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Title: English Verse

Specimens Illustrating its Principles and History

Author: Raymond MacDonald Alden, Ph.D.

Release Date: May 5, 2010 [EBook #32262]

Language: English

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ENGLISH VERSE

SPECIMENS ILLUSTRATING ITS PRINCIPLES
AND HISTORY

CHOSEN AND EDITED
BY
RAYMOND MACDONALD ALDEN, PH.D.
Associate Professor in Leland Stanford Junior
University

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

Gegrētte ðā    gumena gehwylcne, hwate helm-berend,    hindeman sīðe, swǣse gesīðas:    "Nolde ic sweord beran, wǣpen tō wyrme,    gif ic wiste hū wið ðām āglǣcean    elles meahte gylpe wiðgrīpan,    swā ic gīo wið Grendle dyde; ac ic ðǣr heaðu-fȳres    hātes wēne, oreðes ond attres;    forðon ic mē on hafu bord ond byrnan.    Nelle ic beorges weard oferflēon    fōtes trem, ac unc sceal weorðan æt wealle,    swā unc wyrd getēoð, Metod manna gehwæs.    Ic eom on mōde from, þæt ic wið þone gūð-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, Achitophel unites The malcontents of all the Israelites, Whose differing parties 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 monarchy too much; Mistaken men and patriots in their hearts, Not wicked, but seduced by impious arts; By these the springs of property were bent, And wound so high they crack'd the government.

(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! Miserable 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 hugest 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 difficulty and labour hard Moved on, with difficulty and labour he.

(ib. II. 1021 f.)

The sweep Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave.

(Tennyson: Enoch Arden.)

The sound of many a heavily 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: Œnone.)

Do you see this square old yellow book I toss I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about By the crumpled vellum covers; pure crude fact—

(Browning: The Ring and the Book, I.)

That plant Shall never wave its tangles lightly and softly 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 message 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 a⁴b³a⁴b³.

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 Phœnix 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 miȝt Þat is king and ever was, Mote among us aliȝt And ȝive 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 Phœnix 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 briȝt, velut maris stella, Briȝter than the day is liȝt, 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-wrogȝt; Hit is of wel furre y-brogȝt.

(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 seiȝ a clerk a book forþ bringe, Þat prikked was in mony a plas; Faste he souȝte 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 Phœbus 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. ȝef 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 ȝef 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 eȝes 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 ȝe, sores, and God sent an angell And commawndyd ȝow ȝowr chyld to slayn, Be ȝowr trowthe ys ther ony of ȝow That eyther wold groche or stryve ther-ageyn? How thyngke ȝe 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-ȝens God or to greve ȝow, For ȝe 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. ȝeare 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 thouȝte; 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 homœoteleuton 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 homœoteleuton 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 laȝe    an ure ælderne dæȝen. he heom wes leof:    æfne al swa heore lif. he wes heore walden:    and heom wurðscipe duden. þene feorðe dæi i þere wike:    heo ȝiven him to wurðscipe. þa Þunre heo ȝiven þures dæi:    for þi þat heo heom helpen mæi. Freon heore læfdi:    heo ȝiven hire fridæi. Saturnus heo ȝiven sætterdæi:    þene Sunne heo ȝiven sonedæi. Monenen heo ȝivenen monedæi:    Tidea heo ȝeven tisdæi. þus seide Hængest:    cnihten alre hendest.

(Layamon: Brut, ll. 13921-13938. Madden ed., vol. ii. p. 158. ab. 1200.)

On the verse of the Brut see above, p. 119.

Ich æm elder þen ich wes · a wintre and alore. Ic wælde more þaune ic dude · mi wit ah to ben more. Wel lange ic habbe child ibeon · a weorde end ech adede. Þeh ic beo awintre eald · tu ȝyng i eom a rede.... Mest al þat ic habbe ydon · ys idelnesse and chilce. Wel late ic habbe me bi þoht · bute me god do milce.

(Poema Morale, ll. 1-4, 7, 8. In Zupitza's Alt-und Mittelenglisches Übungsbuch, p. 58. ab. 1200.)

The Poema Morale, evidently one of the most popular poems of the early Middle English period, seems to be the earliest one of any considerable length in which end-rime was used regularly.

For other early examples of rime introduced into English under foreign influence, see above, in the section on the Stanza.

Double and triple rime.

To our theme.—The man who has stood on the Acropolis, And looked down over Attica; or he Who has sailed where picturesque Constantinople is, Or seen Timbuctoo, or hath taken tea In small-eyed China's crockery-ware metropolis, Or sat amidst the bricks of Nineveh, May not think much of London's first appearance— But ask him what he thinks of it a year hence?

(Byron: Don Juan, canto xi. st. vii.)

'Tis pity learned virgins ever wed, With persons of no sort of education, Or gentlemen, who, though well born and bred, Grow tired of scientific conversation; I don't choose to say much upon this head, I'm a plain man, and in a single station, But—oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-pecked you all?

(Ib., canto i. st. xxii.)

So the painter Pacchiarotto Constructed himself a grotto In the quarter of Stalloreggi— As authors of note allege ye. And on each of the whitewashed sides of it He painted—(none far and wide so fit As he to perform in fresco)— He painted nor cried quiesco Till he peopled its every square foot With Man—from the Beggar barefoot To the Noble in cap and feather; All sorts and conditions together. The Soldier in breastplate and helmet Stood frowningly—hail fellow well met— By the Priest armed with bell, book, and candle. Nor did he omit to handle The Fair Sex, our brave distemperer: Not merely King, Clown, Pope, Emperor— He diversified too his Hades Of all forms, pinched Labor and paid Ease, With as mixed an assemblage of Ladies.

(Browning: Pacchiarotto, v.)

What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all; Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold: When we mind labor, then only, we're too old— What age had Methusalem when he begat Saul? And at last, as its haven some buffeted ship sees (Come all the way from the north-parts with sperm oil), I hope to get

safely

out of the turmoil
And arrive one day at the land of the Gypsies, And find my lady, or hear the last news of her From some old thief and son of Lucifer, His forehead chapleted green with wreathy hop, Sunburned all over like an Æthiop.

(Browning: The Flight of the Duchess, xvii.)

These passages illustrate sufficiently the grotesque effects of double and triple rime in English verse,—effects of which Byron and Browning are the unquestioned masters. Professor Corson observes that the double rime is to be regarded as the means of "some special emphasis," whether serious or humorous. More commonly the effect is humorous, of course, as in Don Juan, where the rimes indicate "the lowering of the poetic key—the reduction of true poetic seriousness." The rimes in the Flight of the Duchess Mr. Edmund Gurney has said sometimes "produce the effect of jokes made during the performance of a symphony." The specimen which follows illustrates the use of these double and triple rimes for a wholly serious purpose. Professor Corson remarks that in this case the rime serves "as a most effective foil to the melancholy theme. It is not unlike the laughter of frenzied grief." It is interesting to note that in the Italian language, where double rimes are almost constant, masculine rimes are sometimes used for grotesque effect in the same way that English poets use the feminine.

Perishing gloomily, Spurred by contumely, Cold inhumanity, Burning insanity, Into her rest.— Cross her hands humbly, As if praying dumbly, Over her breast. Owning her weakness, Her evil behaviour, And leaving, with meekness, Her sins to her Saviour!

(Thomas Hood: The Bridge of Sighs.)

Roll the strong stream of it Up, till the scream of it Wake from a dream of it Children that sleep, Seamen that fare for them Forth, with a prayer for them; Shall not God care for them, Angels not keep? Spare not the surges Thy stormy scourges; Spare us the dirges Of wives that weep. Turn back the waves for us: Dig no fresh graves for us, Wind, in the manifold gulfs of the deep.

(Swinburne: Winter in Northumberland, xiv.)

Into the woods my Master went, Clean forspent, forspent. Into the woods my Master came, Forspent with love and shame. But the olives they were not blind to Him, The little gray leaves were kind to Him: The thorn-tree had a mind to Him When into the woods he came.

