressed in common
speech), together with monosyllables which on occasion are stressed in
common speech, shall be placed so as to receive the metrical stress; and
that, if the word-stress and the metrical stress apparently conflict,
the metrical stress must yield. Less generally, the rhetorical or
syntactical accent in the same way takes precedence of the metrical. In
both cases exceptions are of course numerous.
The following are examples of verses showing a conflict between the
normal prose-accent and the normal verse-accent, where--as commonly
read--the prose- (word-) accent triumphs.
The blessed damozel leaned out
_From the gold bar_ of heaven.
(ROSSETTI: _The Blessed Damozel._)
_Love is_ a smoke _raised with_ the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire _sparkling_ in lover's eyes;
Being vexed, a sea _nourished_ with lover's tears.
(SHAKSPERE: _Romeo and Juliet_, I. i. 196 ff.)
Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
And fear'st to die? _famine_ is in thy cheeks,
_Need and_ oppression starveth in thine eyes.
(SHAKSPERE: _ib._ V. i. 68 ff.)
_Till, at_ his second bidding, Darkness fled,
_Light_ shone, and order from disorder sprung.
_Swift to_ their several quarters hasted then
The cumbrous elements--_Earth_, Flood, _Air_, Fire;
And this ethereal quintessence of Heaven
Flew upward, _spirited_ with various forms,
That rolled orbicular, and turned to stars
_Numberless_, as thou seest, and how they move.
(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, iii. 712 ff.)
_She was_ a gordian shape of dazzling hue,
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;
_Striped like_ a zebra, freckled like a pard,
_Eyed like_ a peacock, and all crimson barred.
(KEATS: _Lamia_, i. 47 ff.)
_"Boys!"_ shriek'd the old king, but vainlier than a hen
_To her_ false daughters in the pool; for none
Regarded; neither seem'd there more to say.
_Back_ rode we to my father's camp, and found
He thrice had sent a herald to the gates.
(TENNYSON: _The Princess_, v. 318 ff.)
Sequestered nest!--this kingdom, limited
Alone by one old _populous green_ wall;
_Tenanted_ by the ever-busy flies,
_Gray crickets and shy lizards and quick spiders_;
Each family of the silver-threaded moss--
Which, look through near, this way, and it appears
A stubble-field _or a cane-brake_, a marsh
Of bulrush whitening _in the_ sun: _laugh now_!
(BROWNING: _Paracelsus_, i. 36 ff.)
On the other hand, we find verses showing a conflict between prose and
verse accent, where the verse-accent may be regarded as triumphing
wholly or in part. Where this triumph is complete, the accent is said to
be _wrenched_; as, for example, in old ballad endings like "north
countree."[3] Where there is a compromise effected in reading, the
accent is said to be _hovering_; as in one of Shakspere's songs,--
"It was a lover and his lass ...
That o'er the green _corn-field_ did pass."
I sat with Love upon a woodside well,
Leaning across the water, I and he;
Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me,
But touched his lute wherein was _audible_
The certain secret thing he had to tell:
Only our mirrored eyes met _silently_
In the low wave; and that sound came to be
The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell.
And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers;
And with his foot and with his _wing-feathers_
He swept the spring that watered my heart's drouth.
Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair,
And as I stooped, her own lips rising there
Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth.
(ROSSETTI: _Willowwood. House of Life_, Sonnet xlix.)
I wish my grave were growing green,
A winding-sheet drawn ower my een,
And I in Helen's arms _lying,_
On fair Kirconnell lea.
(_Fair Helen_; old ballad.)
For the stars and the winds are unto her
As raiment, as songs of the _harp-player._
(SWINBURNE: Chorus in _Atalanta in Calydon._)
Nothing is better, I well think,
Than love; the hidden _well-water_
Is not so delicate to drink:
This was well seen of me and her.
(SWINBURNE: _The Leper._)
These wrenched accents are characteristic of one phase of the so-called
"pre-Raphaelite" poetry of the Victorian period; in part, no doubt, they
are due to the influence of the old ballads. My colleague Professor
Newcomer has suggested that they are partly due, also, to a dislike for
the combative accent which would occur where two heavy syllables came
together (accented as commonly) in a compound like "harp-player."
Of special interest are the examples of wrenched and hovering
accent found in the verse of Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of
Surrey,--more especially in Wyatt. These mark the time when the
syllable-counting principle was coming into prominence in English
verse, under the new culture of the days of Henry VIII. The first
conscious followers of this principle seem to have given it such
prominence that a verse seemed good to them if it contained the
requisite number of syllables, whether the accents conformed to any
regular system or not. In the case of Wyatt we can also compare the
original forms of many of his poems, as preserved in manuscript,
with the revised forms as printed in Tottel's Miscellany (1557).
(See Dr. Flügel's transcriptions from the Wyatt Mss., in _Anglia_,
vol. xviii.) The following is the octave of one of the sonnets, as
found in the Ms.:
"Avysing the bright bemes of these fayer Iyes
where he is that myn oft moisteth and wassheth
the werid mynde streght from the hert departeth
for to rest in his woroldly paradise
And fynde the swete bitter under this gyse
what webbes he hath wrought well he parceveth
whereby with himselfe on love he playneth
that spurreth with fyer: and bridillith with Ise."
(_Anglia,_ xviii. 465.)
Compare this with the revised form in Tottel's edition:
"Avisyng the bright beames of those fayre eyes,
Where he abides that mine oft moistes and washeth:
The weried mynd streight from the hart departeth,
To rest within hys worldly Paradise,
And bitter findes the swete, under this gyse.
What webbes there he hath wrought, well he preceaveth
Whereby then with him self on love he playneth,
That spurs wyth fire, and brydleth eke with yse."
(Arber Reprint, p. 40.)
It appears that this revision was the work of the editor, who had a
better sense of true English rhythm than the poet himself. Alscher,
however, in his work on Wyatt, contends that Wyatt doubtless
revised his own verses so as to give them their finished form. (See
_Sir Thomas Wyatt und Seine Stellung_, etc., p. 49.) Other lines in
Wyatt's verse where the number of syllables is counted but where
the accents are faulty, are these:
"The long love that in my thought I harbour."
"And there campeth displaying his banner."
"And there him hideth and not appeareth."
"For good is the life, ending faithfully."
Another large group of hovering accents is that formed by French
words with such terminations as _-our_, _-ance_, _-ace_, _-age_,
_-ant_, _-ess_. In such cases the original tendency of the word was
to accent the final syllable; but the general tendency of English
accents being recessive, the words often passed through a
transitional period when the accent was variable or "hovering." The
first of the four lines just quoted shows us a word of this
character.
For an interesting presentation of certain phases of the laws of
stress in English verse, see Robert Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_
(ed. 1901), Appendix J, "on the Rules of Stress Rhythms."
B.--TIME-INTERVALS
The fundamental principle of the rhythm of English verse (and indeed of
any rhythm) is that _the accents appear at regular time-intervals_. In
practice there is of course great freedom in departing from this
regularity, the equal time-intervals being at times only a standard of
rhythm to which the varying successions of accented and unaccented
syllables are mentally referred. Where the equal time-intervals are
observed with substantial regularity, two sorts of verse are still to
be clearly distinguished: that in which not only the intervals of time
but the numbers of syllables between the accents are substantially equal
and regular, and that in which the number of syllables varies. The
latter class is that of the native Germanic metres; the former is that
of the Romance metres, and of modern English verse as influenced by
them. With the development of regularity in the counting of syllables
there has perhaps also taken place a development of regularity in the
regular counting of the time-intervals. In other words, the modern
English reader, where the number of syllables between accents is
variable, makes the time-intervals as nearly equal as possible by
lengthening and shortening the syllables in the manner permitted by the
freedom of English speech; in early English verse, where the number of
syllables between accents varied very greatly, we cannot be sure that
the time-intervals were so accurately felt or preserved in recitation.
i. _Verse showing fairly regular intervals between accents_
Avoid extremes; and shun the fault of such
Who still are pleas'd too little or too much.
At every trifle scorn to take offence,
That always shows great pride, or little sense:
Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best,
Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.
Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move;
For fools admire, but men of sense approve:
As things seem large which we through mist descry,
Dulness is ever apt to magnify.
(POPE: _Essay on Criticism_, ll. 384-393.)
Louder, louder chant the lay--
Waken, lords and ladies gay!
Tell them youth and mirth and glee
Run a course as well as we;
Time, stern huntsman! who can baulk,
Staunch as hound and fleet as hawk;
Think of this, and rise with day,
Gentle lords and ladies gay!
(SCOTT: _Hunting Song_.)
Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.
(TENNYSON: _Locksley Hall_.)
Wild April, enkindled to laughter and storm by the kiss of
the wildest of winds that blow,
Calls loud on his brother for witness; his hands that were
laden with blossom are sprinkled with snow.
(SWINBURNE: _March_.)
ii. _Verse showing irregular intervals between accents_
Gegr[=e]tte 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;
ac ic ð[=æ]r heaðu-f[=y]res h[=a]tes w[=e]ne,
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.
(_Beowulf_, ll. 2516-2528. ab. 700.)
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.[4]
(_The Farmer's Complaint_, ab. 1300; in Böddeker's _Altenglische
Dichtungen_, p. 102, and Wright's _Political Songs_, p. 149.)
I will speake out aloude, I care not who heare it:
Sirs, see that my harnesse, my tergat and my shield
Be made as bright now as when I was last in fielde,
As white as I shoulde to warre againe to-morrowe;
For sicke shall I be but I worke some folke sorow.
Therefore see that all shine as bright as Sainct George,
Or as doth a key newly come from the smiths forge.
(N. UDALL: _Ralph Roister Doister_, IV. iii. 13-19. 1566.)
To this, this Oake cast him to replie
Well as he couth; but his enemie
Had kindled such coles of displeasure,
That the good man noulde stay his leasure,
But home him hasted with furious heate,
Encreasing his wrath with many a threat:
His harmefull Hatchet he hent in hand,
(Alas! that it so ready should stand!)
And to the field alone he speedeth,
(Aye little helpe to harme there needeth!)
Anger nould let him speake to the tree,
Enaunter his rage mought cooled bee;
But to the roote bent his sturdie stroake,
And made many wounds in the waste Oake.
(SPENSER: _Shepherd's Calendar, February_. 1579.)
Through many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous,
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death--
A universe of death, which God by curse
Created evil, for evil only good;
Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse
Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived.
(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, II. 618 ff. 1667.)
The night is chill; the forest bare;
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady's cheek--
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.
(COLERIDGE: _Christabel_, Part I. 1816.)
In his Preface to this poem Coleridge said: "The metre of the
_Christabel_ is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so
from its being founded on a new principle; namely, that of counting in
each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary
from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be
only four. Nevertheless this occasional variation in number of syllables
is not introduced wantonly, or for the mere ends of convenience, but in
correspondence with some transition, in the nature of the imagery or
passion." The verse is accurately described, but it has frequently been
pointed out as curious that Coleridge should have spoken of it as
"founded on a new principle," when the principle in question was that of
native English verse from the earliest times.[5]
For other specimens of verse showing irregularity in the number of
syllables between the accents, see Part Two, under Non-syllable-counting
Four-stress Verse.
iii. _Silent Time-intervals between Syllables (Pauses)_
(a) Pauses not filling the time of syllables.
Most English verses of more than eight syllables are divided not only
into the time-intervals between the accents, but also into two parts
(which Schipper calls "rhythmical series") by the _Cesura_. The Cesura
is a pause not counted out of the regular time of the rhythm, but
corresponding to the pauses between "phrases" in music, and nearly
always coinciding with syntactical or rhetorical divisions of the
sentence.
The medial cesura is the typical pause of this kind, dividing the verse
into two parts of approximately equal length. In much early English
verse, and in French verse, this medial cesura is almost universal; in
modern English verse (and in that of some early poets, notably Chaucer)
there is great freedom in the placing of the cesura, and also in
omitting it altogether. The importance of this matter in the history of
English decasyllabic verse will appear in Part Two.
In the early Elizabethan period the impression was still general
that there should be a regular medial cesura. Spenser seems to have
been the first to imitate the greater freedom of Chaucer in this
regard. See the Latin dissertation on Spenser's verse of E. Legouis
(_Quomodo E. Spenserus_, etc., Paris, 1896), and the summary of its
results by Mr. J. B. Fletcher in _Modern Language Notes_ for
November, 1898. "Spenser," says Mr. Fletcher, "revived for 'heroic
verse' the neglected variety in unity of his self-acknowledged
master, Chaucer." In Gascoigne's _Notes of Instruction concerning
the making of verse or ryme in English_ (1575), we find: "There are
also certayne pauses or restes in a verse whiche may be called
Ceasures.... In mine opinion in a verse of eight sillables, the
pause will stand best in the middest, in a verse of tenne it will
be placed at the ende of the first foure sillables; in a verse of
twelve, in the midst.... In Rithme royall, it is at the wryters
discretion, and forceth not where the pause be untill the ende of
the line." This greater liberty allowed the rime royal is doubtless
due to the influence of Chaucer on that form. For Gascoigne's
practice in printing his verse with medial cesura, even without
regard to rhetorical divisions, see the specimen given below.
Another interesting Elizabethan account of the cesura is found in
Puttenham's _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589), where the writer
compares the verse-pause to a stop made by a traveler at an inn for
rest and refreshment. (Arber's Reprint, p. 88.)
_Specimen of French alexandrine, showing the regular medial cesura:_
Trois fois cinquante jours le général naufrage
Dégasta l'univers; en fin d'un tel ravage
L'immortel s'émouvant, n'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.
(DU BARTAS: _La Première Semaine_. 1579.)
See further, on the character of the French alexandrine and its medial
cesura, in Part Two, under Six-stress Verse.
_Specimen of early blank verse printed with regular medial cesura:_
O Knights, O Squires, O Gentle blouds yborne,
You were not borne, al onely for your selves:
Your countrie claymes, some part of al your paines.
There should you live, and therein should you toyle,
To hold up right, and banish cruel wrong,
To helpe the pore, to bridle backe the riche,
To punish vice, and vertue to advaunce,
To see God servde, and Belzebub supprest.
You should not trust, lieftenaunts in your rome,
And let them sway, the scepter of your charge,
Whiles you (meane while) know scarcely what is don,
Nor yet can yeld, accompt if you were callde.
(GASCOIGNE: _The Steel Glass_, ll. 439 ff. 1576.)
For specimens of regular medial cesura, and of variable cesura, in
modern verse, see under the Decasyllabic Couplet and Blank Verse, in
Part Two.
The Cesura is called _masculine_ when it follows an accented syllable.
(For examples, see previous specimen from Gascoigne.) It is called
_feminine_ when it follows an unaccented syllable. Two varieties of the
feminine cesura are also distinguished: the Lyric, when the pause occurs
inside a foot; _e.g._:
"This wicked traitor, whom I thus accuse;"
the Epic, when the pause occurs after an extra (hypermetrical) light
syllable; _e.g._:
"To Canterbury with ful devout corage."
"But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives."
The "epic" cesura is quite as characteristic of dramatic blank verse as
of epic.
The pause occurring at the end of a line is equally regular with the
medial pause, and corresponds in the same way to a phrase-pause in
music. It is an element of the same character, then, as the cesura,
though not bearing the same name. It coincides less closely than the
cesura with syntactical and rhetorical pauses. When there is no
corresponding syntactical or rhetorical pause at the end of the line (in
other words, when the metrical pause marking the end of the verse cannot
be prominently represented in reading without interfering with the
expression of the sense), the line is said to be "run-on." Such an
ending is also called _enjambement_. The importance of this distinction
between "end-stopped" and "run-on" lines will appear in the notes on the
Decasyllabic Couplet and Blank Verse, in Part Two.
(_b_) Pauses filling the time of syllables.
A second class of silent time-intervals, or pauses, is to be
distinguished from the cesural pause by the fact that in this case the
time of the pause is counted in the metrical scheme. Pauses of this
class correspond to rests in music; and as in the case of such rests,
their occurrence is exceptional.
Of fustian he wered a gipoun
[^] Al bismotered with his habergeoun.
For him was lever have at his beddes heed
[^] Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed.
(CHAUCER: Prologue to _Canterbury Tales_, 75 f. and 293 f.)
This omission of the first light syllable is characteristic of Chaucer's
couplet and of Middle English verse generally. (See Schipper, vol. i. p.
462, and ten Brink's _Chaucer's Sprache und Verskunst_, p. 175.) In
modern verse it is not usually permitted.
The time doth pass, [^] yet shall not my love.