(Sidney Lanier: A Ballad of Trees and the Master.)

Broken rime.

There first for thee my passion grew, Sweet, sweet Matilda Pottingen! Thou wast the daughter of my tu- tor, law-professor at the U- niversity of Gottingen.

Sun, moon, and thou, vain world, adieu! That kings and priests are plotting in; Here doomed to starve on water gru- el, never shall I see the U- niversity of Gottingen.

(George Canning: Song in The Rovers; Anti-Jacobin, June 4, 1798.[13])

Winter and summer, night and morn, I languish at this table dark; My office-window has a corn- er looks into St. James's Park.

(Thackeray: Ballads, What Makes my Heart to Thrill and Glow?)

Internal rime.

Internal rime may be regarded on the one side as only a matter of the division of the verse, since if it occurs regularly at the medial cesura, it practically breaks the verse into two parts. On the other side, if used only sporadically, it is a matter of tone-color. It sometimes appears, however, in forms which entitle it to recognition by itself. The earliest of these forms is the "Leonine rime," which is said to have taken its name from Leoninus of St. Victor, who in the twelfth century wrote elegiacs (hexameters and pentameters) in which the syllable preceding the cesura regularly rimed with the final syllable. Obviously lines of this kind would easily break up into riming half-lines. Similarly, in septenary verse internal rime was often used together with end-rime, with a resulting resolution into short-line stanzas riming either aabb or abab.[14] The following specimen from a celebrated ballad shows the popular use of a somewhat complex system of internal rime.

Be it right or wrong, these men among on women do complaine, Affirming this, how that it is a labour spent in vaine, To love them wele, for never a dele they love a man agayne. For lete a man do what he can, ther favour to attayne, Yet yf a newe to them pursue, ther furst trew lover than Laboureth for nought, and from her thought he is a bannisshed man.

(Ye Nutbrowne Maide. From Arnold's Chronicle, printed ab. 1502. In Flügel's Neuenglisches Lesebuch, vol. i. p. 167.)

Haill rois maist chois till clois thy fois greit micht, Haill stone quhilk schone upon the throne of licht, Vertew, quhais trew sweit dew ouirthrew al vice, Was ay ilk day gar say the way of licht; Amend, offend, and send our end ay richt. Thow stant, ordant as sanct, of grant maist wise, Till be supplie, and the hie gre of price. Delite the tite me quite of site to dicht, For I apply schortlie to thy devise.

(Gawain Douglas: A ballade in the commendation of honour and verteu; at the end of the Palace of Honor.)

Douglas, like his countryman Dunbar, was something of a metrical virtuoso, and his use of internal rime in this ballade is one of his most remarkable achievements. In the first stanza there are two internal rimes in each line, in the second three, and in the third (here quoted) four.

I cannot eat but little meat, My stomach is not good, But sure I think that I can drink With him that wears a hood. Though I go bare, take ye no care, I nothing am a-cold, I stuff my skin so full within Of jolly good ale and old.

(Drinking Song in Gammer Gurton's Needle.)

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow stream'd off free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.

(Coleridge: Rime of the Ancient Mariner.)

The splendor falls on castle walls, And snowy summits old in story; The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

(Tennyson: Song in The Princess, iv.)

England, queen of the waves whose green inviolate girdle enrings thee round, Mother fair as the morning, where is now the place of thy foemen found? Still the sea that salutes us free proclaims them stricken, acclaims thee crowned .... England, none that is born thy son, and lives, by grace of thy glory, free, Lives and yearns not at heart and burns with hope to serve as he worships thee; None may sing thee: the sea-wind's wing beats down our songs as it hails the sea.

(Swinburne: The Armada, vii.)

Here the third and eighth syllables of each verse rime, giving the effect of a separate melody only half heard under that of the main rime-scheme. This is especially subtle where there is no possible pause after the riming word, as in the "sing" of the last line quoted.

Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever! Let the bell toll!—a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river; And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?—weep now or nevermore! See on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore! Come, let the burial rite be read—the funeral song be sung: An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young, A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

(Poe: Lenore.)

I did not take her by the hand, (Though little was to understand From touch of hand all friends might take,) Because it should not prove a flake Burnt in my palm to boil and ache.

I did not listen to her voice, (Though none had noted, where at choice All might rejoice in listening,) Because no such a thing should cling In the wood's moan at evening.

(Rossetti: Penumbra.)

(See also Love's Nocturn, p. 146, below.)

B. AS A SPORADIC ELEMENT (TONE-COLOR)

This division includes the use made of the qualities of sound for the purpose of adding to the melodiousness of verse, or of expressing in some measure the ideas to be conveyed by means of the very sounds employed. Sometimes this takes the form of alliteration, differing from that of early English verse only in that it follows no regular structural laws. On the other hand, it may take the form of onomatopœia, the figure of speech in which sound and sense are closely related,—as in descriptive words like buzz, hiss, murmur, splash, and the like. The term Tone-color is formed by analogy with the German Klangfarbe, an expression apparently due to the feeling that the sound-qualities of speech have somewhat the same function as the various colors in a picture. It is unquestionably true that the selection of sounds, whether vowel or consonantal, has much to do with the melodious effect of very much poetry. The poet may choose the different sound-qualities (so far as the sense permits) just as the musician may choose the varying qualities of the different instruments in the orchestra or the different stops in the organ.

Strictly speaking, this matter of Tone-color is not a part of verse-form in the same sense as matters of rhythm, rime, and the like; for it may appear in prose as well as in verse, and is not in any case reducible to formal principles or laws. Yet its use in actual verse is so important, and it is so closely related to the use of sound-quality in the form of rime and alliteration, that it seems well to include it here.[15]

Dr. Guest treats sounds as having in themselves the suggestion of more or less definite ideas, this suggestiveness being explainable by physical causes. Thus the trembling character of l suggests trepidation, as in "Double, double, toil and trouble." R suggests harsh, grating, or rattling noises; the sibilants are appropriate to the expression of shrieks, screams, and the like; b and p, because of the compression of the lips, suggest muscular effort; st, from a sudden stopping of the s, suggests fear or surprise; f and h also fear, because of their whispering quality. Hollow sounds (au, ow, o, and the like) suggest depth and fulness. Guest quotes in this connection an interesting passage from Bacon's Natural History (ii. 200): "There is found a similitude between the sound that is made by inanimate bodies, or by animate bodies that have no voice articulate, and divers letters of articulate voices; and commonly men have given such names to those sounds as do allude unto the articulate letters; as trembling of hot water hath resemblance unto the letter l; quenching of hot metals with the letter z; snarling of dogs with the letter r; the noise of screech-owls with the letter sh; voice of cats with the diphthong eu; voice of cuckoos with the diphthong ou; sounds of strings with the diphthong ng.

A. W. Schlegel went even farther in suggesting a subtle symbolism in sounds apart from descriptive qualities. Thus he regarded a as suggestive of bright red, and as symbolizing youth, joy, or brightness (as in the words Strahl, Klang, Glans); i as suggestive of sky-blue, symbolic of intimacy or love; and so with other vowel sounds. (See Ehrenfeld's monograph, p. 57.) In general it may be said that it is dangerous to attempt to explain the special effects of tone-color in verse, except where it is obviously descriptive, the appreciation of such effects being a subtle and a more or less individual matter. On this subject Mr. Gurney makes some interesting observations, in the essays cited above. He believes that the pleasurable effect of the sound-qualities in verse can never be dissociated from the sense of the words; that the most melodious verse cannot be appreciated if in a foreign language, unless read with particular expressiveness; and that the pleasure derived from what we roughly call melodious or harmonious verses is always due to the mystical combination of the appropriate sound with the poetic content.

Dr. Johnson ridiculed the idea of tone-color, as appearing in Pope's teaching that the sound should be "an echo to the sense." See his Life of Pope, and especially the Idler for June 9, 1759, in which he describes Minim the critic as reading "all our poets with particular attention to this delicacy of versification." Such a critic discovers wonders in these lines from Hudibras:

"Honor is like the glossy bubble, Which cost philosophers such trouble; Where, one part crack'd, the whole does fly, And wits are crack'd to find out why."