(WYATT: _The joy so short, alas!_)
The omitted syllable following the medial pause is closely parallel to
that at the beginning of the verse.
Stay! [^] The king hath thrown his warder down.
(_Richard II_, I. iii. 118.)
Kneel thou down, Philip. [^] But rise more great.
(_King John_, I. i. 161.)
In drops of sorrow. [^] Sons, kinsmen, thanes.
(_Macbeth_, I. iv. 35.)
Than the soft myrtle. [^] But man, proud man.
(_Measure for Measure_, II. ii. 117.)
These specimens of pauses in Shakspere's verse indicate the natural
varieties of dramatic form. In such cases the pause often occurs
between speeches, or where some action is to be understood as filling
the time; as in the second instance, where the accolade is given in the
middle of the line. (See Abbott's _Shakespearian Grammar_, pp. 413 ff.)
[^] Break, [^] break, [^] break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
(TENNYSON: _Break, Break, Break._)
In Lanier's _Science of English Verse_, p. 101, this stanza is
represented in musical notation, with rests, to show that rhythm "may be
dependent on silences."
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld [^] lang [^] syne?
(BURNS: _Auld Lang Syne._)
Here the syllables "auld" and "lang" may be regarded as lengthened so as
to fill the time of the missing light syllables. So in many cases there
is a choice between compensatory lengthening and compensatory pause.
Thus [^] said the Lord [^] in the Vault above the Cherubim,
Calling to the angels and the souls in their degree:
"Lo! Earth has passed away
On the smoke of Judgment Day.
That Our word may be established shall We gather up the sea?"
Loud [^] sang the souls [^] of the jolly, jolly mariners:
"Plague upon the hurricane that made us furl and flee!
But the war is done between us,
In the deep the Lord hath seen us--
Our bones we'll leave the barracout', and God may sink the sea!"
(KIPLING: _The Last Chantey._)
This is an instance of a pause forming a regular part of the
verse-rhythm. Thus in the first verse of each stanza the second and
sixth syllables are omitted, and the result gives the characteristic
effect of the rhythm. In measures where there is regular catalexis (that
is, where the last light syllable of the verse is regularly omitted) the
phenomenon is really of the same kind.
These, these will give the world another heart,
And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings?----
Listen awhile, ye nations, and be dumb.
(Keats: _Sonnet to Haydon_.)
Call her once before you go,--
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know,--
"Margaret! Margaret!"
Children's voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother's ear;
Children's voices, wild with pain,--
Surely she will come again!
Call her once, and come away;
This way, this way!...
Come, dear children, come away down:
Call no more!
One last look at the white-walled town,
And the little gray church on the windy shore;
Then come down!
She will not come, though you call all day;
Come away, come away!
(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _The Forsaken Merman_.)
In this specimen no attempt has been made to indicate the pauses, as
different readers would interpret the verse variously. It will be found
that this whole poem is a study in delicate changes and arrangements of
time-intervals. The four stresses characteristic of the rhythm can be
accounted for in such short lines as the second and tenth, properly
read.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Transactions of the Philological Society_, 1875-76.
[2] According to a more elaborate system Mr. Ellis recognized nine
varieties of force or stress, which he named in order as follows:
subweak, weak, superweak, submean, mean, supermean, substrong, strong,
superstrong. In like manner he named nine degrees each of length, pitch,
weight, and silence. Length and Silence are both terms of duration of
time. The meaning of Weight has not been generally understood, nor is
the term ordinarily recognized. Mr. Ellis described it as "due to
expression and mental conceptions of importance, resulting partly from
expression in delivery, produced by quality of tone and gliding pitch,
and partly from the mental effect of the constructional predominance of
conceptions." On this whole scheme of Mr. Ellis's, Mr. Mayor remarks
interestingly: "Whilst I admire, I with difficulty repress a shudder at
the elaborate apparatus he has provided for registering the minutest
variations of metrical stress. Not only does he distinguish nine
different degrees of force, but there are the same number of degrees of
length, pitch, silence, and weight, making altogether forty-five
varieties of stress at the disposal of the metrist ... If the analysis
of rhythm is so terribly complicated, let us rush into the arms of the
intuitivists and trust to our ears only, for life is not long enough to
admit of characterizing lines when there are forty-five expressions for
each syllable to be considered." (_Chapters on English Metre_, p. 69.)
[3] The term "wrenched" was used originally, it would seem, as one of
reprobation. Thus Puttenham, in his _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589),
said; "There can not be in a maker a fowler fault, than to falsifie his
accent to serve his cadence, or by untrue orthographie to wrench his
words to helpe his rime." (Arber ed., p. 94.)
[4] It is interesting to compare with these irregular lines another
stanza of similar form, of about the same date, from an Elegy on Edward
I., in Böddeker's Collection, p. 140, and Wright's _Political Songs_, p.
246.
Alle þat beoþ of huerte trewe, a stounde herkneþ to my song of duel, þat
deþ haþ diht vs newe (þat makeþ me syke ant sorewe among!) of a knyht,
þat wes so strong, of wham god haþ don ys wille; me þuncheþ þat deþ haþ
don vs wrong, þat he so sone shal ligge stille.
The comparatively great regularity of the measures in this second stanza
is due to the fact that it was under the syllable-counting influence of
the French, being in fact a translation of a French original.
[5] Leigh Hunt said that "Coleridge saw the mistake which had been made
with regard to this measure, and restored it to the beautiful freedom of
which it was capable, by calling to mind the liberties allowed its old
musical professors the minstrels, and dividing it by _time_ instead of
_syllables_." (See the entire passage on _Christabel_, in the
Introduction, on "What is Poetry?", to _Imagination and Fancy_. For a
criticism of the metrical structure of _Christabel_, see Robert
Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_ (ed. 1901, pp. 73-75).)
II. THE FOOT AND THE VERSE
English verse is commonly measured by feet, a determinate number of
which go to form a verse or line. The foot is determined by the distance
from one accented syllable to another in the regular scheme of the
metre. The usual metrical feet are either dissyllabic or trisyllabic.
The dissyllabic foot is commonly called an _iambus_ (or _iamb_) if the
unaccented syllable precedes the accented, and a _trochee_ if the
accented precedes the unaccented. The trisyllabic foot is commonly
called an _anapest_ if the two unaccented syllables precede the accented
syllable, and a _dactyl_ if they follow the accented syllable.[6] It
will be observed that the fundamental rhythm of both iambic and trochaic
verse is the same, as is also that of both anapestic and dactylic verse;
the distinction belonging only to the metre as measured into regular
lines. Iambic and anapestic verse (in which the light syllables commonly
open the verse) are sometimes called "ascending rhythm"; trochaic and
dactylic verse (in which the accented syllables commonly open the
verse) "descending rhythm." Ascending rhythm is very greatly in
predominance in English poetry.
The normal verse of any poem is therefore described by indicating the
name of the foot and the number of feet in the verse. The number of feet
is always indicated by the number of stresses or principal accents in
the normal verse. As the light or unaccented syllables may vary from the
typical number, it may also be necessary to indicate that the line is
longer than its name would imply, by reason of Feminine Ending (a light
syllable added at the end) or Anacrusis (a light syllable prefixed); or
that it is shorter than its name would indicate by reason of Catalexis
or Truncation (the light syllable at the end--or less frequently at the
beginning--being omitted).
In like manner, any particular verse or line is fully described by
indicating: (1) the typical foot; (2) the number of feet; (3) the place
of the cesura; (4) the presence or absence of a final pause
("end-stopped" or "run-on"); (5) the presence of such irregularities as
(_a_) Anacrusis or feminine ending,
(_b_) Catalexis (or truncation),
(_c_) Substitution of exceptional feet for the typical foot,
(_d_) Pauses other than the cesural.
_One-stress iambic_.
Thus I
Pass by
And die
As one
Unknown
And gone.
(HERRICK: _Upon his Departure Hence_. 1648.)
(In combination with two-stress and three-stress:)
No more I'll vaunt,
For now I see
Thou only hast the power
To find
And bind
A heart that's free,
And slave it in an hour.
(HERRICK: _His Recantation._ 1648.)
_Two-stress iambic_.
Most good, most fair,
Or things as rare
To call you 's lost;
For all the cost
Words can bestow
So poorly show,...
(DRAYTON: _Amouret Anacreontic._ ab. 1600.)
Because I do
Begin to woo,
Sweet singing Lark,
Be thou the clerk,
And know thy when
To say Amen.
(HERRICK: _To the Lark._ 1648.)
The raging rocks,
And shivering shocks,
Shall break the locks
Of prison-gates;
And Phibbus' car
Shall shine from far,
And make and mar
The foolish Fates.
(SHAKSPERE: Bottom's song in _Midsummer Night's Dream_, I. ii. ab.
1595.)
(In combination with three-stress:)
Only a little more
I have to write;
Then I'll give o'er,
And bid the world good-night.
'Tis but a flying minute
That I must stay,
Or linger in it;
And then I must away.
(HERRICK: _His Poetry his Pillar._ 1648.)
In the second stanza we have the same measure with feminine ending.
(In combination with four-stress:)
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
(POPE: _Ode on Solitude._ ab. 1700.)
_Two-stress trochaic_.
Could I catch that
Nimble traitor,
Scornful Laura,
Swift-foot Laura,
Soon then would I
Seek avengement.
(CAMPION: Anacreontics, in _Observations in the Art of English Poesie_.
1602.)
(In combination with four-stress:)
Dust that covers
Long dead lovers
Song blows off with breath that brightens;
At its flashes
Their white ashes
Burst in bloom that lives and lightens.
(SWINBURNE: _Song in Season._)
(Catalectic, and in combination with three-stress:)
Summer's crest
Red-gold tressed,
Corn-flowers peeping under;--
Idle noons,
Lingering moons,
Sudden cloud,
Lightning's shroud,
Sudden rain,
Quick again
Smiles where late was thunder.
(GEORGE ELIOT: Song from _The Spanish Gypsy_, Bk. i. 1868.)
The trochaic measures in _The Spanish Gypsy_ are in imitation of the
similar forms in Spanish poetry. See p. 114, below.
_Two-stress anapestic._
(In combination with three-stress:)
Like a gloomy stain
On the emerald main
Alpheus rushed behind,--
As an eagle pursuing
A dove to its ruin
Down the streams of the cloudy wind.
(SHELLEY: _Arethusa._ 1820.)
(With feminine ending:)
He is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain,
When our need was the sorest.
The font, reappearing,
From the raindrops shall borrow,
But to us comes no cheering,
To Duncan no morrow!
(SCOTT: Coronach, from _The Lady of the Lake_, Canto 3. 1810.)
(In combination with four-stress:)
Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face.
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go.
(BROWNING: _Prospice._ 1864.)
These specimens, as is usual in anapestic verse, show considerable
freedom in the treatment of the part of the foot containing the light
syllables, substituted iambi being very common. Note the iambi in the
Shelley stanza, line 1, second foot, and line 5, first foot. In the
latter case, however, the first light syllable of line 5 is really
supplied by the syllable added to make the feminine ending of line 4. In
like manner, in the Scott stanza, the first syllable of line 8 is really
supplied by the _-ing_ of line 7; and where we have both feminine ending
(in line 1) and a full anapest following, the effect is that of a
hypermetrical syllable which must be hurried over in the reading. In the
specimen from Browning we find an iambus in the opening foot in lines 2
and 6 (also, of course, in lines 1 and 5).
_Two-stress dactylic._
One more Unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashioned so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!
(THOMAS HOOD: _The Bridge of Sighs._ ab. 1830.)
Here the alternate lines are catalectic, both light syllables being
wanting.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
(TENNYSON: _Charge of the Light Brigade._ 1854.)
Here the fourth and ninth lines are catalectic.
Loudly the sailors cheered
Svend of the Forked Beard,
As with his fleet he steered
Southward to Vendland;
Where with their courses hauled
All were together called,
Under the Isle of Svald
Near to the mainland.
(LONGFELLOW: _Saga of King Olaf_, xvii. 1863.)
In the reading of these stanzas from Tennyson and Longfellow there is so
marked a stress on the final syllable as to make the second dactyl
(except in the opening lines of the Tennyson stanza) more like a Cretic
(in the classical terminology); _i.e._ a foot made up of two heavy
syllables with a light syllable between them. But no such foot is
generally recognized in English verse.
_Two-stress irregular._
On the ground
Sleep sound:
I'll apply
To your eye,
Gentle lover, remedy.
When thou wak'st,
Thou tak'st
True delight
In the sight
Of thy former lady's eye.
(SHAKSPERE: Puck's Song in _Midsummer Night's Dream_, III. ii. ab.
1595.)
What I hate,
Be consecrate
To celebrate
Thee and Thy state,
No mate
For Thee;
What see
For envy
In poor me?
(BROWNING: Song in _Caliban upon Setebos_. 1864.)
In the usual printing of _Caliban upon Setebos_ this song is brought
into the form of the five-accent lines. It is evidently intended,
however, to be read in two-accent groups. Professor Moulton has remarked
interestingly that Browning gives the unique figure of Caliban not only
a grammar but a prosody of his own.
Though my rime be ragged,
Tattered and jagged,
Rudely raine-beaten,
Rusty and moth-eaten;
If ye take wel therewith,
It hath in it some pith.
(JOHN SKELTON: _Colyn Cloute_. ab. 1510.)
This is a specimen of what Mr. Churton Collins calls "that headlong
voluble breathless doggrel which, rattling and clashing on through
quick-recurring rhymes, ... has taken from the name of its author the
title of Skeltonical verse." (Ward's _English Poets_, vol. i. p. 185.)
The number of accents, as well as the number of syllables, is irregular,
being quite as often (perhaps more often) three as two.
_Three-stress iambic._
O let the solid ground
Not fail beneath my feet
Before my life has found
What some have found so sweet;
Then let come what come may,
What matter if I go mad,
I shall have had my day.
(TENNYSON: Song in _Maud_, xi. 1855.)
(In combination with verse of four, five, and six stresses:)
The Oracles are dumb;
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving:
No nightly trance or breathed spell
Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.
(MILTON: _Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity_. 1629.)
Here, in line 5, we have an instance of a verse truncated at the
beginning,--rare in modern English poetry.
(With feminine ending:)
The mountain sheep are sweeter,
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met an host and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it.
(THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK: War Song of Dinas Vawr, from _The Misfortunes of
Elphin_. 1829.)
In line 2 is an instance of anacrusis.
_Three-stress trochaic._
(In combination with iambic:)
Go where glory waits thee,
But, while fame elates thee,
Oh! still remember me.
When the praise thou meetest
To thine ear is sweetest,
Oh! then remember me.
(THOMAS MOORE: _Go Where Glory Waits Thee_. ab. 1820.)
(In combination with six-stress verses:)
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
(SHELLEY: _To a Skylark_. 1820.)
Here lines 2 and 4 are catalectic.
_Three-stress anapestic._
I am monarch of all I survey;
My right there is none to dispute;
From the centre all round to the sea
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
(COWPER: _Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk._ 1782.)
In this specimen lines 2, 5, 6, and 8 show initial truncation, the first
light syllable being missing.
(With two-stress verse:)
His desire is a dureless content,
And a trustless joy;
He is won with a world of despair
And is lost with a toy....
But true love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning,
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.
(SIR WALTER RALEIGH (?): _Pilgrim to Pilgrim_. In MS. Rawl. 85; in
Schelling's _Elizabethan Lyrics_, p. 3.)
"The metres of the earlier years of Elizabeth's reign are so
overwhelmingly iambic," Professor Schelling observes, "that this
perfectly metrical, if somewhat irregular, anapæstic movement comes
like a surprise. Professor Gummere, of Haverford College, calls my
attention to three epigrams--printed among the poems of Raleigh,
ed. Hannah, p. 55--all of them in more or less limping anapæsts,
but not of this measure. It is quite possible that the time to
which these verses were sung may have affected the measure." (Notes
to _Elizabethan Lyrics_, pp. 211, 212.)
(With initial truncation:)
She gazed, as I slowly withdrew,
My path I could hardly discern;
So sweetly she bade me adieu,
I thought that she bade me return.
(SHENSTONE: _Pastoral Ballad._ 1743.)
Mr. Saintsbury praises highly the anapests of Shenstone (Ward's _English
Poets_, vol. iii. p. 272), saying that he "taught the metre to a greater
poet than himself, Cowper, and these two between them have written
almost everything that is worth reading in it, if we put avowed parody
and burlesque out of the question." But this is probably to be regarded
as overstating the case.