"In these verses, says Minim, we have two striking accommodations of the sound to the sense. It is impossible to utter the first two lines emphatically without an act like that which they describe; bubble and trouble causing a momentary inflation of the cheeks by the retention of the breath, which is afterwards forcibly emitted, as in the practice of blowing bubbles. But the greatest excellence is in the third line, which is crack'd in the middle to express a crack, and then shivers into monosyllables."

In an article on "Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature" (originally published in the Contemporary Review, April, 1885; reprinted in the Scribner edition of Stevenson's Works, vol. xxii. p. 243) Robert Louis Stevenson discussed some of the more subtle effects of vowel and consonant color, as appearing in both prose and verse. The combination and repetition of the consonants PVF he found to be particularly frequent. The pervading sound-elements in the two following passages he analyzed by means of the key-letters in the margin:

(KANDL)"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

(KDLSR)A stately pleasure-dome decree,

(KANDLSR)Where Alph the sacred river ran

(KANLSR)Through caverns measureless to man,

(NDLS)Down to a sunless sea."

(Coleridge.)

W.P.V.F. (st) (ow)"But in the wind and tempest of her frown,

W.P.F. (st) (ow) L.Distinction with a loud and powerful fan,

W.P.F.L.Puffing at all, winnows the light away;

W.F.L.M.A.And what hath mass and matter by itself

V.L.M.Lies rich in virtue and unmingled."

(Shakspere: Troilus and Cressida.)

No attempt has been made to classify the specimens that follow. Nor does comment seem necessary, in order to make clear the particular qualities of the sounds of the verse.

The heraudes lefte hir priking up and doun; Now ringen trompes loude and clarioun; There is namore to seyn, but west and est In goon the speres ful sadly in arest; In goth the sharpe spore in-to the syde. Ther seen men who can juste, and who can ryde; Ther shiveren shaftes up-on sheeldes thikke; He feeleth thurgh the herte-spoon the prikke. Up springen speres twenty foot on highte; Out goon the swerdes as the silver brighte. The helmes they to-hewen and to-shrede; Out brest the blood, with sterne stremes rede. With mighty maces the bones they to-breste. He thurgh the thikkeste of the throng gan threste. Ther stomblen stedes stronge, and doun goth al.

(Chaucer: Knight's Tale, ll. 1741-1755.)

And in his house heap pearls like pebble-stones, Receive them free, and sell them by the weight; Bags of fiery opals, sapphires, amethysts, Jacinths, hard topaz, grass-green emeralds, Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds, And seld-seen costly stones of so great price, As one of them indifferently rated, And of a carat of this quantity, May serve in peril of calamity.

(Marlowe: The Jew of Malta, I. i.)

Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes; Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, With purple grapes, green figs and mulberries; The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs, And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, To have my love to bed and to arise; And pluck the wings from painted butterflies, To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes: Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.

(Shakspere: Midsummer Night's Dream, III. i. 167-177.)

Now entertain conjecture of a time When creeping murmur and the poring dark Fills the wide vessel of the universe. From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, The hum of either army stilly sounds, That the fix'd sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other's watch: Fire answers fire; and through their paly flames Each battle sees the other's umber'd face: Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents The armourers, accomplishing the knights, With busy hammers closing rivets up, Give dreadful note of preparation. The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll, And the third hour of drowsy morning name.

(Shakspere: Henry V., Chorus to Act IV.)

Forthwith the sounds and seas, each creek and bay, With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals Of fish that, with their fins and shining scales, Glide under the green wave in sculls that oft Bank the mid-sea. Part, single or with mate, Graze the sea-weed, their pasture, and through groves Of coral stray, or, sporting with quick glance, Show to the sun their wav'd coats dropt with gold, Or, in their pearly shells at ease, attend Moist nutriment, or under rocks their food In jointed armor watch; on smooth the seal And bended dolphins play: part, huge of bulk, Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait, Tempest the ocean. There leviathan, Hugest of living creatures, on the deep Stretch'd like a promontory, sleeps or swims, And seems a moving land, and at his gills Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out, a sea.

(Milton: Paradise Lost, VII. 399-416.)

Then in the key-hole turns The intricate wards, and every bolt and bar Of massy iron or solid rock with ease Unfastens. On a sudden open fly, With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook Of Erebus.

(Ib., II. 876-883.)

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, Forget not: in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that rolled Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

(Milton: Sonnet on the Late Massacre in Piedmont.)

And when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread; Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said.

(Milton: Lycidas, ll. 123-129.)

The soft complaining flute In dying notes discovers The woes of helpless lovers, Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains and height of passion, For the fair, disdainful dame.

(Dryden: Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687.)

Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar: When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labors, and the words move slow; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

(Pope: Essay on Criticism, ll. 366-373.)

Was nought around but images of rest: Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between; And flowery beds that slumberous influence kest, From poppies breath'd: and beds of pleasant green, Where never yet was creeping creature seen. Meantime unnumber'd glittering streamlets played, And hurled everywhere their waters' sheen; That, as they bickered through the sunny shade, Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.

(Thomson: Castle of Indolence, canto i. st. 3.)

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain, Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep; And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees, The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep; And in the midst of this wide quietness A rosy sanctuary will I dress With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain, With buds, and bells, and stars without a name, With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign, Who breeding flowers will never breed the same.

(Keats: Ode to Psyche.)

Strike for the King and die! and if thou diest, The King is King, and ever wills the highest. Clang battleaxe, and clash brand! Let the King reign.

(Tennyson: The Coming of Arthur.)

He could not see the kindly human face, Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, The league-long roller thundering on the reef, The moving whisper of huge trees that branch'd And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, As down the shore he ranged, or all day long Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, A shipwreck'd sailor, waiting for a sail: No sail from day to day, but every day The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts Among the palms and ferns and precipices; The blaze upon the waters to the east; The blaze upon his island overhead; The blaze upon the waters to the west; Then the great stars that globed themselves in heaven, The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again The scarlet shafts of sunrise—but no sail.

(Tennyson: Enoch Arden, ll. 577-595.)

But follow; let the torrent dance thee down To find him in the valley; let the wild Lean-headed eagles yelp alone, and leave The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, That like a broken purpose waste in air: So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth Arise to thee; the children call, and I Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmurings of innumerable bees.

(Tennyson: The Princess, VII.)

Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes Of labdanum, and aloe-balls, Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes From out her hair: such balsam falls Down sea-side mountain pedestals, From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, Spent with the vast and howling main, To treasure half their island-gain.

(Browning: Paracelsus, IV.)

Good sappy bavins that kindle forthwith; Billets that blaze substantial and slow; Pine-stump split deftly, dry as pith; Larch-heart that chars to a chalk-white glow; Then up they hoist me John in a chafe, Sling him fast like a hog to scorch, Spit in his face, then leap back safe, Sing 'Laudes' and bid clap-to the torch.

(Browning: The Heretic's Tragedy.)

'Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin. And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, And feels about his spine small eft-things course, Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh:... He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross And recross till they weave a spider-web.

(Browning: Caliban upon Setebos.)

Master of the murmuring courts Where the shapes of sleep convene! Lo! my spirit here exhorts All the powers of thy demesne For their aid to move my queen. What reports Yield thy jealous courts unseen?

Vaporous, unaccountable, Dreamland lies forlorn of light, Hollow like a breathing shell. Ah! that from all dreams I might Choose one dream and guide its flight! I know well What her sleep should tell to-night.

(Rossetti: Love's Nocturn.)

When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months, in meadow or plain, Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain.

(Swinburne: Chorus in Atalanta in Calydon.)

Till, as with clamor Of axe and hammer, Chained streams that stammer and struggle in straits, Burst bonds that shiver, And thaws deliver The roaring river in stormy spates.

(Swinburne: Winter in Northumberland.)

But, oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail; And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering, with a mazy motion, Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean.

(Coleridge: Kubla Khan.)