(With feminine ending:)
If you go over desert and mountain,
Far into the country of sorrow,
To-day and to-night and to-morrow,
And maybe for months and for years;
You shall come, with a heart that is bursting
For trouble and toiling and thirsting,
You shall certainly come to the fountain
At length,--to the Fountain of Tears.
(ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY: _The Fountain of Tears._ 1870.)
Here the extra light syllable at the end of the line is really the
initial light syllable of the following line, as in the specimen on p.
29, above.
So this is a psalm of the waters,--
The wavering, wandering waters:
With languages learned in the forest,
With secrets of earth's lonely caverns,
The mystical waters go by me
On errands of love and of beauty,
On embassies friendly and gentle,
With shimmer of brown and of silver.
(S. WEIR MITCHELL: _A Psalm of the Waters._ 1890.)
Here, also, the final light syllable might be said to take the place of
the missing initial syllable; but the structure of the verse, with the
fact that the initial anapest is always truncated and that the final
syllable is never accented, indicates that the verse as it stands is the
norm of the poem--three-stress anapestic, with initial truncation and
feminine ending.
_Three-stress dactylic._
(Catalectic:)
This is a spray the Bird clung to,
Making it blossom with pleasure,
Ere the high tree-top she sprung to,
Fit for her nest and her treasure.
(BROWNING: _Misconceptions_. 1855.)
_Four-stress iambic._
(For specimens, see Part Two.)
_Four-stress trochaic._
Maiden, crowned with glossy blackness,
Lithe as panther forest-roaming,
Long-armed naiad, when she dances,
On a stream of ether floating.
(GEORGE ELIOT: Song from _The Spanish Gypsy_, Book i. 1868.)
Westward, westward Hiawatha
Sailed into the fiery sunset,
Sailed into the purple vapors,
Sailed into the dusk of evening.
(LONGFELLOW: _Hiawatha_. 1855.)
Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
Long continuance, and increasing,
Hourly joys be still upon you!
Juno sings her blessings on you.
(SHAKSPERE: Juno's Song in _The Tempest_, IV. i. ab. 1610.)
(Catalectic:)
On a day, alack the day!
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen, can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death,
Wish himself the heaven's breath.
(SHAKSPERE: _Love's Labor's Lost_, IV. 3. ab. 1590.)
Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful jollity,
Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek.
(MILTON: _L'Allegro_. 1634.)
Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine?
Or are fruits of Paradise
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest as though bold Robin Hood
Would, with his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can.
(KEATS: _Lines on the Mermaid Tavern_. 1820.)
_Four-stress anapestic._
What I speak, my fair Chloe, and what I write, shows
The difference there is betwixt nature and art:
I court others in verse; but I love thee in prose:
And they have my whimsies; but thou hast my heart.
(PRIOR: _A Better Answer_. ab. 1710.)
Prior's anapests well illustrate the appropriateness of the measure for
light tripping effects, such as are sought _vers de société_. See also
the measure of Goldsmith's _Retaliation_, especially the passage
beginning--
"Here lies David Garrick, describe me who can;
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man."
The small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning,
The murmuring streamlet winds clear through the vale;
The hawthorn trees blow in the dews of the morning,
And wild scatter'd cowslips bedeck the green dale.
(BURNS: _The Chevalier's Lament_. 1788.)
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
(BYRON: _The Destruction of Sennacherib_. 1815.)
(With three-stress:)
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be ador'd, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.
(THOMAS MOORE: _Believe me, if all those endearing young charms._ ab.
1825.)
_four-stress dactylic_.
After the pangs of a desperate lover,
When day and night I have sighed all in vain;
Ah, what a pleasure it is to discover
In her eyes pity, who causes my pain!
(DRYDEN: Song in _An Evening's Love_. 1668.)
Of this song Mr. Saintsbury says that it is "one of the rare examples of
a real dactylic metre in English, where the dactyls are not, as usual,
equally to be scanned as anapests." (_Life of Dryden_, Men of Letters
Series, p. 62.) Here, as almost always in English, the measure is
catalectic, a final dactyl being instinctively avoided, except in short
two-stress lines.
Warriors and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword
Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord,
Heed not the corse, though a king's, in your path:
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!
(BYRON: _Song of Saul before his Last Battle._ 1815.)
Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King,
Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing:
And, pressing a troop, unable to stoop
And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop,
Marched them along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.
(BROWNING: _Cavalier Tunes._ 1843.)
Here the metre is varied interestingly by pauses. Thus in lines 1 and 5
the light syllables of the second foot are wholly wanting.
_Five-stress iambic._
(For specimens, see Part Two.)
_Five-stress trochaic._
What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy?
Nay: for if that moon could love a mortal,
Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy),
All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos),
She would turn a new side to her mortal,
Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman--
Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace,
Blind to Galileo on his turret,
Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats--him, even!
(BROWNING: _One Word More._ 1855.)
This is a rare specimen of unrimed verse in other than iambic rhythm.
(Catalectic:)
Then methought I heard a mellow sound,
Gathering up from all the lower ground;
Narrowing in to where they sat assembled
Low voluptuous music winding trembled,
Wov'n in circles: they that heard it sighed,
Panted, hand-in-hand with faces pale,
Swung themselves, and in low tones replied;
Till the fountain spouted, showering wide
Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail.
(TENNYSON: _The Vision of Sin._ 1842.)
_Five-stress anapestic._
As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being beloved!
He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most
weak.
'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek
In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me,
Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!
(BROWNING: _Saul._ 1845.)
Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a wind,
We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still,
And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind;
It is better to fight for the good than to rail at the ill;
I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind,
I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom assign'd.
(TENNYSON: _Maud_, III. vi. 1855.)
Here frequent iambi are substituted for anapests; as in line 1, second
and fourth feet; lines 2 and 3, fifth foot; line 5, third foot.
_Five-stress dactylic._
This form is almost unknown. In the following lines we find five-stress
catalectic verse of dactyls and trochees combined:
Surely the thought in a man's heart hopes or fears
Now that forgetfulness needs must here have stricken
Anguish, and sweetened the sealed-up springs of tears.
(SWINBURNE: _A Century of Roundels._)
_Six-stress iambic._
(For specimens, see Part Two.)
_Six-stress trochaic._
(With alternate lines catalectic:)
Day by day thy shadow shines in heaven beholden,
Even the sun, the shining shadow of thy face:
King, the ways of heaven before thy feet grow golden;
God, the soul of earth is kindled with thy grace.
(SWINBURNE: _The Last Oracle._)
_Six-stress anapestic._
For I trust if an enemy's fleet came yonder round by the hill,
And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out of
the foam,
That the smooth-faced snubnosed rogue would leap from his counter
and till,
And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating yard-wand,
home.
(TENNYSON: _Maud_, I. i. 1855.)
(See note on p. 41.)
All under the deeps of the darkness are glimmering: all over
impends
An immeasurable infinite flower of the dark that dilates and
descends,
That exalts and expands in its breathless and blind efflorescence
of heart
As it broadens and bows to the wave-ward, and breathes not, and
hearkens apart.
(SWINBURNE: _The Garden of Cymodoce_, in _Songs of the Springtides_.)
_Six-stress dactylic._
(For this, see chiefly Part Two.)
(Catalectic:)
Dosn't thou 'ear my 'erse's legs, as they canters awaay?
Proputty, proputty, proputty--that's what I 'ears 'em saay.
Proputty, proputty, proputty--Sam, thou's an ass for thy paains:
Theer's moor sense i' one o' 'is legs nor in all thy braains.
(TENNYSON: _Northern Farmer--new style._ ab. 1860.)
Thee I behold as a bird borne in with the wind from the west,
Straight from the sunset, across white waves whence rose as a
daughter
Venus thy mother, in years when the world was a water at rest.
(SWINBURNE: _Hesperia._)
_Seven-stress iambic._
There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;
'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so
fast,
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.
(BYRON: _Stanzas for Music._ 1815.)
Here we have anacrusis in lines 2 and 4.
Beyond the path of the outmost sun, through utter darkness
hurled--
Further than ever comet flared or vagrant star-dust swirled--
Live such as fought and sailed and ruled and loved and made our
world.
(KIPLING: _Wolcott Balestier._)
(See also under Seven-stress Verse, in Part Two.)
_Seven-stress trochaic._
(Catalectic:)
Clear the way, my lords and lackeys, you have had your day.
Here you have your answer, England's yea against your nay;
Long enough your house has held you: up, and clear the way!
(SWINBURNE: _Clear the Way._)
_Seven-stress anapestic._
(With feminine ending:)
Come on then, ye dwellers by nature in darkness, and like to the
leaves' generations,
That are little of might, that are moulded of mire, unenduring and
shadowlike nations,
Poor plumeless ephemerals, comfortless mortals, as visions of
creatures fast fleeing,
Lift up your mind unto us that are deathless, and dateless the date
of our being.
(SWINBURNE: _The Birds_, from Aristophanes.)
Of this translation Mr. Swinburne says that it was undertaken from a
consideration of the fact that the "marvellous metrical invention of the
anapestic heptameter was almost exactly reproducible in a language to
which all variations and combinations of anapestic, iambic, or trochaic
metre are as natural and pliable as all dactylic and spondaic forms of
verse are unnatural and abhorrent." ... "I have not attempted," he says
further, "the impossible and undesirable task of reproducing the rare
exceptional effect of a line overcharged on purpose with a
preponderance of heavy-footed spondees.... My main desire ... was to
renew as far as possible for English ears the music of this resonant and
triumphant metre, which goes ringing at full gallop as of horses who
'dance as 'twere to the music
Their own hoofs make.'"
(_Studies in Song_, p. 68.)
_Seven-stress dactylic._
This form of verse may be said to be wanting. Schipper quotes as
possible examples some lines which (as he remarks) seem to be made
merely for the metrical purpose:
"Out of the kingdom of Christ shall be gathered, by angels o'er
Satan victorious,
All that offendeth, that lieth, that faileth to honor his name
ever glorious."
(_Englische Metrik_, vol. ii. p. 419.)
_Eight-stress iambic._
This is almost unknown in English verse, because where conceivably
occurring it shows an irresistible tendency to break up into two halves
of four stresses each. William Webbe, in his _Discourse of English
Poetrie_ (1586), quoted these lines as "the longest verse in length
which I have seen used in English":
"Where virtue wants and vice abounds, there wealth is but a baited
hook,
To make men swallow down their bane, before on danger deep they
look."
_Eight-stress trochaic._
(Catalectic:)
Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with
might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of
sight.
(TENNYSON: _Locksley Hall._ 1842.)
Open then I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door,--
Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door.
(POE: _The Raven._ 1845.)
Night, in utmost noon forlorn and strong, with heart athirst and
fasting,
Hungers here, barred up forever, whence as one whom dreams affright,
Day recoils before the low-browed lintel threatening doom and
casting Night.
(SWINBURNE: _Night in Guernsey._)
In the last line of this specimen we have a nine-accent verse,--very
rare in English poetry.
The tendency of all eight-accent lines being to break up into halves of
four accents, the distinction between four-stress and eight-stress verse
may be at times only a question of printing. Thus, Thackeray's _Sorrows
of Werther_ might be regarded as eight-stress trochaic, though commonly
printed in short lines:
"Werther had a love for Charlotte
Such as words could never utter.
Would you know how first he saw her?
She was cutting bread and butter."
_Eight-stress anapestic._
Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and the splendor
of winter had passed out of sight,
The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that
fulfil us in sleep with delight;
The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and
branches that glittered and swayed
Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow, or of frost that
out-lightens all flowers till it fade,
That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night
than the day, nor the day than the night,
Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had
the madness and might in thee made,
March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that
enkindle the season they smite.
(SWINBURNE: _March._)
_Eight-stress dactylic._
Onward and onward the highway runs to the distant city, impatiently
bearing
Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of hate, of doing
and daring.
(LONGFELLOW: _Golden Legend_, iv. 1851.)
The breathlessly continuous character of such long anapestic or
dactylic lines may of course be interrupted, by way of relief, by the
substitution of iambi or trochees. In the specimen from Swinburne such a
resting-place is found in line 3, where a light syllable is omitted
after _winds_. In the specimen from Longfellow the words _high-way_,
_distant_, _human_, of course, fill the places of complete dactyls.
COMBINATIONS AND SUBSTITUTIONS
i. _Verses in which different sorts of feet are more or less regularly
combined_.
In the morning, O so early, my beloved, my beloved,
All the birds were singing blithely, as if never they would cease:
'Twas a thrush sang in my garden, "Hear the story, hear the story!"
And the lark sang "Give us glory!" and the dove said "Give us peace."
(JEAN INGELOW: _Give us Love and Give us Peace._)
Fair is our lot--O goodly is our heritage!
(Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!)
For the Lord our God Most High
He hath made the deep as dry,
He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the Earth!
(KIPLING: _A Song of the English._)
In both these specimens the full accent regularly recurs in only the
alternate feet. Thus while the first specimen is technically
eight-stress trochaic, there are in the normal reading of it only four
full accents to the line. In other words the first, third, fifth, and
seventh feet are regularly pyrrhics. (See p. 55.) The same thing appears
in the specimen from Kipling: _ye_, _and_, _in_ (in line 2) are accented
only in a distinctly secondary fashion. Some have suggested, for such
rhythms as these, the recognition of a foot made up of one stressed and
three unstressed syllables. Lanier represents such measures (in _The
Science of English Verse_) in four-eight time.
Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go.
(BROWNING: _Prospice._)
Here the tendency is to use iambi and anapests in alternate feet; see
especially lines 2, 3, and 5.
All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist;
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
Enough that He heard it once: we shall hear it by-and-by.
(BROWNING: _Abt Vogler._)
Here we have a hexameter which is neither iambic nor anapestic, but a
combination of the two rhythms. So in the following specimens
dissyllabic and trisyllabic feet are used interchangeably.
When the lamp is shatter'd
The light in the dust lies dead--
When the cloud is scatter'd
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remember'd not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.
(SHELLEY: _The Flight of Love._)
The sea is at ebb, and the sound of her utmost word
Is soft at the least wave's lapse in a still small reach.
From bay unto bay, on quest of a goal deferred,
From headland ever to headland and breach to breach,
Where earth gives ear to the message that all days preach.
(SWINBURNE: _The Seaboard._)
England, none that is born thy son, and lives, by grace of thy
glory, free,
Lives and yearns not at heart and burns with hope to serve as he
worships thee;
None may sing thee: the sea-bird's wing beats down our songs as it
hails the sea.
(SWINBURNE: _The Armada_, vii.)
This life of ours is a wild 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.)
The characteristic irregularity in this stanza is the variation from
trochaic to iambic rhythm. In this case the variations are in part due,
no doubt, to the fact that the words were written for music.
Maud with her exquisite face,
And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky,
And feet like sunny gems on an English green,
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace,
Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot die,
Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean
And myself so languid and base.
(TENNYSON: _Maud_, I. v.)
In this specimen the characteristic rhythm of lines 1, 4, and 5 is
dactylic, that of the remainder anapestic-iambic.
The trumpet's loud clangor
Excites us to arms
With shrill notes of anger
And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
Of the thundering drum
Cries, hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat.
The soft complaining flute
In dying notes discovers
The woes of helpless lovers,
Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute.
(DRYDEN: _Song for St. Cecilia's Day_, 1687.)
In this famous stanza the rhythm changes for obvious purposes of
imitative representation.
Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me,
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.
She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea;
She said, "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray
In the little gray church on the shore to-day.
'Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee."
I said, "Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!"
She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?
... Down, down, down!
Down to the depths of the sea!
She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.
Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,
For the humming street, and the child with its toy!
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;
For the wheel where I spun,
And the blessed light of the sun!"
And so she sings her fill,
Singing most joyfully,
Till the spindle drops from her hand,
And the whizzing wheel stands still.
She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,
And over the sand at the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh,
For the cold strange eyes of a little mermaiden,
And the gleam of her golden hair.
(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _The Forsaken Merman._)
Then the music touch'd the gates and died;
Rose again from where it seem'd to fail,
Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale;
Till thronging in and in, to where they waited,
As 'twere a hundred-throated nightingale,
The strong tempestuous treble throbbed and palpitated;
Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound,
Caught the sparkles, and in circles,
Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes,
Flung the torrent rainbow round:
Then they started from their places,
Moved with violence, changed in hue,
Caught each other with wild grimaces,
Half-invisible to the view,
Wheeling with precipitate paces
To the melody, till they flew,
Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces,
Twisted hard in fierce embraces,
Like to Furies, like to Graces,
Dash'd together in blinding dew.
(TENNYSON: _Vision of Sin._)
ii. _Verses in which individual feet are altered from the metrical
scheme._
Even in metre exhibiting no marked irregularities, it is of course
rather exceptional than otherwise to find all the feet in a verse
conforming to the type-foot of the metre. Departures from the typical
metre may be conveniently classified in five groups: Deficiency in
accent; excess of accent; inversion of accent; light syllable added to
dissyllabic foot; light syllable omitted in trisyllabic foot.
Deficiency of accent is the most common of all the variations, if we
understand by "accent" such syllabic stress as would be ordinarily
appreciable in the reading of the word in question. It would be safe to
say that in English five-stress iambic verse, read with only the
ordinary etymological and rhetorical accents, twenty-five per cent of
the verses lack the full five stresses characteristic of the type. In
many cases, too, a foot with deficiency in stress is compensated for by
another foot in the same verse showing excess of stress. Feet thus
deficient in stress may conveniently be called _pyrrhics_, the pyrrhic
being understood as made up of two unstressed syllables. This term has
never become fully domesticated in English prosody, and some object to
its use on the ground that we have no feet wholly without stress. Its
use in the sense just indicated, however, seems to be an unquestionable
convenience.
Excess of accent, while less common than deficiency of accent, is even
more easily recognizable. The foot containing two stressed syllables,
even though one of the stresses may be distinctly stronger than the
other, may conveniently be called a _spondee_.
Inversion of accent is exceedingly familiar, especially at the beginning
of the verse and after the medial pause. It consists, technically
speaking, in the substitution of a trochee for an iambus or an iambus
for a trochee (the latter very rarely).
A light syllable inserted in dissyllabic measure is not unusual, though
by no means so common as the variations previously enumerated. Such a
syllable is frequently spoken of as "hypermetrical"; or, the variation
may be considered as the substitution of an anapest for an iambus, in
iambic measure, or the substitution of a dactyl for a trochee, in
trochaic measure.
The omission of one of the two light syllables from the foot in
trisyllabic verse is so common as to make it difficult to find pure
anapestic or dactylic verse in English. This fact is due in part to
preference for dissyllabic measures, and in part to the usual
indifference, in all Germanic verse, to accuracy in the number of light
syllables. The variation may frequently be regarded as involving a
prolongation of the light syllable of the foot, or a pause equal to the
time of the omitted syllable; technically speaking, it consists in the
substitution of an iambus for an anapest, or a trochee for a dactyl.
Examples of all these variations may best be found in the specimens of
verse included in the preceding pages. A few specimens of detail are
added here, for the sake of greater clearness.
_Deficiency in accent (substituted pyrrhic)._
To further this, Achit_ophel_ unites
The malcontents of all the Israelites,
Whose differing par_ties he_ could wisely join
For several ends to serve the same design;
The best (_and of_ the princes some were such)
Who thought the power of mon_archy_ too much;
Mistaken men and patr_iots in_ their hearts,
Not wick_ed, but_ seduced by impious arts;
By these the springs of prop_erty_ were bent,
And wound so high they crack'd the gov_ernment_.
(DRYDEN: _Absalom and Achitophel_, I.)
_Excess of accent (substituted spondee)._
And ten _low words_ oft creep in one _dull line_.
(POPE: _Essay on Criticism._)
_Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens_, and shades of death.
(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, II. 621.)
_See, see_ where Christ's _blood streams_ in the firmament!
(MARLOWE: _Faustus_, sc. xvi.)
O great, _just, good God! Mis_erable me!
(BROWNING: _The Ring and the Book_, VI.)
A tree's _head snaps_--and there, _there, there, there, there_!
(BROWNING: _Caliban upon Setebos._)
_Inversion of accent (substituted trochee)._
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
_Gorged with_ the dearest morsel of the earth.
(SHAKSPERE: _Romeo and Juliet_, V. iii. 45 f.)
Finds tongues in trees, _books in_ the running brooks,
_Sermons_ in stones, and good in every thing.
(_As You Like It_, II. i. 16 f.)
The watery kingdom whose ambitious head
_Spits in_ the face of heaven.
(_Merchant of Venice_, II. vii. 44 f.)
Long lines of cliff _breaking_ have left a chasm.
(TENNYSON: _Enoch Arden._)
There whirled her white robe like a blossomed branch
_Rapt to_ the horrible fall: a glance I gave,
No more; but woman-vested as I was
_Plunged; and_ the flood _drew; yet_ I caught her; then
_Oaring_ one arm,...
(TENNYSON: _The Princess._)
_Stabbed through_ the heart's affections to the heart!
_Seethed like_ a kid in its own mother's milk!
_Killed with_ a word worse than a life of blows!
(TENNYSON: _Merlin and Vivien._)
He flowed
_Right for_ the polar star, past Orgunje,
_Brimming_, and bright, and large; then sands begin,...
(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _Sohrab and Rustum._)
_Hypermetrical syllable (substituted anapest)._
_Let me see, let me see_, is not the leaf turn'd down?
(SHAKSPERE: _Julius Cæsar_, IV. iii. 271.)
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hug_est that swim_ the ocean stream.
(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, I. 201 f.)
This passage was one of those where Bentley made himself ridiculous in
his edition of Milton. "To smooth it" he changed the lines to read--
"Leviathan, whom God the vastest made
Of all the kinds that swim the ocean stream,"--
not perceiving, what Cowper pointed out, that Milton had designedly used
"the word _hugest_ where it may have the clumsiest effect....
Smoothness was not the thing to be consulted when the Leviathan was in
question."
So he with diff_iculty_ and labour hard
Moved on, with diff_iculty_ and labour he.
(_ib._ II. 1021 f.)
The sweep
Of some precip_itous rivulet to_ the wave.
(TENNYSON: _Enoch Arden._)
The sound of many a heav_ily galloping_ hoof.
(TENNYSON: _Geraint and Enid._)
I wish that somewhere in the ruin'd folds,...
Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her
_The Abominable_, that uninvited came.
(TENNYSON: _[OE]none._)
_Do you see_ this square old yellow book I toss
_I' the air_, and catch again, and twirl about
_By the crumpl_ed vellum covers; pure crude fact--
(BROWNING: _The Ring and the Book_, I.)
That plant
Shall never wave its tangles light_ly and soft_ly
As a queen's languid and imperial arm.
(BROWNING: _Paracelsus_, I.)
A distinction should be made between these hypermetrical syllables which
change the character of the foot from dissyllabic to trisyllabic, and
syllables (in a sense hypermetrical) which are slurred or elided in the
reading. The word _radiance_, for example, is regarded as trisyllabic in
prose, but in the verse--
"Girt with omnipotence, with radiance crowned,"
it is made dissyllabic by instinctive compression, and in no proper
sense makes an anapest of the fifth foot. Of the same character are the
numerous cases where a vowel is elided before another vowel--especially
the vowel of the article _the_.[7] On the elisions of Milton's verse,
see Mr. Robert Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_; on those of Shakspere's
verse, see Abbott's _Shakespearian Grammar_. In modern verse the use of
elision and slurring is ordinarily that found in common speech.
_Omitted syllable (substituted iambus)._
As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean,
that none but a god _might see_,
_Rose out_ of the silence _of things unknown_
of a presence, a form, _a might_,
And we heard as a prophet that hears _God's mes_sage
against him, and may _not flee_.
(SWINBURNE: _Death of Richard Wagner._)
See also specimens on pp. 42, 43, 48, above.
Mr. Mayor considers the question as to how far substitution of other
than the typical foot may be carried in a verse, without destroying the
genuineness of the fundamental rhythm. His conclusions are these:
(1) The limit of trochaic substitution is three feet out of five, with
the final foot iambic; or two out of five, if the fifth foot is
inverted.
(2) A spondee is allowable in any position; the limit is four out of
five, with either the fourth or fifth foot remaining iambic.
(3) A pyrrhic may occur in any position; the limit is three out of five,
with the other feet preferably spondees.
(4) The limit for trisyllabic substitution is three out of five.
(_Chapters on English Metre_, chap. V.)
Professor Corson discusses the æsthetic effect of these changes from the
typical metre: "The true metrical artist ... never indulges in variety
for variety's sake.... All metrical effects are to a great extent
_relative_--and relativity of effect depends, of course, upon having a
standard in the mind or feelings.... Now the more closely the poet
adheres to his standard--to the even tenor (modulus) of his verse--so
long as there is no logical nor æsthetic motive for departing from it,
the more effective do his departures become when they are sufficiently
motived. All non-significant departures weaken the significant ones....
The normal tenor of the verse is presumed to represent the normal tenor
of the feeling which produces it. And departures from that normal tenor
represent, or should represent, variations in the normal tenor of the
feeling. Outside of the general law ... of the slurring or suppression
of extra light syllables, which do not go for anything in the
expression, an exceptional foot must result in emphasis, whether
intended or not, either logical or emotional.... A great poet is
presumed to have metrical skill; and where ripples occur in the stream
of his verse, they will generally be found to justify themselves as
organic; _i.e._ they are a part of the expression."
(_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 48-50.)
On the æsthetic symbolism of various metrical movements, see G. L.
Raymond's _Poetry as a Representative Art_, pp. 113 ff.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] The names of the several kinds of feet are of course borrowed from
classical prosody, where they are used to mark feet made up not of
accented and unaccented, but of long and short syllables. The different
significance of the terms as applied to the verse of different languages
has given rise to some confusion, and it is proposed by some to abandon
the classical terms; their use, however, seems to be too well
established in English to permit of change. Some would even abandon the
attempt to measure English verse by feet, contending that its rhythm is
too free to admit of any such measuring process; thus, see Mr. J. M.
Robertson, in the Appendix to _New Essays toward a Critical Method_, and
Mr. J. A. Symonds in his _Blank Verse_. See also in Mr. Robert Bridges's
_Milton's Prosody_, Appendix G "On the Use of Greek Terminology in
English Prosody." (1901 ed. p. 77.)
[7] On the historical problem of the distinction between elided and
genuinely hypermetrical syllables in the French and English decasyllabic
verse, see Motheré: _Les théories du vers héroique anglais et ses
relations avec la versification française_ (Havre, 1886).
III. THE STANZA
The stanza, or strophe, is the largest unit of verse-measure ordinarily
recognized. It is based not so much on rhythmical divisions as on
periods either rhetorical or melodic; that is, a short stanza will
roughly correspond to the period of a sentence, and a long one to that
of a paragraph, while in lyrical verse the original idea was to conform
the stanza to the melody for which it was written. Thus Schipper
observes: "The word strophe properly signifies a _turning_, and
originally indicated the return of the song, as sung, to the melody with
which it began." Schipper defines a stanza as a group of verses of a
certain number, so combined that all the stanzas of the same poem will
be identical in the number, the length, and the metre of the
corresponding verses; in rimed verse, also, the arrangement of the rimes
will be identical. (See _Grundriss_, p. 268.)
The form of a stanza, then, is determined and described (the fundamental
metre being assumed) by the number of verses, the length of verses, and
the arrangement of rimes. The usual and convenient method of indicating
these conditions is to represent all the verses that rime together by
the same letter, while the number of feet in the verse is written like
an algebraic exponent. Thus a quatrain in "common metre" (four-stress
and three-stress lines), riming alternately, is represented by the
formula _a^{4}b^{3}a^{4}b^{3}_.
* * * * *
The appearance of the stanza in English verse is always the sign of
foreign influence. The West Germanic verse, as far back as we have
specimens of it, is uniformly _stichic_ (that is, marked by no periods
save those of the individual verse), not _stanzaic_.[8] On the other
hand, we find the stanza in the Old Norse verse. Sievers's view is that
originally the two sorts of verse existed side by side, the stanzaic
being preferred for chorus delivery, the stichic for individual
recitation; one form at length crowding out the other.
The great organizer of the stanza is, of course, the element of rime.
While unrimed stanzas are familiar in classical verse, the two
innovations, rime and stanza, were introduced together into English
verse, under both Latin and French influences, and have almost
invariably been associated. For notes on the history of the beginnings
of stanza-forms in English, see therefore under Rime, in the following
section.
TERCETS
Truth may seem, but cannot be;
Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
(SHAKSPERE: _The Ph[oe]nix and the Turtle._ 1601.)
O praise the Lord, his wonders tell,
Whose mercy shines in Israel,
At length redeem'd from sin and hell.
(GEORGE SANDYS: _Paraphrase upon Luke i._ ab. 1630.)
Love, making all things else his foes,
Like a fierce torrent overflows
Whatever doth his course oppose.
(SIR JNO. DENHAM: _Against Love._ ab. 1640.)
Children, keep up that harmless play:
Your kindred angels plainly say
By God's authority ye may.
(LANDOR: _Children Playing in a Churchyard._ 1858.)
Whoe'er she be,
That not impossible She
That shall command my heart and me;
Where'er she lie,
Lock'd up from mortal eye
In shady leaves of destiny:...
--Meet you her, my Wishes,
Bespeak her to my blisses,
And be ye call'd, my absent kisses.
(CRASHAW: _Wishes for the Supposed Mistress._ 1646.)
I said, "I toil beneath the curse,
But, knowing not the universe,
I fear to slide from bad to worse.
"And that, in seeking to undo
One riddle, and to find the true,
I knit a hundred others new."
(TENNYSON: _The Two Voices._ 1833.)
Like the swell of some sweet tune,
Morning rises into noon,
May glides onward into June.
(LONGFELLOW: _Maidenhood._ 1842.)
Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.
(HERRICK: _To Julia._ 1648)
The fear was on the cattle, for the gale was on the sea,
An' the pens broke up on the lower deck an' let the creatures free--
An' the lights went out on the lower deck, an' no one down but me.
(KIPLING: _Mulholland's Contract._)
_Terza rima_ (_aba_, _bcb_, etc.).
A spending hand that alway poureth out
Had need to have a bringer in as fast;
And on the stone that still doth turn about
There groweth no moss. These proverbs yet do last:
Reason hath set them in so sure a place,
That length of years their force can never waste.
When I remember this, and eke the case
Wherein thou stand'st, I thought forthwith to write,
Bryan, to thee. Who knows how great a grace,...
(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _How to use the court and himself therein, written to
Sir Francis Bryan._ ab. 1542.)
The _terza rima_ is, strictly speaking, a scheme of continuous verse
rather than a stanza, each tercet being united by the rime-scheme to the
preceding. Its use in English has always been slight, and always due to
conscious imitation of the Italian. No successful attempt has been made
to use it for a long poem, as Dante did in the _Divina Commedia_.
Wyatt's specimen is the earliest in English; he chose the form for his
three satires imitating those of Alamanni.
Once, O sweet once, I saw with dread oppressed
Her whom I dread; so that with prostrate lying
Her length the earth Love's chiefe clothing dressed.
I saw that riches fall, and fell a crying:--
Let not dead earth enjoy so deare a cover,
But decke therewith my soule for your sake dying;
Lay all your feare upon your fearfull lover:
Shine, eyes, on me, that both our lives be guarded:
So I your sight, you shall your selves recover.
(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Thyrsis and Dorus_, in the _Countess of Pembroke's
Arcadia_. ab. 1580.)
Why do the Gentiles tumult, and the nations
Muse a vain thing, the kings of earth upstand
With power, and princes in their congregations
Lay deep their plots together through each land
Against the Lord and his Messiah dear?
"Let us break off," say they, "by strength of hand
Their bonds, and cast from us, no more to wear,
Their twisted cords." He who in Heaven doth dwell
Shall laugh.
(MILTON: _Psalm II._ 1653.)
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odors plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, oh hear!
(SHELLEY: _Ode to the West Wind._ 1819.)
In this case the tercets are united in groups of three to form a strophe
of fourteen lines together with a final couplet riming with the middle
line of the preceding tercet.
The true has no value beyond the sham:
As well the counter as coin, I submit,
When your table's a hat, and your prize a dram.
Stake your counter as boldly every whit,
Venture as warily, use the same skill,
Do your best, whether winning or losing it,
If you choose to play!--is my principle.
Let a man contend to the uttermost
For his life's set prize, be it what it will!
(BROWNING: _The Statue and the Bust._ 1855.)
The effort to translate Dante in the original metre is especially
interesting, and marked by great difficulties; to furnish the necessary
rimes, without introducing expletive words that mar the simplicity of
the original, being a serious problem. The following are interesting
specimens of translations where this problem is grappled with; the first
is a well-known fragment, the second a portion of a still unpublished
translation of the _Inferno_, reproduced here by the courtesy of the
author.
Then she to me: "The greatest of all woes
Is to remind us of our happy days
In misery, and that thy teacher knows.