FOOTNOTES:

[11] "Perfect rime" is a term applied to rimes between two words identical in form, but different in meaning. It is inadmissible in modern English verse, although it was considered entirely proper in Middle English times (compare Chaucer's—

"The holy blisful martir for to seke, That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke."),

and is still common in French verse.

Schipper gives a separate paragraph also to "unaccented rime," where the similarity of sound belongs wholly to final, unstressed syllables. Generally speaking, this is inadmissible in English verse. Schipper quotes from Thomas Moore:

"Down in yon summervale Where the rill flows, Thus said the Nightingale To his loved Rose."

It might be said, however, that the final syllables of "summervale" and "nightingale" are not wholly unstressed; moreover, they are in the first and third verses of the stanza, where rime is not indispensable. Unaccented rime is most noticeable in some of the verse of the transition period in the sixteenth century, when the syllable-counting principle was so emphasized as to admit any license of accent so long as the proper number of syllables was observed. Thus, in the verse of Wyatt we find such rimes as "dreadeth" and "seeketh," "beginning" and "eclipsing," etc. See p. 10, above.

Imperfect rime, occurring where the vowel sounds are only similar, not identical, or where the consonants following them are not identical, is commonly regarded as an imperfection in verse form. The most common of these imperfect rimes are in cases where the spelling would indicate perfect rime (hence where, in many cases, the words rimed originally, but have separated in the changes of pronunciation), such as love and move, broad and load, and the like. For a defence of these "rimes to the eye," and other imperfect rimes, with a study of their use by English poets, see articles by Prof. A. G. Newcomer in the Nation for January 26 and February 2, 1899.

[12] Rime also appears in a short passage in Cynewulf's Elene. Some have thought it a later interpolation, but Schipper thinks it indicates that Cynewulf was a Northumbrian. Grein believes him to have been the author also of the Riming Poem, but, as Rieger points out, the rimes of Cynewulf are of a much less systematic character. (On this see Wülcker's Grundriss zur Geschichte der Angelsächsischen Literatur, pp. 216, 217.)

[13] The second of these stanzas is said to have been added to Canning's song by Willian Pitt.

[14] See notes on the Septenary, in Part Two, p. 259.

[15] On the subject of Tone-color in English verse, see Guest's English Rhythms, chap. ii.; Lanier's Science of English Verse, part iii. ("Colors of English Verse"); Corson's Primer of English Verse (chapter on "Poetic Unities"); Edmund Gurney's Tertium Quid (essays on "Poets, Critics, and Class-Lists" and "The Appreciation of Poetry"); Professor J. J. Sylvester's Laws of Verse (London, 1870); G. L. Raymond's Poetry as a Representative Art and Rhythm and Harmony in Poetry and Music; and Ehrenfeld's Studien zur Theorie des Reims.

PART TWO

I. FOUR-STRESS VERSE

English verse of four stresses is chiefly to be divided into two groups: that representing the primitive Germanic tendency to emphasize the element of accent rather than the counting of syllables, and that produced under foreign influence, showing comparative regularity in the number of syllables to the verse. The first group is made up of the various descendants of the original "long line," sometimes rimed and sometimes unrimed; the second group of forms of the familiar octosyllabic couplet. (Of modern verse only iambic measures are included here.)

A.—NON-SYLLABLE-COUNTING

The earliest English verse, like early Germanic verse generally, is based on the recurrence of strong accents, and is composed of a long line made up of two short lines, or half-lines, which are bound together by alliteration. As to the number of accents to be counted in the line, there are two theories, the "two-accent" and the "four-accent." According to the first, we should count two accents to the half-line, and four to the long line; according to the second, we should count four to the half-line and eight to the long line. The distinction is not so marked, however, as would appear at first thought; for the two-accent theorists recognize a considerable number of secondary accents in addition to the principal ones, while the four-accent theorists recognize half the accents as being commonly weaker than the other half.

The four-accent theory is that of Lachmann, represented chiefly in more recent scholarship by ten Brink and Kaluza. Lachmann took, as the typical Germanic line, such a verse as this from the Hildebrandlied,—

"Garutun se iro guðhama: gurtun sih iro suert ana;"

but admitted that the Anglo-Saxon line was a departure from the type in the direction of fewer accents. Ten Brink, however, found the full number of accents in the typical Anglo-Saxon line. "It is based upon a measure which belonged to the antiquity of all Germanic races, namely, the line with eight emphatic syllables, divided into equal parts by the cesura." (English Literature, trans. Kennedy, vol. i. pp. 21, 22.) The principal representative of the two-accent theory is Sievers, whose conclusions have been pretty generally accepted by English and American scholars. He admits that very many, perhaps most, Anglo-Saxon lines can be read with eight accents, but shows that there is still a large proportion (some eleven hundred in Beowulf) which cannot be so read without wrenching the natural reading. On this subject, see Westphal's Allgemeine Metrik, Sievers's Altgermanische Metrik, Kaluza's Der Altenglische Vers, and the articles by Sievers, Luick, and ten Brink in Paul's Grundriss der Germanische Philologie.

Aside from the two-part structure of the long line, the number of accents, and the alliteration, Anglo-Saxon verse is marked by the usual coincidence of the principal accents with long syllables. The unaccented parts of the line vary in both the number and length of the syllables. In general, each half-line is divided into two feet, or measures; and, according to the structure of these feet, the ordinary half-lines of Anglo-Saxon verse have been reduced by Sievers to five fundamental types.

Type A is represented by such a half-line as "stiðum wordum."

Type B inverts the rhythm of A, as in the half-line "nē winterscūr."

Type C is characterized by the juxtaposition of the two accents, as in the half-line "and forð gangan."

Type D commonly has only the accented syllable in the first foot, while the second foot is characterized by a sort of dactylic rhythm, as in the half-lines "sǣlīðende" and "flet innanweard."

Type E inverts the rhythm of D, as in the half-line "gylp-wordum spræc."[16]

In all the types many variations are found. The beginning of the line may show anacrusis, and two short syllables may take the place of a long syllable; while an indeterminate number of light syllables may often be introduced before or after the principal accents.

Hafað ūs ālȳfed     lucis auctor, þæt wē mōtun hēr     merueri gōddǣdum begietan     gaudia in celo, þǣr wē mōtun     maxima regna sēcan and gesittan     sedibus altis, lifgan in lisse     lucis et pacis, āgan eardinga     almæ letitæ, brūcan blǣddaga     blandem et mitem gesēon sigora Frēan     sine fine, and him lof singan     laude perenne ēadge mid englum     Alleluia.

(From the Anglo-Saxon Phœnix. ab. 700 A.D.)

These closing lines of the poem furnish an important opportunity to compare the Latin half-lines with those in Anglo-Saxon. Each half seems to be influenced by the metrical nature of the other; the Anglo-Saxon being a little more regular in the number of syllables than usual, the Latin less regular. Since, to the ear of the writer, the two halves of each verse were doubtless fairly equivalent, metrically, and since each of the Latin half-lines appears to have two accents, these combination verses have been thought to be an argument for the "two-accent" theory of Anglo-Saxon verse. On the other hand, the advocates of the four-accent theory would read the Latin half-lines with four stresses each, on the ground that nearly every syllable was stressed in the chanting of such religious verse (lú-cís aúc-tór, etc.).

See also the specimens on pp. 13 and 14, above.

Alle beon he bliþe Þat to my song lyþe: A song ihc schal ȝou singe Of Mury þe kinge. King he was bi weste So longe so hit laste. Godhild het his quen, Fairer ne miȝte non ben. He hadde a sone þat het Horn, Fairer ne miȝte non beo born, Ne no rein upon birine, Ne sunne upon bischine.

(King Horn, ll. 1-12. ab. 1200-1250.)

The metre of King Horn is very irregular, and has proved somewhat puzzling to scholars. It seems to be the direct result of the primitive "long line" broken into two halves by internal rime. The number of accents varies greatly: we may have verses which are easily read with two, such as—

"Into schupes borde At the furst worde."

Yet these it is evident might also be read with three accents, as in the following couplet also:

"The se bigan to flowe, And Horn child to rowe."