But if to learn our passion's first root preys
Upon thy spirit with such sympathy,
I will do even as he who weeps and says.
We read one day for pastime, seated nigh,
Of Lancelot, how love enchained him too.
We were alone, quite unsuspiciously.
But oft our eyes met, and our cheeks in hue
All o'er discolored by that reading were;
But one point only wholly us o'erthrew;
When we read the long-sighed-for smile of her,
To be thus kissed by such devoted lover,
He who from me can be divided ne'er
Kissed my mouth, trembling in the act all over.
Accursed was the book and he who wrote!
That day no further leaf did we uncover."
(BYRON: _Francesca of Rimini_, from Dante's _Inferno_, Canto V. 1820.)
"Wherefore for thee I think and deem it well
Thou follow me, and I will bring about
Thy passage thither where the eternal dwell.
There shalt thou hearken the despairing shout,
Shalt see the ancient spirits with woe opprest,
Who craving for the second death cry out.
Then shalt thou those behold who are at rest
Amid the flame, because their hopes aspire
To come, when it may be, among the blest.
If to ascend to these be thy desire,
Thereto shall be a soul of worthier strain;
Thee shall I leave with her when I retire:
Because the Emperor who there doth reign,
For I rebellious was to his decree,
Wills that his city none by me attain.
In all parts ruleth, and there reigneth he,--
There is his city and his lofty throne:
O happy they who thereto chosen be!"
(MELVILLE B. ANDERSON: _Dante's Inferno_, Canto i. ll. 112-129.)
QUATRAINS
_aaaa_
Suete iesu, king of blysse,
Myn huerte love, min huerte lisse,
Þou art suete myd ywisse,
Wo is him þat þe shal misse!
(Song from Harleian Ms. 2253--12th century, Böddeker's _Altenglische
Dichtungen_, p. 191.)
_aabb_
O Lord, that rul'st our mortal line,
How through the world Thy name doth shine;
Thou hast of Thy unmatched glory
Upon the heavens engrav'd Thy story.
(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Psalm viii._ ab. 1580.)
A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,
And closed them beneath the kisses of night.
(SHELLEY: _The Sensitive Plant._ 1820.)
_abcb_
In somer, when the shawes be sheyne,
And leves be large and long,
Hit is full mery in feyre foreste
To here the foulys song.
(Ballad of _Robin Hood and the Monk_. In Gummere's _English Ballads_, p.
77.)
This is the familiar stanza of the early ballads. The omission of rime
in the third line signalizes the fact that the stanza could be (and was)
regarded indifferently as made up either of two long lines or four short
ones. Thus the famous Chevy Chase ballad is found (Ashmole Ms., of about
1560) written in long lines:
"The yngglyshe men hade ther bowys ybent yer hartes wer good ynoughe
The first off arros that the shote off seven skore spear-men the
sloughe."
(See in Flügel's _Neuenglisches Lesebuch_, vol. i. p. 199.)
The same thing occurs also where there are two rimes to the stanza.
Originally, the extra internal rime was no doubt the cause of the
breaking up of the long couplet into two short lines. (See examples in
Part Two, in the case of the septenary.)
Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fair!
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu' o' care!
(BURNS: _Bonnie Doon._ ab. 1790.)
_abab_
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.
(From the Harleian Ms. 913. In Mätzner's _Altenglische Sprachproben_,
vol. i. p. 125.)
Furnivall prints this in long lines with internal rime, which of itself
seems to form the short-line stanza from the long lines.
Of al this world the wyde compas
Hit wol not in myn armes tweyne.--
Who-so mochel wol embrace
Litel thereof he shal distreyne.
(CHAUCER: _Proverb._ ab. 1380.)
When youth had led me half the race,
That Cupid's scourge me caus'd to run,
I looked back to meet the place
From whence my weary course begun.
(EARL OF SURREY: _Description of the restless state of a lover._ ab.
1545.)
Weep with me, all you that read
This little story;
And know, for whom a tear you shed
Death's self is sorry.
(BEN JONSON: _Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy._ 1616.)
And now the weary world's great medicine, Sleep,
This learned host dispensed to every guest,
Which shuts those wounds where injured lovers weep,
And flies oppressors to relieve the opprest.
(SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT: _Gondibert_, Bk. i. Canto 6. 1651)
Now like a maiden queen she will behold
From her high turrets hourly suitors come;
The East with incense and the West with gold
Will stand like suppliants to receive her doom.
(DRYDEN: _Annus Mirabilis_, stanza 297. 1667.)
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
(GRAY: _Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard._ 1751.)
To Davenant's _Gondibert_ is usually traced the use of this "heroic"
stanza (_abab_ in iambic five-stress lines) in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. In his preface the author said: "I believed it
would be more pleasant to the reader, in a work of length, to give this
respite or pause, between every stanza, ... than to run him out of
breath with continued couplets. Nor doth alternate rime by any lowliness
of cadence make the sound less heroic, but rather adapt it to a plain
and stately composing of music." Dryden followed Davenant in using the
stanza for his _Annus Mirabilis_, saying in his preface: "I have chosen
to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme,
because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both
for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us.... I
have always found the couplet verse most easy (though not so proper for
this occasion), for there the work is sooner at an end, every two lines
concluding the labor of the poet; but in quatrains he is to carry it
further on, and not only so, but to bear along in his head the
troublesome sense of four lines together." Dryden did not use the stanza
again, however, and it is obviously unsuited to a long narrative poem.
Saintsbury says: "With regard to the nobility and dignity of this
stanza, it may safely be said that _Annus Mirabilis_ itself, the best
poem ever written therein, killed it by exposing its faults.... It is
chargeable with more than the disjointedness of the couplet, without the
possibility of relief; while, on the other hand, the quatrains have not,
like the Spenserian stave or the _ottava rima_, sufficient bulk to form
units in themselves." (_Life of Dryden_, Men of Letters Series, p. 34.)
It is hard to say what Mr. Saintsbury means in speaking of the _Annus
Mirabilis_ as the best poem ever written in the heroic quatrain, when we
remember that it is the quatrain of Gray's _Elegy_. On the possible
sources of his use of it, see Gosse's _Life of Gray_, in the Men of
Letters Series, p. 98 (also his _From Shakespeare to Pope_, p. 140). Mr.
Gosse refers to the use of the quatrain by Sir John Davies in the _Nosce
Teipsum_ (1599), with which Gray was familiar, and (in addition to
Davenant, Dryden, and Hobbes's _Homer_) to the _Love Elegies_ of James
Hammond, published 1743. "It is believed that the printing of Hammond's
verses incited Gray to begin his _Churchyard Elegy_, and to make the
four-line stanza the basis of most of his harmonies.... The measure
itself, from first to last, is an attempt to render in English the
solemn alternation of passion and reserve, the interchange of imploring
and desponding tones, that is found in the Latin elegiac; and Gray gave
his poem, when he first published it, an outward resemblance to the text
of Tibullus by printing it without any stanzaic pauses." Mr. Gosse
neglects the elegies of William Shenstone, which were also in the
quatrain, and some of which had apparently been published before the
_Churchyard Elegy_. On this matter see Beers's _Romanticism in the
Eighteenth Century_, p. 137, where Shenstone is said to have borrowed
the stanza from Hammond, and Gray from Shenstone. Shenstone, in his
_Prefatory Essay on Elegy_, defended the metrical form and referred to
the elegies of Hammond. "Heroic metre, with alternate rhyme, seems well
enough adapted to this species of poetry; and, however exceptionable
upon other occasions, its inconveniencies appear to lose their weight in
shorter elegies, and its advantages seem to acquire an additional
importance. The world has an admirable example of its beauty in a
collection of elegies not long since published." (Chalmers's _English
Poets_, vol. xiii. p. 264.)
For there was Milton like a seraph strong,
Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild;
And there the world-worn Dante grasped his song,
And somewhat grimly smiled.
(TENNYSON: _The Palace of Art._ 1833.)
_abba_
Yet those lips, so sweetly swelling,
Do invite a stealing Kiss.
Now will I but venture this;
Who will read, must first learn spelling.
(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Astrophel and Stella_, Song ii. ab. 1580.)
Let the bird of loudest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.
(SHAKSPERE: _The Ph[oe]nix and the Turtle_, 1601.)
Though beauty be the mark of praise,
And yours of whom I sing, be such
As not the world can praise too much,
Yet is't your virtue now I raise.
(BEN JONSON: _Elegy_, in _Underwoods_. 1616.)
Lord, in thine anger do not reprehend me,
Nor in thy hot displeasure me correct;
Pity me, Lord, for I am much deject,
And very weak and faint; heal and amend me.
(MILTON: _Psalm vi._ 1653.)
Away, those cloudy looks, that lab'ring sigh,
The peevish offspring of a sickly hour!
Nor meanly thus complain of fortune's power,
When the blind gamester throws a luckless die.
(COLERIDGE: _To a Friend._ ab. 1795.)
Twelve struck. That sound, by dwindling years
Heard in each hour, crept off; and then
The ruffled silence spread again,
Like water that a pebble stirs.
(ROSSETTI: _My Sister's Sleep._ 1850.)
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
(TENNYSON: _In Memoriam_, xxvii. 1850.)
Sweet after showers, ambrosial air,
That rollest from the gorgeous gloom
Of evening over brake and bloom
And meadow, slowly breathing bare
The round of space, and rapt below
Thro' all the dewy-tasselled wood,
And shadowing down the horned flood
In ripples, fan my brows and blow
The fever from my cheek, and sigh
The full new life that feeds thy breath
Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death,
Ill brethren, let the fancy fly
From belt to belt of crimson seas
On leagues of odor streaming far,
To where in yonder orient star
A hundred spirits whisper "Peace."
(TENNYSON: _ibid._, lxxxiv.)
This stanza (_abba_ in four-stress iambics) is commonly known as the
"_In Memoriam_ stanza," from its familiar use by Tennyson. Tennyson is
indeed said to have invented it for his own use, not knowing of its
earlier appearance in the works of Jonson and Rossetti. Professor Corson
has an interesting passage on the poetic quality of the stanza: "By the
rhyme-scheme of the quatrain, the terminal rhyme-emphasis of the stanza
is reduced, the second and third verses being most closely braced by the
rhyme. The stanza is thus admirably adapted to that sweet continuity of
flow, free from abrupt checks, demanded by the spiritualized sorrow
which it bears along. Alternate rhyme would have wrought an entire
change in the tone of the poem. To be assured of this, one should read,
aloud of course, all the stanzas whose first and second, or third and
fourth, verses admit of being transposed without affecting the sense. By
such transposition, the rhymes are made alternate, and the concluding
rhymes more emphatic." Compare the stanza quoted above from section
xxvii. with the transposed form:
"I feel it when I sorrow most;
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."
On the passage quoted from section lxxxiv. Professor Corson also
observes: "The four stanzas of which it is composed constitute but one
period, the sense being suspended till the close. The rhyme-emphasis is
so distributed that any one, hearing the poem read, would hardly be
sensible of any of the slightest checks in the continuous and even
movement of the verse.... There is no other section of _In Memoriam_ in
which the artistic motive of the stanza is so evident." (_Primer of
English Verse_, pp. 70-77.)
_aaba_
Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes entendeth,
Which now my breast, surcharg'd, to music lendeth!
To you, to you, all song of praise is due,
Only in you my song begins and endeth.
(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Astrophel and Stella._ Song i, ab. 1580.)
Here the third line (the same in all the stanzas) has an additional
internal rime.
Oh, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the dust descend;
Dust into dust, and under dust, to lie,
Sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and--sans end!
(EDW. FITZGERALD: _Paraphrase of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam._ 1859.)
For groves of pine on either hand,
To break the blast of winter, stand;
And further on, the hoary Channel
Tumbles a billow on chalk and sand.
(Tennyson: _To the Rev. F. D. Maurice._ 1854.)
This delightful stanza (used also by Tennyson in _The Daisy_) seems to
be an imitation of the well-known Alcaic stanza of Horace:
"Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum
Soracte, nec jam sustineant onus
Silvae laborantes, geluque
Flumina constiterint acuto."
Ah, yet would God this flesh of mine might be
Where air would wash and long leaves cover me,
Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers,
Or where the wind's feet shine along the sea.
(SWINBURNE: _Laus Veneris._)
REFRAIN STANZAS
In this group of refrain stanzas there is no attempt to make the range
of illustrations complete, but only to suggest how the refrain idea has
been variously used in forming the structure of the stanza. In some
cases, for example, it will be seen that the refrain is a mere appendage
or _coda_ to the stanza; in others it is made by rime a part of the
organized structure.
Blow, northerne wynd,
Sent þou my suetyng!
Blow, norþern wynd,
Blou! blou! blou!
(Song from Harleian Ms. 2253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p.
168.)
I that in heill wes and glaidness,
Am trublit now with gret seikness,
And feblit with infirmitie;
_Timor Mortis conturbat me._
(WILLIAM DUNBAR: _Lament for the Makaris._ ab. 1500.)
Now Simmer blinks on flowery braes,
And o'er the crystal streamlets plays;
Come, let us spend the lightsome days
In the birks of Aberfeldy.
(BURNS: _The Birks of Aberfeldy._ 1787.)
I wish I were where Helen lies;
Night and day on me she cries;
O that I were where Helen lies
On fair Kirconnell lea!
(_Fair Helen_; old ballad.)
O sing unto my roundelay,
O drop the briny tear with me,
Dance no more at holy-day,
Like a running river be.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow tree.
(CHATTERTON: Minstrel's Roundelay from _Ælla_. ab. 1770.)
The twentieth year is well-nigh past,
Since first our sky was overcast;
Ah, would that this might be the last!
My Mary!
(COWPER: _My Mary._ 1793.)
Duncan Gray cam' here to woo--
Ha, ha, the wooing o't!
On blithe Yule night, when we were fou--
Ha, ha, the wooing o't!
Maggie coost her head fu' heigh,
Looked asklent and unco skeigh,
Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh;
Ha, ha, the wooing o't!
(BURNS: _Duncan Gray._ ab. 1790.)
My heart is wasted with my woe,
Oriana.
There is no rest for me below,
Oriana.
When the long dun wolds are ribb'd with snow,
And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow,
Oriana,
Alone I wander to and fro,
Oriana.
(TENNYSON: _Ballad of Oriana._ ab. 1830.)
Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,
(Toll slowly)
And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness--
Round our restlessness His rest.
(ELIZABETH B. BROWNING: _Rhyme of the Duchess May._ ab. 1845.)
"Ah! what white thing at the door has cross'd,
Sister Helen?
Ah! what is this that sighs in the frost?"
"A soul that's lost as mine is lost,
Little brother!"
(O Mother, Mary Mother,
Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven!)
(ROSSETTI: _Sister Helen._ 1870.)
Laetabundus
Exultet fidelis chorus,
Alleluia!
Egidio psallat coetus
Iste laetus,
Alleluia!
(ST. BERNARD: _De Nativitate Domini._)
Sermone Marcus Tullius,
Fortuna Cesar Julius
Tibi non equantur.
Tibi summa prudentia,
Prefulgens et potentia
Celesti dono dantur.
(From a 12th c. MS.: _Regulae de Rhythmis._ In Schipper's _Englische
Metrik_, vol. i. p. 354.)
Quant li solleiz conviset en leon
En icel tens qu'est ortus pliadon
Perunt matin,
Une pulcellet odit molt gent plorer
Et son ami dolcement regreter,
Ex si lli dis.
(Early French version of the _Song of Songs_, quoted in LEWIS's _Foreign
Sources of Modern English Versification_, p. 89.)
The special form of refrain stanza appearing in the first of these
foreign specimens (the Alleluia hymn form) is generally thought to have
been the source of the "tail-rime stanza" illustrated in the other two
specimens, and in the several pages which follow. The characteristic
feature of this stanza is the presence of two short lines riming
together and serving as "tails" to the first and second parts of the
body of the stanza. The same name appears in all the languages: "versus
caudati" in the mediæval Latin, "rime couée" in the French, and
"Schweifreim" in modern German. It is easy to see, what the following
specimens illustrate, how stanzas constructed on this fundamental
principle might be varied greatly in particular forms, according to the
number, length, and rime-arrangement of the longer lines.
Men may merci have, traytour not to save, for luf ne for awe,
Atteynt of traytorie, suld haf no mercie, 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._)
Manning's chronicle was a translation of the French chronicle of Pierre
de Langtoft. Although the translator designed to avoid the various
complicated measures used in the original, and kept pretty closely to
alexandrines (see p. 254, below), in the passages here represented he
followed the tail-rime of the original. In the first case the stanza
form is not represented in the manuscript, though of course implicit in
the rimes. The name of the stanza, "rime couée," appears very early in
Manning's Prologue, in the famous passage in which he expressed his
preference for metrical simplicity:
Als 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.
(Hearne ed., vol. i. pp. xcix, c.)
Lines 15-22 may be paraphrased thus: "If it were made in _rime couée_,
in _rime strangere_, or _rime entrelacée_, there are plenty of those who
read English who could not have put the tail-verses together; so that
either in the tail-verse or the _baston_ some would have been confused,
and many men that heard it would not know how it went." The "interlaced"
(alternate) rime was a familiar form. _Baston_ seems usually to be an
equivalent for "stanza" or "stave." It seems uncertain whether by _rime
strangere_ Manning had in mind any particular form of stanza or
rime-arrangement.
Stand wel, moder, under rode,
Byholt 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.
(Song from Harleian MS. 3253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p.
206.)
Listeth, lordes, in good entent,
And I wol telle verrayment
Of mirthe and of solas;
Al of a knyght was fair and gent
In bataille and in tourneyment,
His name was sir Thopas ...
An elf-queen wol I love, y-wis,
For in this world no womman is
Worthy to be my make
In toune;
Alle othere wommen I forsake,
And to an elf-queen I me take
By dale and eek by doune!
(CHAUCER: _Sir Thopas_, from _Canterbury Tales_. ab. 1385.)
The tail-rime stanza had become a favorite for the metrical romances of
the fourteenth century; but Chaucer evidently saw its inappropriateness
for long narrative poems, and ridiculed it--with certain other elements
of the romances--in this _Rime of Sir Thopas_. The Host is made to
interrupt the story:
"'Myn eres aken of thy drasty speche;
Now swiche a rym the devel I beteche!
This may wel be rym dogerel', quod he."
My patent pardouns, ye may se,
Cum fra the Cane of Tartarei,
Weill seald with oster schellis;
Thocht ye have na contritioun,
Ye sall have full remissioun,
With help of buiks and bellis.
(SIR DAVID LINDSAY: _Ane Satyre of the Three Estates._ ab. 1540.)
Seinte Marie! levedi briht,
Moder thou art of muchel miht,
Quene in hevene of feire ble;
Gabriel to the he lihte,
Tho he brouhte al wid rihte
Then holi gost to lihten in the.
Godes word ful wel thou cnewe;
Ful mildeliche thereto thou bewe,
And saidest, "So it mote be!"
Thi thone was studevast ant trewe;
For the joye that to was newe,
Levedi, thou have merci of me!
(_Quinque Gaudia._ In Mätzner's _Altenglische Sprachproben_, vol. i. p.
51.)
Here the principle of the tail-rime is extended to four tail-verses. See
also the specimen on p. 111, below.
All, dear Nature's children sweet,
Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet,
Blessing their sense!
Not an angel of the air,
Bird melodious or bird fair,
Be absent hence.
(Song from _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, by Shakspere and Fletcher. pub.
1634.)
Fair stood the wind for France,
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance
Longer not tarry;
But put unto to the main,
At Caux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train,
Landed King Harry.
(DRAYTON: _Agincourt._ ab. 1600.)
I am a man of war and might,
And know thus much, that I can fight,
Whether I am i' th' wrong or right,
Devoutly.
No woman under heaven I fear,
New oaths I can exactly swear,
And forty healths my brains will bear
Most stoutly.
(SIR JOHN SUCKLING: _A Soldier._ ab. 1635.)
The stanzas that follow show various combinations and applications of
the same principle--the use of shorter verses in connection with longer.
A wayle whyte ase whalles bon,
A grein in golde þat goldly shon,
A tortle þat min herte is on,
In toune trewe;
Hire gladshipe nes never gon,
Whil y may glewe.
(Song from Harleian MS. 2253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p.
161.)
Of on that is so fayr and bri[gh]t,
_velut maris stella_,
Bri[gh]ter than the day is li[gh]t,
_parens et puella_;
Ic crie to the, thou se to me,
Levedy, preye thi sone for me,
_tam pia_,
That ic mote come to the
_Maria_.
(_Hymn to the Virgin_, from Egerton MS. 613. In Mätzner's _Altenglische
Sprachproben_, vol. i. p. 53.)
Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' e'en devotion!
(BURNS: _To a Louse on a Lady's Bonnet._ 1786.)
O goodly hand,
Wherein doth stand
My heart distract in pain;
Dear hand, alas!
In little space
My life thou dost restrain.
(SIR THOMAS WYATT: In Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets._ pub. 1557.)
Old Ocean's praise
Demands my lays;
A truly British theme I sing;
A theme so great,
I dare compete,
And join with Ocean, Ocean's king.
(EDWARD YOUNG: _Ocean, an Ode._ 1728.)
No more, no more
This worldly shore
Upbraids me with its loud uproar!
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Under the walls of Paradise!
(THOMAS BUCHANAN READ: _Drifting._ ab. 1850.)
In these stanzas a pair of long lines bind together the first and second
parts of the composition, just as the short lines do in the original
_rime couée_.
Young was and is universally condemned for choosing this form of stanza
for his odes. He was led to do so by his admiration for the passage in
Dryden's _Ode for St. Cecilia's Day_, running:
"Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres."
Here, said Young, Dryden was expressing "majesty"; hence, since he
wished his odes to be majestic, he used the short, choppy measure
throughout. (See his Introductory Essay to his Odes, in Chalmers's
_English Poets_, vol. xiii.) On the other hand, the stanza as used by
Read has been almost universally admired.
Hail, old Patrician Trees, so great and good!
Hail, ye Plebeian Underwood!
Where the poetic birds rejoice,
And for their quiet nests and plenteous food
Pay with their grateful voice.
(COWLEY: _Of Solitude._ ab. 1650.)
To-night this sunset spreads two golden wings
Cleaving the western sky;
Winged too with wind it is, and winnowings
Of birds; as if the day's last hour in rings
Of strenuous flight must die.
(ROSSETTI: _Sunset Wings._ 1881.)
Ye dainty Nymphs, that in this blessed brook
Do bathe your breast,
Forsake your watery bowers, and hither look
At my request:
And eke you Virgins that on Parnasse dwell,
Whence floweth Helicon, the learned well,
Help me to blaze
Her worthy praise,
Which in her sex doth all excel.
(SPENSER: _The Shepherd's Calendar, April._ 1579.)
You, that will a wonder know,
Go with me,
Two suns in a heaven of snow
Both burning be;
All they fire, that do but eye them,
But the snow's unmelted by them.
(CAREW: _In Praise of his Mistress._ ab. 1635.)
Go, lovely Rose!
Tell her, that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
(WALLER: _Go, lovely Rose._ ab. 1650.)
The use of short lines somewhat intricately introduced among longer
ones, is characteristic of the stanzas of the lyrical poets of the
first part of the seventeenth century. It may perhaps be traced in part
to the influence of Donne.
Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop.
(BROWNING: _Love among the Ruins._ 1855.)
Compare with this (although it is not divided into stanzas) Herrick's
_Thanksgiving to God_:
Lord, thou hast given me a cell
Wherein to dwell;
A little house, whose humble roof
Is weatherproof;
Under the spars of which I lie
Both soft and dry.
When God at first made Man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
Let us (said He) pour on him all we can:
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.
(GEORGE HERBERT: _The Gifts of God._ 1631.)
The following specimens illustrate various forms of stanzas
distinguished by arrangement of rime, without reference to the length of
lines:
_abccb_
In vain, through every changeful year
Did Nature lead him as before;
A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.
(WORDSWORTH: _Peter Bell._ 1798.)
_ababb_
Survival of the fittest, adaptation,
And all their other evolution terms,
Seem to omit one small consideration,
To wit, that tumblebugs and angleworms
Have souls: there's soul in everything that squirms.
(WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY: _The Menagerie._ 1901.)
_aabbb_
Mary mine that art Mary's Rose,
Come in to me from the garden-close.
The sun sinks fast with the rising dew,
And we marked not how the faint moon grew;
But the hidden stars are calling you.
(ROSSETTI: _Rose Mary._ 1881.)
_aabcdd_
Hail seint michel, with the lange sper!
Fair beth thi winges: up thi scholder
Thou hast a rede kirtil a non to thi fote.
Thou ert best angle that ever god makid.
This vers is ful wel i-wrog[gh]t;
Hit is of wel furre y-brog[gh]t.
(_Satire on the People of Kildare_, from Harleian Ms. 913, in Guest's
_English Rhythms_, Skeat ed., p. 616.)
_aaaabb_
What beauty would have lovely styled,
What manners pretty, nature mild,
What wonder perfect, all were filed
Upon record in this blest child.
And till the coming of the soul
To fetch the flesh, we keep the roll.
(BEN JONSON: _Epitaph; Underwoods, liii._ 1616.)
_ababab_
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies:
And all that's best of dark or bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
(BYRON: _She Walks in Beauty._ 1815.)
_ababcc_
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
(WORDSWORTH: _I wandered lonely as a cloud._ 1804.)
O, how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow!
Her eyes seen in her tears, tears in her eye;
Both crystals, where they view'd each other's sorrow,--
Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry;
But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,
Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.
(SHAKSPERE: _Venus and Adonis_, st. 161. 1593.)
_ababbcc_ ("_Rime royal_")
Humblest of herte, hyest of reverence,
Benigne flour, coroune of vertues alle,
Sheweth unto your rial excellence
Your servaunt, if I durste me so calle,
His mortal harm, in which he is y-falle,
And noght al only for his evel fare,
But for your renoun, as he shal declare.
(CHAUCER: _Compleynte unto Pite._ ab. 1370.)
And on the smale grene twistis sat
The lytil suete nyghtingale, and song
So loud and clere, the ympnis consecrat
Of luvis use, now soft now lowd among,
That all the gardynis and the wallis rong
Ryght of thaire song, and on the copill next
Of thaire suete armony, and lo the text.
(JAMES I. of Scotland: _The King's Quhair_, st. 33. ab. 1425.)
For men have marble, women waxen, minds,
And therefore are they form'd as marble will;
The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds
Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill:
Then call them not the authors of their ill,
No more than wax shall be accounted evil,
Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil.
(SHAKSPERE: _The Rape of Lucrece_, st. 178. 1594.)
In a far country that I cannot name,
And on a year long ages past away,
A King there dwelt in rest and ease and fame,
And richer than the Emperor is to-day:
The very thought of what this man might say
From dusk to dawn kept many a lord awake,
For fear of him did many a great man quake.
(WILLIAM MORRIS: _The Earthly Paradise; The Proud King._ 1868.)
The "rime royal" stanza is one of Chaucer's contributions to English
verse, and about 14,000 lines of his poetry are in this form. Its use by
King James in the _King's Quhair_ was formerly thought to be the source
of the name; but it seems more likely that the name, like the form, was
of French origin, and is to be connected with such terms as _chant
royal_ and _ballat royal_, familiar in the nomenclature of courtly
poetry (see Schipper, vol. i. p. 426). The stanza was used by Chaucer
with marvellous skill for purposes of continuous narrative, and was a
general favorite among his imitators in the fifteenth century, being
used by Lydgate, Occleve, Hawes, Dunbar, then by Skelton, and by Barclay
in the _Ship of Fooles_. It appears popular as late as the time of
Sackville's part of the _Mirror for Magistrates_ (1563).[9] Later than
Shakspere's _Rape of Lucrece_ it is rarely found. (But see Milton's
unfinished poem on _The Passion_, where he used a form of the rime royal
with concluding alexandrine.)
Strictly speaking, the "rime royal" is always in five-stress verse, but
in the following specimen the same rime-scheme appears in the irregular
six-or-seven-stress verse of one of the Mysteries.
The story sheweth further, that, after man was blyste,
The Lord did create woman owte of a ribbe of man,
Which woman was deceyvyd with the Serpentes darkned myste;
By whose synn ower nature is so weake no good we can;
Wherfor they were dejectyd and caste from thence than
Unto dolloure and myseri and to traveyle and payne,
Untyll Godes spryght renuid; and so we ende certayne.
(Prologue to Norwich Whitsun Play of the Creation and Fall. In Manly's
_Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama_, vol. i p. 5.)
_ababcca_
Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave
That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!
Let me sit all the day here, that when eve
Shall find performed thy special ministry,
And time come for departure, thou, suspending
Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending,
Another still, to quiet and retrieve.
(BROWNING: _The Guardian Angel._ 1855.)
_ababccb_
The City is of Night; perchance of Death,
But certainly of Night; for never there
Can come the lucid morning's fragrant breath
After the dewy dawning's cold grey air;
The moon and stars may shine with scorn or pity;
The sun has never visited that city,
For it dissolveth in the daylight fair.
(JAMES THOMSON: _The City of Dreadful Night._ 1874.)
_abababab_
Trew king, that sittes in trone,
Unto the I tell my tale,
And unto the I bid a bone,
For thou ert bute of all my bale:
Als thou made midelerd and the mone,
And bestes and fowles grete and smale.
Unto me send thi socore sone,
And dresce my dedes in this dale.
(LAURENCE MINOT: _Battle of Halidon Hill._ 1352.)
On Minot's lyrics see ten Brink's _History of English Literature_,
Kennedy translation, vol. i. p. 323.
_ababbaba_
Since love is such that as ye wot
Cannot always be wisely used,
I say, therefore, then blame me not,
Though I therein have been abused.
For as with cause I am accused,
Guilty I grant such was my lot;
And though it cannot be excused,
Yet let such folly be forgot.
(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _That the power of love excuseth the folly of
loving_, ab. 1550.)
_ababbcbc_
In a chirche 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.
(CHAUCER: _The Monk's Tale_, ll. 713-720. ab. 1375.)
This stanza is sometimes called the "_Monk's Tale_ stanza," from its use
by Chaucer in that single tale of the Canterbury group. Although it has
been little used by later poets, it may have given Spenser a suggestion
for his characteristic stanza (see below, p. 102).
Farewell! if ever fondest prayer
For other's weal availed on high,
Mine will not all be lost in air,
But waft thy name beyond the sky.
'Twere vain to speak, to weep, to sigh:
Oh! more than tears of blood can tell,
When rung from guilt's expiring eye,
Are in that word--Farewell!--Farewell!
(BYRON: _Farewell, if ever fondest prayer._ 1808.)
_ababccdd_
Will no one tell me what she sings?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again!
(WORDSWORTH: _The Solitary Reaper._ 1803.)
_abababcc_ (_ottava rima_)
She sat, and sewed, that hath done me the wrong
Whereof I plain, and have done many a day;
And, whilst she heard my plaint in piteous song,
She wished my heart the sampler, that it lay.
The blind master, whom I have served so long,
Grudging to hear that he did hear her say,
Made her own weapon do her finger bleed,
To feel if pricking were so good in deed.
(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _Of his love that pricked her finger with a needle_,
in Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets_. pub. 1557.)
This _ottava rima_ is a familiar Italian stanza made classic by Ariosto
and Tasso, and introduced into England by Wyatt, together with the
sonnet and other Italian forms. Professor Corson says, "Such a
rhyme-scheme, especially in the Italian, with its great similarity of
endings, is too 'monotonously iterative'; and the rhyming couplet at the
close seems, as James Russell Lowell expresses it, 'to put on the brakes
with a jar.'" (_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 89 f.)
O! who can lead, then, a more happie life
Than he that with cleane minde, and heart sincere,
No greedy riches knowes nor bloudie strife,
No deadly fight of warlick fleete doth feare;
Ne runs in perill of foes cruell knife,
That in the sacred temples he may reare
A trophee of his glittering spoyles and treasure,
Or may abound in riches above measure.
(SPENSER: _Virgil's Gnat_, ll. 121-128. 1591.)
For as with equal rage, and equal might,
Two adverse winds combat, with billows proud,
And neither yield (seas, skies maintain like fight,
Wave against wave oppos'd, and cloud to cloud);
So war both sides with obstinate despite,
With like revenge; and neither party bow'd:
Fronting each other with confounding blows,
No wound one sword unto the other owes.
(DANIEL: _History of the Civil War_, bk. vi. ab. 1600.)
Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals gray;
He touch'd the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the western bay:
At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue:
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
(MILTON: _Lycidas_; Epilogue. 1638.)
This is a single stave of the _ottava rima_, at the close of the varying
metrical forms of _Lycidas_. Professor Corson says: "The Elegy having
come to an end, the _ottava rima_ is employed, with an admirable
artistic effect, to mark off the Epilogue in which Milton ... speaks in
his own person."