According as one reads the Anglo-Saxon verse with two or four accents to the half-line, he will regard the typical half-line of King Horn as made up of two or four accents. If the fundamental number was two, the additional accented syllables were doubtless introduced under the influence of the French eight-syllable couplet. It is not difficult to see how the more regular (Latin or French) and the less regular (native) measures might have been confused, and soon have coalesced in popular use. Ten Brink, reading the King Horn lines with four accents, speaks of them as "formed entirely on the Teutonic principle, with two accents upon the sonorous close of the verse, so that it appears to be an organic continuation of the chief form in Layamon and in Ælfred's Proverbs. This circumstance makes the poem exceptional among the early English romances." He also speaks of "an unmistakably strophic construction in the text as we have it." (English Literature, Kennedy translation, vol. i. p. 227.)

Anon out of þe north est þe noys bigynes: When boþe breþes con blowe upon blo watteres, Roȝ rakkes per ros with rudnyng anunder, Þe see souȝed ful sore, gret selly to here, Þe wyndes on þe wonne water so wrastel togeder, Þat þe wawes ful wode waltered so hiȝe And efte busched to þe abyme, þat breed fysches, Durst nowhere for roȝ arest at þe bothem. When þe breth and þe brok and þe bote metten, Hit watz a ioyles gyn, þat Ionas watz inne; For hit reled on roun upon þe roȝe yþes.

(Patience, ll. 137-147. ab. 1375.)

Til þe knyȝt com hym-self, kachande his blonk, Syȝ hym byde at þe bay, his burneȝ bysyde, He lyȝtes luflych adoun, leveȝ his corsour, Braydeȝ out a bryȝt bront, & bigly forth strydeȝ, Foundeȝ fast þurȝ the forþ, þer þe felle byde, Þe wylde watȝ war of þe wyȝe with weppen in honde. Hef hyȝly þe here, so hetterly he fnast, Þat fele ferde for þe frekeȝ, lest felle hym þe worre Þe swyn setteȝ hym out on þe segge even, Þat þe burne & þe bor were boþe upon hepeȝ, In þe wyȝt-est of þe water, þe worre had þat oþer; For þe mon merkkeȝ hym wel, as þay mette fyrst, Set sadly þe scharp in þe slot even, Hit hym up to þe hult, þat þe hert schyndered, & he ȝarrande hym ȝelde, & ȝedoun þe water, ful tyt; A hundreth houndeȝ hym hent, Þat bremely con hym bite, Burneȝ him broȝt to bent, & doggeȝ to dethe endite.

(Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, strophe xviii. ab. 1375.)

These two specimens, both doubtless the work of the same author (to whom are also attributed the Pearl and Cleanness), represent the patriotic revival of the alliterative long line by contemporaries of Chaucer in the latter half of the fourteenth century. In Sir Gawayne the rimeless long line is gathered into strophes, each of which concludes with four riming lines. (See above, p. 109.)

For analysis of this revived alliterative verse, see a valuable article by Dr. Luick, Die Englische Stabreimzeile im 14n, 15n, und 16n Jahrhundert, in Anglia, vol. xi. pp. 392 and 553. Luick analyzes not only the poems of the "Pearl poet," but also the Troy Book, the Alexander Fragments, William of Palerne, Joseph of Arimathea, Morte Arthure, and minor poems. He finds the Troy Book the most regular alliterative poem of Middle English, but in all of the group a general tendency to preserve not only the early laws of alliteration but also the "five types" of Sievers's Anglo-Saxon metrics. Dr. Luick attributes the final decline of the old measure in large degree to the falling away of the final syllables in -e, etc.; without these numerous feminine endings the primitive "long line" was impossible. This he regards as regrettable, since the old alliterative verse, "growing up on native soil with the language itself," represented the natural accent-relations of the Germanic languages, especially the recognition of two principal degrees of accent; whereas the modern rimed verse requires the reduction of this to a uniform "tick-tack" of alternating stress and non-stress.

He put on his back a good plate-jack, And on his head a cap of steel, With sword and buckler by his side; O gin he did not become them weel!

(Ballad of Bewick and Grahame. In Gummere's English Ballads, p. 176.)

The regular stanza of the old ballads was of this four-stress type, with extra light syllables admitted anywhere yet not in great numbers. More commonly, however, the fourth stress was lost from the second and fourth lines. (See p. 264, below.)

I thanke hym full thraly, and sir, I saie hym the same, But what marvelous materes dyd this myron ther mell? For all the lordis langage his lipps, sir, wer lame, For any spirringes in that space no speche walde he spell.

(York Mystery Plays: The Trial before Pilate. Ed. L. T. Smith, p. 322.)

As Gammer Gurton, with manye a wyde styche, Sat pesynge and patching of Hodg her mans briche, By chance or misfortune, as shee her geare tost, In Hodge lether bryches her needle shee lost.

(Gammer Gurton's Needle, Prologue. 1566.)

In these specimens we have the later descendant of the long line as used in the early drama of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,—the "tumbling verse," regular in rhythm and rime, but indifferent to the number of syllables.[17] Sometimes, where most regular, as in lines 2-4 of the second specimen, the measure approximates closely to regular four-stress anapestic.

The time was once, and may againe retorne, (For ought may happen that hath bene beforne), When shepheards had none inheritaunce, Ne of land, nor fee in sufferaunce, But what might arise of the bare sheepe, (Were it more or lesse) which they did keepe. Well ywis was it with shepheards thoe: Nought having, nought feared they to forgoe; For Pan himselfe was their inheritaunce, And little them served for their mayntenaunce. The shepheards God so wel them guided, That of nought they were unprovided; Butter enough, honye, milke, and whay, And their flockes' fleeces them to araye.

(Spenser: The Shepherd's Calendar, May. 1579.)

Spenser's use of the tumbling verse in the Shepherd's Calendar was a part of his imitation of older forms for the sake of an uncultivated, bucolic effect. In his hands the irregular measure showed a tendency to reduce itself to regular ten-syllable lines, like the first two of the present specimen, which, by themselves, might easily be read as decasyllabic iambics. On this, see further under Five-Stress Verse. Spenser was perhaps the last cultivated poet to use the irregular measure, until we come to modern imitators of the early popular poetry. The following specimen is of this class.

It was up in the morn we rose betimes From the hall-floor hard by the row of limes. It was but John the Red and I, And we were the brethren of Gregory; And Gregory the Wright was one Of the valiant men beneath the sun, And what he bade us that we did, For ne'er he kept his counsel hid. So out we went, and the clattering latch Woke up the swallows under the thatch. It was dark in the porch, but our scythes we felt, And thrust the whetstone under the belt. Through the cold garden boughs we went Where the tumbling roses shed their scent. Then out a-gates and away we strode O'er the dewy straws on the dusty road, And there was the mead by the town-reeve's close Where the hedge was sweet with the wilding rose.

(William Morris: The Folk-Mote by the River. In Poems by the Way. 1896.)

B.—SYLLABLE-COUNTING (OCTOSYLLABIC COUPLET)

The more regular four-stress verse, in rimed couplets showing a tendency to be octosyllabic, we have seen to be generally attributed to the influence of the French octosyllabics, which were in common use in late mediæval French poetry, such as that of Wace and Chrestien de Troyes.

According to Stengel (in Gröber's Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie), this octosyllabic French verse goes back to a lost vulgar Latin verse; this view is opposed by Dr. C. M. Lewis, in his Foreign Sources of Modern English Versification (Yale Studies in English, 1898), who finds its origin in the tetrameter of the Latin hymns. Dr. Lewis also attributes to this Latin verse more direct influence on English verse than is commonly assumed. Thus he finds in it, rather than in the French octosyllabics, the model of the verse of the Pater Noster, quoted below. The argument is briefly this: the Latin verse was both accentual and syllabic; the French verse was syllabic but not accentual; that of the Pater Noster is accentual but not syllabic; hence it is more nearly like the Latin than the French. A stanza of the Latin tetrameter, cited by Dr. Lewis from the hymn Aurora lucis rutilat, is as follows:

"Tristes erat apostoli de nece sui Domini, quem pœna mortis crudeli servi damnarunt impii."

Compare these lines from the Brut of Wace:

"Adunt apela Cordeille qui esteit sa plus joes ne fille; pur ce que il l'aveit plus chiere que Ragaü ne la premiere quida que el e cuneüst que plus chier des al tres l'eüst. Cordeil le out bien escuté et bien out en sun cuer noté cument ses deus sorurs parloënt, cument lur pere losengoënt."

The last four verses of this passage are cited by Schipper as illustrating the regular iambic character of the French octosyllabics; but Dr. Lewis regards the measure as purely syllabic, with no regard for alternation of accents, and instances the earlier lines of the passage as being quite as nearly anapestic as iambic. (See Schipper, vol. i. p. 107, and Lewis's monograph, as cited above, pp. 73 ff. See also Crow: Zur Geschichte des Kurzen Reimpaares in Mittel Englisch.) Dr. Lewis's conclusion is: "We may therefore sum up the whole history of our octosyllabic verse in this way: we borrowed its number of accents from the Latin, but owing to the vitality of our own native traditions we at first borrowed nothing further; the syllabic character of the verse (so far as it has been imported at all), came in only gradually, against stubborn resistance; and it came not directly from the Latin, but indirectly, through the French" (pp. 97, 98). Some of these statements are open to question; but however we may interpret the French verse of Wace and his contemporaries, it is obvious that in English the influence of the Latin and the French poetry would very naturally be fused, with no necessarily clear conception of definite verse-structure. Whether under French or Latin influence, however, the new tendency was for the more accurate counting of syllables. We may see some suggestion of this in the verses of St. Godric, quoted on p. 126, above, although they are not regularly iambic. The poem on the "Eleven Pains of Hell" (in the Old English Miscellany) shows the French influence clearly marked by the language of its opening verses:

"Ici comencent les unze peynes De enfern, les queus seynt pool v[ist]."

Ure feder þet in heovene is, Þet is al soþ ful iwis! Weo moten to theor weordes iseon, Þet to live and to saule gode beon, Þet weo beon swa his sunes iborene, Þet he beo feder and we him icorene, Þet we don alle his ibeden And his wille for to reden.

(The Pater Noster, ab. 1175. In Morris's Old English Homilies, p. 55.)

This poem is sometimes said to show the first appearance of the octosyllabic couplet in English. It suggests the struggle between native indifference to syllable-counting and imitation of the greater regularity of its models. As Dr. Morris says of the next specimen: "The essence of the system of versification which the poet has adopted is, briefly, that every line shall have four accented syllables in it, the unaccented syllables being left in some measure, as it were, to take care of themselves." But this does not altogether do justice to the new regularity. Schipper says that of the first 100 lines of the poem 20 are perfectly regular. (See his notes in vol. i. p. 109.) In the following specimens we may trace the gradual growth of skill and accuracy.

ðo herde Abraham stevene fro gode, newe tiding and selkuð bode: 'tac ðin sune Ysaac in hond and far wið him to siðhinges lond. and ðor ða salt him offren me, on an hil, ðor ic sal taunen ðe.

(Genesis and Exodus, ll. 1285-1290. ab. 1250-1300.)

"Abid! abid!" the ule seide. "Thu gest al to mid swikelede; All thine wordes thu bi-leist, That hit thincth soth al that thu seist; Alle thine wordes both i-sliked, An so bi-semed and bi-liked, That alle tho that hi avoth, Hi weneth that thu segge soth."

(The Owl and the Nightingale, ll. 835-842. Thirteenth century.)

Quhen þis wes said, þai went þare way, and till þe toun soyn cumin ar thai sa prevely bot noys making, þat nane persavit þair cummyng. þai scalit throu þe toune in hy and brak up dures sturdely and slew all, þat þai mycht ourtak; and þai, þat na defens mycht mak, fall pitwisly couth rair and cry, and þai slew þame dispitwisly.

(Barbour: Bruce, v. 89-98. ab. 1375.)

Ȝyf þou ever þurghe folye Dydyst ouȝt do nygromauncye. Or to the devyl dedyst sacryfyse þurghe wychcraftys asyse, Or any man ȝaf þe mede For to reyse þe devyl yn dede, For to telle, or for to wrey, þynge þat was don awey; ȝyf þou have do any of þys, þou hast synnede and do a mys, And þou art wurþy to be shent þurghe þys yche commaundement.[18]

(Robert Manning of Brunne: Handlyng Synne, ll. 339-350. ab. 1300.)

Herknet to me, gode men, Wives, maydnes, and alle men, Of a tale þat ich you wile telle, Wo so it wile here, and þer-to duelle. Þe tale is of Havelok i-maked; Wil he was litel he yede ful naked: Havelok was a ful god gome, He was ful god in everi trome, He was þe wicteste man at nede, Þat þurte riden on ani stede. Þat ye mowen nou y-here, And þe tale ye mowen y-lere. At the beginning of ure tale, Fil me a cuppe of ful god ale; And y wile drinken her y spelle, Þat Crist us shilde alle fro helle!

(Lay of Havelok the Dane. ll. 1-16. ab. 1300.)

For lays and romances, both French and English, the four-stress couplet was an easy and favorite form. Compare the remarks of ten Brink: "We see how the short couplet, which is the standing form of the court-romance, was not only transmitted to it from the legendary, didactic, and historical poems, but was also suggested to it by those songs to which it was indebted for its own subject-matter. Other tokens indicate that a short strophe composed of eight-syllabled lines, with single or alternating rhymes, was a favorite form for many subjects in this jongleur poetry.... The simple form of the short couplet offered to the romance-poet no scope to compete in metrical technique with the skilled court-lyrists. He could prove his art only within a limited portion of this field: in the treatment of the enjambement and particularly of rhyme. The poet strove not only to form pure rhymes, but often to carry them forward with more syllables than were essential, and he was fond of all sorts of grammatical devices in rhyme." (English Literature, Kennedy trans., vol. i. pp. 174, 175.)

The world stant ever upon debate, So may be siker none estate; Now here, now there, now to, now fro, Now up, now down, the world goth so, And ever hath done and ever shal; Wherof I finde in special A tale writen in the bible, Which must nedes be credible, And that as in conclusion Saith, that upon division Stant, why no worldes thing may laste, Til it be drive to the laste, And fro the firste regne of all Unto this day how so befall Of that the regnes be mevable, The man him self hath be coupable, Whiche of his propre governaunce Fortuneth al the worldes chaunce.

(John Gower: Prologue to Confessio Amantis. Ed. Pauli, vol. i. pp. 22, 23. ab. 1390.)

O god of science and of light, Apollo, through thy grete might, This litel laste bok thou gye! Nat that I wilne, for maistrye, Here art poetical be shewed; But, for the rym is light and lewed, Yit make hit sumwhat agreable, Though som vers faile in a sillable; And that I do no diligence To shewe craft, but o sentence. And if, divyne vertu, thou Wilt helpe me to shewe now That in myn hede y-marked is— Lo, that is for to menen this, The Hous of Fame to descryve— Thou shalt see me go, as blyve, Unto the nexte laure I see, And kisse hit, for hit is thy tree.

(Chaucer: House of Fame, ll. 1091-1108. ab. 1385.)

It was Gower and Chaucer, in the fourteenth century, who brought the use of the eight-syllable couplet to the point of accuracy and perfection. Gower made it the vehicle of the interminable narrative of the Confessio Amantis, using it with regularity but with great monotony. Chaucer transformed it into a much more flexible form (with freedom of cesura, enjambement, and inversions), using it in about 3500 lines of his poetry (excluding the translation of the Roman de la Rose), but early leaving it for the decasyllabic verse. In modern English poetry this short couplet has rarely been used for continuous narrative of a serious character, except by Byron and Wordsworth.

But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloister's pale, And love the high embowed roof, With antique pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light. There let the pealing organ blow, To the full-voiced choir below, In service high, and anthems clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all heaven before my eyes.