They looked a manly, generous generation;
Beards, shoulders, eyebrows, broad, and square, and thick,
Their accents firm and loud in conversation,
Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp, and quick,
Showed them prepared, on proper provocation,
To give the lie, pull noses, stab and kick;
And for that very reason, it is said,
They were so very courteous and well-bred.
(JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE: _The Monks and the Giants._ 1817.)
With every morn their love grew tenderer,
With every eve deeper and tenderer still;
He might not in house, field, or garden stir,
But her full shape would all his seeing fill;
And his continual voice was pleasanter
To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill;
Her lute-string gave an echo of his name,
She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.
(KEATS: _Isabella._ 1820.)
As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow,
And wished that others held the same opinion;
They took it up when my days grew more mellow,
And other minds acknowledged my dominion:
Now my sere fancy "falls into the yellow
Leaf," and Imagination droops her pinion,
And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk
Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.
(BYRON: _Don Juan_, canto iv. st. 3. 1821.)
Of the _ottava rima_, as used by Frere and Byron, Austin Dobson says:
"It had already been used by Harrington, Drayton, Fairfax, and (as we
have seen) in later times by Gay; it had even been used by Frere's
contemporary, William Tennant; but to Frere belongs the honor of giving
it the special characteristics which Byron afterward popularised in
_Beppo_ and _Don Juan_. Structurally the _ottava rima_ of Frere
singularly resembles that of Byron, who admitted that _Whistlecraft_ was
his 'immediate model.' ... Byron, taking up the stanza with equal skill
and greater genius, filled it with the vigor of his personality, and
made it a measure of his own, which it has ever since been hazardous for
inferior poets to attempt." (Ward's _English Poets_, vol. iv. p. 240.)
Byron may indeed be said--in the words of the present specimen--to have
turned what was commonly a romantic stanza "to burlesque."
_aabaabbab_
O hie honour, sweit hevinlie flour degest,
Gem verteous, maist precious, gudliest.
For hie renoun thow art guerdoun conding,
Of worschip kend the glorious end and rest,
But quhome in richt na worthie wicht may lest.
Thy greit puissance may maist avance all thing,
And poverall to mekill availl sone bring.
I the require sen thow but peir art best,
That efter this in thy hie blis we ring.
(GAWAIN DOUGLAS: _The Palace of Honour._ ab. 1500.)
_ababcccdd_
My love is like unto th' eternal fire,
And I as those which therein do remain;
Whose grievous pains is but their great desire
To see the sight which they may not attain:
So in hell's heat myself I feel to be,
That am restrained by great extremity,
The sight of her which is so dear to me.
O! puissant love! and power of great avail!
By whom hell may be felt e'er death assail!
(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _Of the extreme torment endured by the unhappy
lover._ ab. 1550.)
_ababbcbcc_ ("_Spenserian stanza_")
By this the Northerne wagoner had set
His sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre
That was in Ocean waves yet never wet,
But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre
To all that in the wide deepe wandring arre;
And chearefull Chaunticlere with his note shrill
Had warned once, that Ph[oe]bus fiery carre
In hast was climbing up the Easterne hill,
Full envious that night so long his roome did fill.
(SPENSER: _The Faerie Queene_, bk. i. canto 2, st. 1. 1590.)
And more to lulle him in his slumber soft,
A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe,
And ever-drizling raine upon the loft,
Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne
Of swarming Bees, did cast him in a swowne.
No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes,
As still are wont t'annoy the walled towne,
Might there be heard; but carelesse Quiet lyes
Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes.
(SPENSER: _ib._ bk. i. canto 1, st. 41.)
This stanza, which Spenser invented for his own use and to which his
name is always given, was apparently formed by adding an alexandrine to
the _ababbcbc_ stanza of Chaucer. In it Spenser wrote the greater part
of his poetry, and its use marks the Spenserian influence wherever
found, especially among the poets of the eighteenth century,--Thomson,
Shenstone, Beattie, and the like.
James Russell Lowell, in his Essay on Spenser, comments as follows: "He
found the _ottava rima_ ... not roomy enough, so first ran it over into
another line, and then ran that added line over into an alexandrine, in
which the melody of one stanza seems forever longing and feeling forward
after that which is to follow.... Wave follows wave with equable
gainings and recessions, the one sliding back in fluent music to be
mingled with and carried forward by the next. In all this there is
soothingness, indeed, but no slumberous monotony; for Spenser was no
mere metrist, but a great composer. By the variety of his pauses--now at
the close of the first or second foot, now of the third, and again of
the fourth--he gives spirit and energy to a measure whose tendency it
certainly is to become languorous." (_Works_, vol. iv. pp. 328, 329.)
See also the chapters on the Spenserian stanza in Corson's _Primer of
English Verse_, where its use for pictorial effects is interestingly
discussed.
A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye,
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky:
There eke the soft delights, that witchingly
Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast,
And the calm pleasures always hovered nigh;
But whate'er smacked of noyaunce, or unrest,
Was far far off expelled from this delicious nest.
(THOMSON: _The Castle of Indolence_, canto i. 1748.)
Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow,
Emblem right meet of decency does yield:
Her apron dyed in grain, as blue, I trowe,
As is the hare-bell that adorns the field:
And in her hand, for sceptre, she does wield
Tway birchen sprays, with anxious fear entwined,
With dark distrust and sad repentance filled,
And stedfast hate, and sharp affliction joined,
And fury uncontrolled and chastisement unkind.
(SHENSTONE: _The Schoolmistress._ 1742.)
Thomson's _Castle of Indolence_, although not published till 1748, seems
to have been written and circulated before Shenstone's _Schoolmistress_.
Thomson caught the spirit of Spenser and his stanza better than any
other imitator until the days of Keats. On the revival of the stanza at
this period, see Beers's _English Romanticism in the Eighteenth
Century_, chap. iii., on "the Spenserians." Earliest of the group,
according to Mr. Gosse, was Akenside's _Virtuoso_ (1737. See _Eighteenth
Century Literature_, p. 311).
O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent,
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
And oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury's contagion, weak and vile!
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle.
(BURNS: _The Cotter's Saturday Night._ 1785.)
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.
(BYRON: _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, canto iv, st. i. 1818.)
A casement high and triple-arch'd there was,
All garlanded with carven imag'ries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings;
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.
(KEATS: _Eve of St. Agnes._ 1820.)
Professor Corson remarks: "Probably no English poet who has used the
Spenserian stanza, first assimilated so fully the spirit of Spenser, ...
as did Keats; and to this fact may be partly attributed his effective
use of it as an organ for his imagination in its 'lingering, loving,
particularizing mood.'" (_Primer of English Verse_, p. 124.)
The splendors of the firmament of time
May be eclips'd, but are extinguish'd not;
Like stars to their appointed height they climb,
And death is a low mist which cannot blot
The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought
Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair,
And love and life contend in it for what
Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there
And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.
(SHELLEY: _Adonais_, st. 44. 1821.)
With reference to his use of this stanza Shelley remarked, in the
Preface to _The Revolt of Islam_: "I have adopted the stanza of Spenser
(a measure inexpressibly beautiful), not because I consider it a finer
model of poetical harmony than the blank verse of Shakespeare and
Milton, but because in the latter there is no shelter for mediocrity:
you must either succeed or fail.... But I was enticed also by the
brilliancy and magnificence of sound which a mind that has been
nourished upon musical thoughts can produce by a just and harmonious
arrangement of the pauses of this measure." Professor Corson (_Primer of
English Verse_, p. 112) quotes Mr. Todhunter as saying: "Compare the
impetuous rapidity and pale intensity of Shelley's verse with the
lulling harmony, the lingering cadence, the voluptuous color of
Spenser's, or with the grandiose majesty of Byron's.... In _Adonais_,
indeed, a poem on which he bestowed much labor, he handles the stanza in
a masterly manner, and endows it with an individual music beautiful and
new."
"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.
(TENNYSON: _The Lotos-Eaters._ 1833.)
_abababccc_
A fisher boy, that never knew his peer
In dainty songs, the gentle Thomalin,
With folded arms, deep sighs, and heavy cheer,
Where hundred nymphs, and hundred muses in,
Sunk down by Chamus' brinks; with him his dear
Dear Thyrsil lay; oft times would he begin
To cure his grief, and better way advise;
But still his words, when his sad friend he spies,
Forsook his silent tongue, to speak in watry eyes.
(PHINEAS FLETCHER: _Piscatory Eclogues._ ab. 1630.)
Fletcher was an imitator of Spenser, and here devises a stanza differing
little from his master's. The final alexandrine is used with the same
effect. For other instances of final alexandrines, doubtless used under
the general influence of the Spenserian stanza, see the following
specimens.
_aabaabcc_
Ring out, ye crystal spheres!
Once bless our human ears,
If ye have power to touch our senses so;
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;
And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony,
Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.
(MILTON: _On the Morning of Christ's Nativity._ 1629.)
_ababbcbcdd_
What? 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.
(CHATTERTON: _Ælla,_ st. 147. 1768.)
This is the ten-line "Chatterton stanza," a variant of the Spenserian
stanza, devised by Chatterton, which he claimed ante-dated Spenser by
one or two centuries. His claim for it was of course purely fictitious.
_aabbbcc_
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
(OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES: _The Chambered Nautilus._ 1858.)
See also the notable use of the alexandrine in Shelley's _Skylark_, p.
34, above.
_ababababbcbc_
The dubbement dere of doun and dalez,
Of wod and water and wlonke playnez,
Bylde in me blys, abated my balez,
Fordidde my stresse, dystryed my paynez.
Doun after a strem that dryghly halez,
I bowed in blys, bred-ful my braynez;
The fyrre I folghed those floty valez,
The more strenghthe of joye myn herte straynez,
As fortune fares theras ho fraynez,
Whether solace ho sende other ellez sore,
The wygh, to wham her wylle ho waynez,
Hyttez to have ay more and more.
(_The Pearl_, st. xi. Fourteenth century.)
Mr. Israel Gollancz says, in his Introduction to this poem: "I can point
to no direct source to which the poet of _Pearl_ was indebted for his
measure; that it ultimately belongs to Romance poetry I have little
doubt. These twelve-line verses seem to me to resemble the earliest form
of the sonnet more than anything else I have as yet discovered.... Be
this as it may, all will, I hope, recognize that there is a distinct
gain in giving to the 101 stanzas of the poem the appearance of a sonnet
sequence, marking clearly the break between the initial octave and the
closing quatrain.... The refrain, the repetition of the catch-word of
each verse, the trammels of alliteration, all seem to have offered no
difficulty to our poet; and if power over technical difficulties
constitutes in any way a poet's greatness, the author of _Pearl_, from
this point of view alone, must take high rank among English poets."
(Introduction, pp. xxiv, xxv.)
Other examples of intricate stanza structure are found in _Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight_, supposed to be by the author of _Pearl_. See in
Part Two, p. 156.
_aabccbddbeebffgggf_
Ne mai no lewed lued libben in londe,
be he never in hyrt so haver of honde,
So lerede us biledes.
[gh]ef ich on molde mote wiþ a mai,
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.[10]
(Song from Harleian MS. 2253. Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p.
109.)
This and the two following specimens, together with some included
earlier under the head of Tail-Rime, illustrate the interest in complex
lyrical measures characteristic of the period of French influence in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In 1152 Henry of Normandy (who
ascended the throne in 1154) married Eleanor of Poitou, and in her train
there came to England the great troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn. On the
poems of this troubadour and others of the same school, see ten Brink's
_English Literature_, Kennedy translation, vol. i. pp. 159-164. Other
troubadours followed, and found a home in the court of Richard the
Lion-Hearted, who himself entered the ranks of the poets. The result was
a great mass of Norman French lyrical poetry, often in intricate forms,
and a smaller mass of imitative lyrics in Middle English. As Schipper
observes, the elaborate lyrical forms were inconsistent with English
taste, and it was only the simpler ones which were widely adopted. On
the general character of the Romance stanza-forms, and their influence
in England, see Schipper, vol. i. pp. 309 ff.
_ababccdeed_
Iesu, for 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.
(Song from Harleian MS. 2253; in Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_,
p. 208.)
_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.
(Song from Harleian MS. 2253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p.
164.)
_abcbdcdceccce_
Trowe [gh]e, sores, and God sent an angell
And commawndyd [gh]ow [gh]owr chyld to slayn,
Be [gh]owr trowthe ys ther ony of [gh]ow
That eyther wold groche or stryve ther-ageyn?
How thyngke [gh]e now, sorys, ther-by?
I trow ther be iii or iiii or moo.
And thys women that wepe so sorowfully
Whan that hyr chyldryn dey them froo,
As nater woll and kynd,--
Yt ys but folly, I may well awooe,
To groche a-[gh]ens God or to greve [gh]ow,
For [gh]e schall never se hym myschevyd, wyll I know,
Be lond nor watyr, have thys in mynd.
(Epilogue of Brome Play of Abraham and Isaac. In Manly's _Specimens of
the Pre-Shaksperean Drama_, vol. i. p. 56.)
This verse of the early Mystery Plays and connected forms of the drama
shows an extraordinary variety of measures. In general, the effort of
the writers seems to have been to show some artistic ingenuity of
structure, and at the same time keep to the free popular dialogue verse
which was associated with the plays. We find, therefore, tumbling verse,
alexandrines, septenaries, and intricate strophic forms, all commonly
written with slight regard for syllable-counting principles.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] There is a single well-known exception: the Anglo-Saxon poem known
as _Deor's Lament_, which is divided into irregularly varying strophes,
all ending with the same refrain. (See ten Brink's _English Literature_,
Kennedy translation, vol. i, p. 60.) See also on the strophic formation
of the First Riddle of Cynewulf, an article by W. W. Lawrence, in
_Publications of the Mod. Lang. Assoc._, N.S. vol. x. p. 247.
[9] Gascoigne, in his _Notes of Instruction_ (1575), mentions this form
of stanza as "a royall kinde of verse, serving best for grave
discourses," a statement in which he is followed by King James in his
_Reulis and Cautelis_ (1585). Puttenham, in the _Arte of English Poesie_
(1589), speaks of the stanza as "the chiefe of our ancient proportions
used by any rimer writing any thing of historical or grave poeme, as ye
may see in Chaucer and Lidgate." (Arber Reprint, p. 80.)
[10] The appendage to a stanza, based on one or more short lines, is
sometimes called a "bob-wheel." See Guest's _History of English
Rhythms_, Skeat ed., pp. 621 ff., for an account of various forms of
these "wheels."
IV. TONE-QUALITY
The quality of the sounds of the words used in verse, although in no way
concerned in the rhythm, is an element of some importance. The
sound-quality may be used in either of two ways: as a regular
coördinating element in the structure of the verse, or as a sporadic
element in the beauty or melody of the verse.
A. AS A STRUCTURAL ELEMENT
In this capacity, similar qualities of sound indicate coördinated parts
of the verse-structure, thus emphasizing the idea of similarity
(corresponding to that of symmetry in arts expressed in space) which is
at the very basis of rhythmical composition.
Obviously, the similarity may exist between vowel sounds, consonant
sounds, or both; more specifically, it is found either in initial
consonants, in accented vowels, or in accented vowels plus final
consonants. Properly speaking, the term Rime is applicable to all three
cases; the first being distinguished as initial rime or Alliteration
(German _Anreim_ or _Stabreim_); the second as Assonance (_Stimmreim_),
the third as complete Rime (_Vollreim_). English usage commonly reserves
the term Rime for the third class.
i. _Assonance_
Assonance was the characteristic coördinating element in the verse of
the early Romance languages, the Provençal, Old French, and Spanish.
Thus in the _Chanson de Roland_ (eleventh century) we find the verses of
each _laisse_, or strophe, bound together by assonance. Frequently this
develops into full rime by chance or convenience. The following is a
characteristic group of verses from the _Roland_:
Li reis Marsilies esteit en Sarragoce.
Alez en est un vergier soz l'ombre;
Sor un pedron de marbre bloi se colchet:
Environ lui at plus de vint milie homes.
Il en apelet et ses dus et ses contes:
"Odez, seignor, quels pechiez nos encombret.
Li emperedre Charles de France dolce
En cest pais nos est venuz confondre."
The following specimen of Old Spanish verse shows the nature of
assonance as regularly used in that language:
Fablo myo 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!
(GEORGE ELIOT: Song from _The Spanish Gypsy_, book i.)
This song was written in avowed imitation of the Spanish verse,
illustrating its prevailingly trochaic rhythm as well as alliteration.