(Milton: Il Penseroso, ll. 155-166. 1634.)

A sect whose chief devotion lies In odd, perverse antipathies, In falling out with that or this And finding something still amiss; More peevish, cross, and splenetic Than dog distract or monkey sick: That with more care keep holyday The wrong, than others the right way; Compound for sins they are inclined to By damning those they have no mind to.... Rather than fail they will defy That which they love most tenderly; Quarrel with mince-pies, and disparage Their best and dearest friend plum-porridge, Fat pig and goose itself oppose, And blaspheme custard through the nose.

(Samuel Butler: Hudibras, Part I. 1663.)

Butler made the octosyllabic couplet so entirely his own, for the purposes of his jogging satiric verse, that ever since it has frequently been called "Hudibrastic." The ingenuity of his rimes added not a little to its effectiveness. In the Spectator (No. 249) Addison said that burlesque poetry runs best "in doggrel like that of Hudibras, ... when a hero is to be pulled down and degraded;" otherwise in the heroic measure. He speaks also of "the generality" of Butler's readers as being "wonderfully pleased with the double rhymes."

How deep yon azure dyes the sky, Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lie, While through their ranks in silver pride The nether crescent seems to glide! The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe, The lake is smooth and clear beneath, Where once again the spangled show Descends to meet our eyes below. The grounds which on the right aspire, In dimness from the view retire: The left presents a place of graves, Whose wall the silent water laves. That steeple guides thy doubtful sight Among the livid gleams of night. There pass, with melancholy state, By all the solemn heaps of fate, And think, as softly-sad you tread Above the venerable dead, 'Time was, like thee they life possest, And time shalt be, that thou shalt rest.'

(Thomas Parnell: A Night-Piece on Death, ab. 1715.)

Mr. Gosse speaks of Parnell's employment of the octosyllabic couplet in this poem as "wonderfully subtle and harmonious." (Eighteenth Century Literature, p. 137.)

A Hare who, in a civil way, Complied with everything, like Gay, Was known by all the bestial train Who haunt the wood, or graze the plain. Her care was never to offend, And every creature was her friend. As forth she went at early dawn, To taste the dew-besprinkled lawn, Behind she hears the hunter's cries, And from the deep-mouthed thunder flies: She starts, she stops, she pants for breath; She hears the near advance of death; She doubles, to mislead the hound, And measures back her mazy round: Till, fainting in the public way, Half dead with fear she gasping lay.

(John Gay: The Hare and Many Friends, in Fables. 1727.)

Gay's use of the short couplet in his Fables sometimes shows it at its best for narrative purposes.

My female friends, whose tender hearts Have better learned to act their parts, Receive the news in doleful dumps: 'The Dean is dead: (Pray what is trumps?) Then, Lord have mercy on his soul! (Ladies, I'll venture for the vole.) Six Deans, they say, must bear the pall: (I wish I knew what king to call). Madam, your husband will attend The funeral of so good a friend? No, madam, 'tis a shocking sight: And he's engaged to-morrow night: My Lady Club will take it ill, If he should fail her at quadrille. He loved the Dean—(I lead a heart) But dearest friends, they say, must part. His time was come: he ran his race; We hope he's in a better place.'

(Swift: On the Death of Dr. Swift. 1731.)

Swift made use of the octosyllabic couplet in nearly all his verse, and with no little vigor and originality. Mr. Gosse remarks: "His lines fall like well-directed blows of the flail, and he gives the octosyllabic measure, which he is accustomed to choose on account of the Hudibrastic opportunities it offers, a character which is entirely his own." (Eighteenth Century Literature, p. 153.)

Ye forms divine, ye laureat band, That near her inmost altar stand! Now soothe her to her blissful train Blithe concord's social form to gain; Concord, whose myrtle wand can steep Even anger's bloodshot eyes in sleep; Before whose breathing bosom's balm Rage drops his steel, and storms grow calm; Her let our sires and matrons hoar Welcome to Britain's ravaged shore; Our youths, enamored of the fair, Play with the tangles of her hair, Till, in one loud applauding sound, The nations shout to her around,— O how supremely thou art blest, Thou, lady, thou shalt rule the West!

(Collins: Ode to Liberty. 1746.)

When chapman billies leave the street, And drouthy neibors, neibors meet; As market days are wearing late, And folk begin to tak the gate, While we sit bousing at the nappy, An' getting fou and unco happy, We think na on the lang Scots miles, The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles, That lie between us and our hame, Where sits our sulky, sullen dame, Gathering her brows like gathering storm, Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

(Burns: Tam O'Shanter, ll. 1-12. 1790.)

They chain'd us each to a column stone, And we were three—yet, each alone; We could not move a single pace, We could not see each other's face, But with that pale and livid light That made us strangers in our sight: And thus together—yet apart, Fetter'd in hand, but joined in heart, 'Twas still some solace, in the dearth Of the pure elements of earth, To hearken to each other's speech, And each turn comforter to each, With some new hope, or legend old, Or song heroically bold.

(Byron: The Prisoner of Chillon, iii. 1816.)

A mortal song we sing, by dower Encouraged of celestial power; Power which the viewless Spirit shed By whom we first were visited; Whose voice we heard, whose hand and wings Swept like a breeze the conscious strings, When, left in solitude, erewhile We stood before this ruined Pile, And, quitting unsubstantial dreams, Sang in this Presence kindred themes.

(Wordsworth: White Doe of Rylstone, canto vii. ll. 282-291. 1815.)

Ill fared it then with Roderick Dhu, That on the field his targe he threw, Whose brazen studs and tough bull-hide Had death so often dash'd aside; For, train'd abroad his arms to wield, Fitz-James's blade was sword and shield.... Three times in closing strife they stood, And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood; No stinted draught, no scanty tide, The gushing flood the tartans dyed. Fierce Roderick felt the fatal drain, And shower'd his blows like wintry rain; And, as firm rock, or castle-roof, Against the winter shower is proof, The foe, invulnerable still, Foil'd his wild rage by steady skill; Till, at advantage ta'en, his brand Forced Roderick's weapon from his hand, And backward borne upon the lea, Brought the proud Chieftain to his knee.

(Scott: The Lady of the Lake, canto v. st. xv. 1810.)

How this their joy fulfilled might move The world around I know not well; But yet this idle dream doth tell That no more silent was the place, That new joy lit up every face, That joyous lovers kissed and clung, E'en as these twain, that songs were sung From mouth to mouth in rose-bowers, Where hand in hand and crowned with flowers, Folk praised the Lover and Beloved That such long years, such pain had proved; But soft, they say, their joyance was When midst them soon the twain did pass, Hand locked in hand, heart kissing heart, No more this side of death to part— No more, no more—full soft I say Their greetings were that happy day, As though in pensive semblance clad; For fear their faces over-glad This certain thing should seem to hide, That love can ne'er be satisfied.

(William Morris: The Earthly Paradise; The Land East of the Sun. 1870.)

FOOTNOTES:

[16] For Sievers's analysis of Anglo-Saxon verse into these types, see his articles in Paul and Braune's Beiträge, vols. x. and xii.; and the brief statement in the Appendix to Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader, from which the examples just quoted are taken.

[17] The term "tumbling verse," used for obvious reasons, appears at least as early as 1585, when King James, in his Reulis and Cautelis for Scotch Poetry, said: "For flyting, or Invectives, use this kynde of verse following, callit Rouncefallis, or Tumbling verse:

'In the hinder end of harvest upon Alhallow ene, Quhen our gude nichtbors rydis (nou gif I reid richt) Some bucklit on a benwod, and some on a bene, Ay trott and into troupes fra the twylicht.'"

And again: "Ye man observe that thir Tumbling verse flowis not on that fassoun, as utheris dois. For all utheris keipis the reule quhilk I gave before, To wit, the first fute short the secound lang, and sa furth. Quhair as thir hes twa short, and ane lang throuch all the lyne, quhen they keip ordour: albeit the maist part of thame be out of ordour, and keipis na kynde nor reule of Flowing, and for that cause are callit Tumbling verse."