Elsewhere verse bound together only by assonance is almost unknown in
English poetry. In the _Contemporary Review_ for November, 1894, Mr.
William Larminie has an interesting article giving a favorable account
of the use of assonance in Celtic (Irish) verse, and proposing its
larger use in English poetry, as a relief from the--to him--almost
cloying elaborateness of rime.
In the following specimen, assonance seems in some measure to take the
place of rime.
Haply, the river of Time--
As it grows, as the towns on its marge
Fling their wavering lights
On a wider, statelier stream--
May acquire, if not the calm
Of its early mountainous shore,
Yet a solemn peace of its own.
And the width of the waters, the hush
Of the gray expanse where he floats,
Freshening its current and spotted with foam
As it draws to the ocean, may strike
Peace to the soul of the man on its breast,--
As the pale waste widens around him,
As the banks fade dimmer away,
As the stars come out, and the night-wind
Brings up the stream
Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea.
(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _The Future._)
ii. _Alliteration_
Alliteration appears sporadically in the verse of all literary
languages, but as a means for the coördination of verse it is
characteristic of the primitive Germanic tongues.
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!
(CYNEWULF: _Crist._ ll. 586-599. Eighth century.)
This specimen represents the use of alliteration in the most regularly
constructed Anglo-Saxon verse. The two half-lines are united into the
long line by the same initial consonant in the important syllables. In
the first half-line the alliteration is on the two principally stressed
syllables, or on one of them alone (most frequently the first); in the
second half-line it is commonly found only on the first. Alliterating
unstressed syllables are usually regarded as merely accidental. Any
initial vowel sound alliterates with any other vowel sound.
The most regular verse appears in Anglo-Saxon poetry of what may be
called the classical period,--700 A.D. and for a century
following,--represented by _Beowulf_ and the poems of Cynewulf. By the
time of Ælfric, who wrote about 1000 A.D., there appear signs of a
breaking in the regular verse-form. (See Schipper, vol. i. pp. 60 ff.)
For example, two alliterative syllables often appear in the second
half-line; one half-line may be without alliteration; alliteration may
bind different long-lines together; or alliteration may be altogether
wanting. There are also additions of many light syllables, resulting
almost, as Schipper observes, in rhythmical prose. These tendencies
resulted in the wholly irregular use of alliteration appearing in much
of the verse of the early Middle English period, illustrated in the
specimens that follow.
* * * * *
The origins of alliteration in Germanic verse are lost in the general
mass of Germanic origins. It is almost universally regarded as a purely
native development, although M. Kawczynski (_Essai Comparatif sur
l'Origine et l'Histoire des Rythmes_; Paris, 1889) sets forth the
remarkable opinion that the Germans derived their alliteration from the
Romans. "We must remember," he says, "the schools of rhetoric existing
in Gaul in the sixth and seventh centuries, where alliteration seems to
have been held in esteem.... It became more and more frequent in the
Latin poetry of the Carlovingian period, and it will suffice to cite
here the following verses from Milo of Saint Amand:
'Pastores pecum primi pressique pavore
Conspicuos cives carmen caeleste canentes
Audivere astris arrectis auribus; auctor
Ad terras ...'
It early passed to Ireland, and the Irish made use of it in their Latin
poetry and in their national poetry. The example of the Irish was
followed by the Anglo-Saxons, although these last had derived the same
rules from the Latin writers.... The Anglo-Saxons, who sent the second
series of apostles to the Germans, taught them the use of alliteration
in poetry. The Scandinavians, on their side, learned it also from the
Anglo-Saxons." This theory has found no adherents among scholars, and M.
Kawczynski's illustrations are probably most useful in emphasizing the
natural pleasure in similarity of sound found among all peoples. See
below, on the related question of the origin of end-rime.
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
Sprachproben_, vol. i. p. 57.)
See also the specimen from Böddeker, p. 14, above.
Cristes milde moder, seynte Marie,
mines lives leome, mi leove lefdi,
to þe ich buwe and mine kneon ich beie,
and al min heorte blod to ðe ich offrie.
(_On God Ureisun of ure Lefdi._ In Morris's _Old English Homilies_,
first series, p. 191. Zupitza's _Alt-und Mittelenglisches Übungsbuch_,
p. 76.)
Kaer Leir hehte þe burh: leof heo wes þan kinge.
þa we an ure leod-quide: Leirchestre cleþiað.
[gh]eare a þan holde dawen: heo wes swiðe aðel burh.
& 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.
(LAYAMON: _Brut_, ll. 2912-2931. Madden ed., vol. i. p. 123. ab. 1200.)
The _Brut_ of Layamon represents typically the transition period, when
alliteration and end-rime were struggling for the mastery in English
verse. Schipper points out that we find in the poem four kinds of lines:
1. Simple alliterative lines in more or less strict adherence to the old
rules.
2. Lines combining alliteration and rime or alliteration and assonance.
3. Lines showing rime or assonance, without alliteration.
4. Four-stress lines with neither rime nor alliteration.
The present specimen shows the preference for alliteration; that on p.
127, below, represents the introduction of rime.
In a somer seson . whan soft was the sonne,
I shope me in shroudes . as I a shepe were,
In habite as an heremite . unholy of workes,
Went wyde in this world . wondres to here.
Ac on a May mornynge . on Malverne hulles
Me byfel a ferly . of fairy me thou[gh]te;
I was wery forwandred . and went me to reste
Under a brode banke . bi a bornes side,
And as I lay and lened . and loked in the wateres,
I slombred in a slepyng . it sweyved so merye.
(WILLIAM LANGLAND (?): _Piers the Plowman_, Prologue, ll. 1-10. B-text.
Fourteenth century.)
_Piers the Plowman_ represents the revival of the alliterative long
line, with fairly strict adherence to the old rules, by contemporaries
of Chaucer, in the fourteenth century. For this verse, see further in
Part Two, pp. 155, 156.
Apon the Midsumer evin, mirrest of nichtis,
I muvit furth allane, neir as midnicht wes past,
Besyd ane gudlie grene garth, full of gay flouris,
Hegeit, of ane huge hicht, with hawthorne treis;
Quhairon ane bird, on ane bransche, so birst out hir notis
That never ane blythfullar bird was on the beuche harde:
Quhat throw the sugarat sound of hir sang glaid,
And throw the savar sanative of the sueit flouris;
I drew in derne to the dyk to dirkin eftir myrthis;
The dew donkit the daill, and dynarit the foulis.
(WILLIAM DUNBAR: _The Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo_, ll. 1-10. Ed.
Scottish Text Society, vol ii. p. 30.)
See notes on Dunbar as a metrist, in this edition, vol. i. pp.
cxlix and clxxii, and T. F. Henderson's _Scottish Vernacular
Literature_, pp. 153-164.
Alliteration as an organic element of verse was especially favored in
the North country, and its popularity in Scotland--illustrated in the
present specimen from Dunbar--considerably outlasted its use in England.
The famous words of Chaucer's Parson will be recalled:
"But trusteth wel, I am a Southren man,
I can nat geste--rum, ram, ruf--by lettre."
We find King James, as late as 1585 (_Reulis and Cautelis_), giving the
following instructions: "Let all your verse be Literall, sa far as may
be, ... bot speciallie Tumbling verse for flyting. By Literall I meane,
that the maist part of your lyne sall rynne upon a letter, as this
tumbling lyne rynnis upon F:
_Fetching fude for to feid it fast furth of the Farie._"
The following specimen is one of the latest examples of fairly regular
alliterative verse, written in England, that has come down to us. It is
from a ballad of the battle of Flodden Field (1513).
Archers uttered out their arrowes, and egerlie they shotten.
They proched us with speares, and put many over,
That the blood outbrast at there broken harnish.
There was swinging out of swords, and swapping of headds;
We blanked them with bills through all their bright armor,
That all the dale dunned of their derfe strokes.
(_Scotishe Ffielde_, from Percy's Folio MS. In FLÜGEL'S _Neuenglisches
Lesebuch_, vol. i. p. 156.)
iii. _Rime_ (_i.e. end-rime_)
Full rime, or end-rime, involves the principally stressed vowel in the
riming word, and all that follows that vowel. When there is an entire
unstressed syllable following, the rime is called double, or feminine.
Triple rime is also recognized, though rare.[11] End-rime being a
stranger to the early Germanic languages, its appearance in any of them
may commonly be taken as a sign of foreign influence. In general, of
course, rime and the stanza were introduced together into English verse,
under the influence of Latin hymns and French lyrics.
The functions of rime in English verse may perhaps be grouped under
three heads: the function of emphasis, the function of forming beautiful
or pleasurable sounds, and the function of combining or organizing the
verses. It is with reference to the first of these that Professor Corson
speaks of rime as "an enforcing agency of the individual verse." Under
the second head rime is considered simply as a form of tone-color, and
as furnishing a part of the melody of verse. The third function, by
which individual verses are bound into stanzas, is, in a sense, the most
important.
On the subject of the æsthetic values of rime, see the chapter on
"poetic unities" in Corson's _Primer of English Verse_, and Ehrenfeld's
_Studien zur Theorie des Reims_ (Zürich, 1897). The problem of the
relative values of rimed and unrimed verse will come up in connection
with the history of the heroic couplet and of blank verse. The objection
always urged against rime is that its demands are likely to turn the
poet aside from the normal order of his ideas. Herder, as Ehrenfeld
points out, thought that this was particularly true of English verse,
the uninflected language not providing so naturally for cases where
thought and sound are parallel. A recent protest against the tyranny of
rime is found in the article by Mr. Larminie, cited on page 115, where
it is claimed that undue attention to form is thinning out the substance
of modern poetry, and that the demands of rime should be relaxed. See
also Ben Jonson's "Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme," for a humorous complaint
against the requirements of rime upon the poet.
The origin of rime has been a subject of prolonged controversy. See
the monograph by Ehrenfeld already cited; Meyer's _Anfang und
Ursprung der rythmischen Dichtung_ (Munich, 1884); W. Grimm's
_Geschichte des Reims_ (1851); Norden's _Antike Kunstprosa_
(Leipzig, 1898; _Anhang ueber die Geschichte des Reims_); Kluge's
article, _Zur Geschichte des Reimes im Altgermanischen_, in Paul u.
Braune's _Beiträge_, vol. ix. p. 422; and Schipper, vol. i. pp. 34
ff. Meyer's work is an exposition of the theory that rime was an
importation from the Orient. In like manner, it has been held by
many that the poetry of Otfried (the first regularly rimed German
verse) was produced under Latin influence wholly, and that rime was
introduced by him to the Germans (see the work by Kawczynski, cited
p. 117). Herder (see Ehrenfeld's monograph) regarded rime as a
natural growth of the instinct for symmetry in all human taste,
closely connected with dance-rhythms, all forms of parallelism, and
the like. Similarity of inflectional endings in similar clauses, he
pointed out, would naturally develop rime in any inflected
language. This view is in line with the tendency of recent opinion.
Schipper says, in effect: "Is rime to be regarded as the invention
of a special people, like the Arabian, or is it a form of art which
developed in the poetic language of the Aryan peoples, separately
in the several nations? In the opinion of the principal scholars
the latter opinion is the correct one. The chief support of this
opinion is the fact that traces of rime, in greater or less number,
appear in the oldest poetry of almost all the partially civilized
peoples. 'It is,' says C. F. Meyer, 'something inborn, original,
universally human, like poetry and music, and no more than these
the special invention of a single people or a particular time.' In
fact, traces of rime may be noticed in the poetry of the Greeks, in
Homer, Æschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, as also in the poetry of
the Romans; in a more developed form it appears in the late middle
Latin clerical poetry. In the Celtic languages, moreover, rime is
the indispensable mark of the poetic form, even in the oldest
extant specimens. The Latin poetry just referred to gives
interesting evidence that rime is a characteristic sign of popular
poetry. While the quantitative system became dominant, with the
artistic verse-forms of the Greeks, in the Golden Age of Roman
literature, the early Saturnian verses, written in free rhythms,
already showed the popular taste for similarity of sound in the
form of alliteration; and in the post-classical time, with the fall
of the quantitative metres, rime again came to the front in songs
intended for the people. The same element was made so essential a
characteristic in the organization of verse in the mediæval Latin,
that 'carmen rhythmicum' came to signify a rimed poem, and the
later Latinists used the word 'rhythmus' precisely in the sense of
'rime.'"
Schipper goes on to inquire whether this mediæval Latin poetry was
the means of introducing rime to the Germanic peoples. Wackernagel
held it as certain that Otfried learned his rimes from Latin poems;
but as Otfried declares that his poetry is intended to take the
place of useless popular songs, it seems probable that he was not
using an innovation, and that rime was already popular in Old High
German. Indeed, it appears sporadically in the _Hildebrandslied_
and the _Heliand_. Grimm observes that it is theoretically unlikely
that alliteration should have vanished suddenly and rime as
suddenly have taken its place. The gradual development of rime from
assonance among the Romance peoples suggests the same thing. The
early appearance of rime by the side of alliteration is illustrated
by C. F. Meyer (_Historische Studien_, Leipzig, 1851) from the
Norse _Edda_, from _Beowulf_, Cædmon, etc. In the later Anglo-Saxon
period rime was evidently securing a considerable though uncertain
hold. The Riming Poem suggests what development rime might have had
in English without the incoming of Romance influences. Grimm
observes that, while to his mind alliteration was a finer and
nobler quality than rime, there was need of a stronger
sound-likeness which should hold the attention more firmly by its
unchanging place at the end of the line. Schipper remarks, finally,
that the fact that the use of rime in connection with alliteration
was especially popular in the southern half of England, where the
Romance influence was strongest, may suggest why in the more purely
Germanic northern half alliteration remained the single support of
the poetic form well into the fifteenth century.
The appendix to the work of Norden, cited above, is a fuller
development of ideas frequently suggested by the sporadic
appearance of rime in early Greek and Latin literature. Norden
gives many examples of this "rhetorical rime," as well as of rime
arising naturally from parallelism of sentence structure found in
primitive charms, incantations, and the like. In particular he
emphasizes the influence of the figure of _hom[oe]oteleuton_ as
used in the literary prose of the classical languages. His
conclusion is as follows: "Rime, then, was potentially as truly
present in the Greek and Latin languages, from the earliest times,
as in every other language; but in the metrical (quantitative)
poetry it had no regular place, and appeared there in general only
sporadically and by chance, being used by only a few poets as a
rhetorical ornament. It became actual by the transition from the
metrical poetry to the rhythmical (that is, the syllable-counting,
in which--in the Latin--the chief consideration is still for the
word-accent); and this transition was consummated by the aid of the
highly poetic prose, already used for centuries, which was
constructed according to the laws of rhythm, and in which the
rhetorical hom[oe]oteleuton had gained an ever-increasing
significance. In particular, rime found an entrance through sermons
composed in such prose, and delivered in a voice closely
approaching that of singing, into the hymn-poetry which was
intimately related to such sermons. From the Latin hymn-poetry it
was carried into other languages, from the ninth century onward. It
is self-evident that in these languages also rime was potentially
present before it became actual through the influence of foreign
poetry; for in this region also there operates the highest immanent
law of every being and every form of development,--that in the
whole field of life nothing absolutely new is invented, but merely
slumbering germs are awakened to active life." (_Antike
Kunstprosa_, vol. ii. pp. 867 ff.)
Me lifes onlah. se 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.
(From the "Riming Poem" of the _Codex Exoniensis_.)
This puzzlingly early appearance of rime in Anglo-Saxon verse, in
conjunction with fairly regular alliteration, is of especial
interest.[12] "It is supposed," says Schipper, "that this new form has
for its foundation the Scandinavian _Runhenda_, and that this was known
to the Anglo-Saxons through the Old Norse poet, Egil Skalagrimsson, who
was living in England in the tenth century, and who stayed twice in
England at Athelstan's court, writing a poem in Northumbria in the same
form." He also observes that the attempt to attain something like
equality of feet and half-lines suggests the Norse models.
Sainte Marie, Cristes bur,
Maidenes clenhad, moderes flur,
Dilie mine sinne, rixe in min mod,
Bring me to winne with self god.
(Verses attributed to St. Godric. ab. 1100.)
Godric, the hermit of Norfolk, lived about 1065-1170. These verses seem
to give the earliest extant appearance of end-rime in Middle English.
The Romance words in the hymn indicate the presence of French influence.
(On this hymn see article in _Englische Studien_, vol. xi. p. 401.)
Woden hehde þa hæhste la[gh]e: an ure ælderne dæ[gh]en.
he heom wes leof: æfne al swa heore lif.
h
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