(Arber Reprint, pp. 68, 63, 64.)

See further on the persistent use of this rough measure in English, side by side with the more regular syllable-counting verse, Schipper's observations and examples in the Grundriss der Englische Metrik, pp. 109 ff. As a modern example Schipper cites one of Thackeray's ballads:

"This Mary was pore and in misery once, And she came to Mrs. Roney it's more than twelve monce. She adn't got no bed, nor no dinner nor no tea, And kind Mrs. Roney gave Mary all three."

[18] This poem of Robert Manning's was a translation of a Norman French work, Waddington's Manuel des Pechiez. The following is the original of the passage here reproduced:

"Si vus unques par folye Entremeissez de nigremancie, Ou feites al deable sacrifise, Ou enchantement par fol aprise; Ou, a gent de tiel mester Ren donastes pur lur jugler, Ou pur demander la verite De chose qe vous fut a dire,— Fet avez apertement Encuntre ceo commandement; Ceo est grant mescreaunceie, Duter de ceo, ne devez mie."

(Furnivall ed. of Manning, p. 12. ll. 1078-1089.)

II. FIVE-STRESS VERSE

The five-stress or decasyllabic verse (iambic pentameter) is so much more widely used in modern English poetry than any other verse-form, that its history is of special interest. It is curious that a form so completely adopted as the favorite of English verse should be borrowed rather than native; but, the syllable-counting principle once being admitted, there is nothing in five-stress verse inconsistent with native English tendencies. A very great part of such verse has really only four full accents, and this we have seen to be the number of accents in the native English verse. On this point, see further remarks in connection with the specimen from Spenser, p. 180 below.

This verse appears in two great divisions, rimed (the decasyllabic couplet) and unrimed (blank verse). The rimed form was the earlier, the unrimed being merely a modification of it under the influence of other unrimed metres.

A.—THE DECASYLLABIC COUPLET

Lutel wot hit anymon, hou love hym haveþ ybounde, Þat for us oþe rode ron, ant boht us wiþ is wounde. Þe love of hym us haveþ ymaked sounde, ant ycast þe grimly gost to grounde. Ever & oo, nyht & day, he haveþ us in is þohte, He nul nout leose þat he so deore bohte.

His deope wounde bledeþ fast, of hem we ohte munne! He haþ ous out of helle ycast, ybroht us out of sunne; ffor love of us his wonges waxeþ þunne, His herte blod he ȝaf for al mon kunne. Ever & oo, etc.

(Song from Harleian MS. 2253. In Böddeker's Altenglische Dichtungen, p. 231.)

This early religious lyric is of interest as containing the first known use of the five-stress couplet in English. Here it is only in a few lines that the couplet occurs, and so sporadic an occurrence should perhaps be regarded as due to nothing more than chance. See Schipper, vol. i. p. 439, and ten Brink's Chaucer's Sprache und Verskunst, p. 173 f. Ten Brink calls attention to another fairly regular five-stress verse, found on p. 253 of Wright's Political Songs:

"For miht is riht, the loud is laweless."[19]

And, as for me, though that my wit be lyte, On bokes for to rede I me delyte, And in myn herte have hem in reverence; And to hem yeve swich lust and swich credence, That ther is wel unethe game noon That from my bokes make me too goon, But hit be other up-on the haly-day, Or elles in the joly tyme of May; Whan that I here the smale foules singe, And that the floures ginne for to springe, Farwel my studie, as lasting that sesoun! Now have I therto this condicioun That, of alle the floures in the mede, Than love I most these floures whyte and rede, Swiche as men callen daysies in our toun. To them have I so greet affeccioun.

(Chaucer: Legend of Good Women, Prologue, ll. 29-44. Text A. ab. 1385.)

A good man was ther of religioun, And was a povre Persoun of a toun; But riche he was of holy thoght and werk. He was also a lerned man, a clerk, That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche; His parisshens devoutly wolde he teche. Benigne he was, and wonder diligent, And in adversitee ful pacient;... He wayted after no pompe and reverence, Ne maked him a spyced conscience, But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, He taughte, and first he folwed it himselve.

(Chaucer: Prologue to Canterbury Tales, ll. 477-484, 525-528. ab. 1385.)

With Chaucer we have the first deliberate use of the five-stress couplet, in continuous verse, known to English poetry. His earliest use of the pentameter line was in the Compleynt to Pitee (perhaps written about 1371), in the "rime royal" stanza; his earliest use of the pentameter couplet was in the Legend of Good Women, usually dated 1385. From that time the measure became almost his only instrument, and we find altogether in his poetry some 16,000 lines in the couplet, besides some 14,000 more in rime royal. Too much praise cannot be given Chaucer's use of the couplet. Although it was an experiment in English verse, it has perhaps hardly been used since his time with greater skill. He used a variety of cesuras (see ten Brink's monograph for the enumeration of them), a very large number of feminine endings (such as the still pronounced final-e and similar syllables easily provided), free inversions in the first foot and elsewhere, and many run-on lines (in a typical 100 lines some 16 run-on lines and 7 run-on couplets appearing). The total effect is one of combined freedom and mastery, of fluent conversational style yet within the limits of guarded artistic form. "Much more regularly than the French and Provençals, and yet without pedantic stiffness, he made his verse advance with a sort of iambic gait, and he was therefore able to give up and exchange for a freer arrangement the immovable cesura, which these poets had always made to coincide with a foot-ending." (Ten Brink, in English Literature, Kennedy trans., vol. ii. p. 48.) On Chaucer's verse, see, besides the monograph of ten Brink already cited, Lounsbury's Studies in Chaucer, vol. iii. pp. 297 ff., and Schipper, vol. i. pp. 442 ff.

The common assumption is, that Chaucer borrowed the pentameter couplet directly from French poetry. On the history of this in France, see Stengel, in Gröber's Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie.[20] The decasyllabic verse was fairly common in France in the fourteenth century (being called "vers commun" according to Stengel); but in the form of the couplet it was not. Professor Skeat says: "To say that it [Chaucer's couplet] was derived from the French ten-syllable verse is not a complete solution of the mystery; for nearly all such verse is commonly either in stanzas, or else a great number of successive lines are rimed together; and these, I believe, are rather scarce. After some search I have, however, fortunately lighted upon a very interesting specimen, among the poems of Guillaume de Machault, a French writer whom Chaucer is known to have imitated, and who died in 1377. In the edition of Machault's poems edited by Tarbé, Reims and Paris, 1849, p. 89, there is a poem of exactly this character, of no great length, but fortunately dated; for its title is 'Complainte écrite après la bataille de Poitiers et avant le siège de Reims par les Anglais' (1356-1358). The first four lines run thus:

"'A toy, Henry, dous amis, me complain, Pour ce que ne cueur ne mont ne plein; Car a piet suy, sans cheval et sans selle, Et si n'ay mais esmeraude, ne belle.'

... Now as Chaucer was taken prisoner in France in 1359, he had an excellent opportunity for making himself acquainted with this poem, and with others, possibly, in a similar metre, which have not come down to us." (The Prioress's Tale, Introduction, pp. xix, xx.) Paris has shown that the real date of the poem in question was 1340; the title quoted by Skeat is Tarbé's modern French caption. Professor Kittredge has called my attention to the fact that there is another poem of Machault's in the same metre (P. Paris's edition of Voir-Dit, p. 56), and also a poem by Froissart, the "Orloge Amoureus."

Ten Brink calls attention to the possibility of the influence upon Chaucer's couplet of the Italian hendecasyllabic verse. The Compleynte to Pitee, it is true, was written probably before the Italian journey of 1372-1373; but in Italy the "full significance" of the metre may have become clear to Chaucer. "After that journey the heroic verse appears almost exclusively as his poetic instrument.... Of still greater significance is the fact that Chaucer's heroic verse differs from the French decasyllabic in all the particulars in which the Italian hendecasyllabic departs from the common source, and approaches the verse of Dante and Boccaccio as closely as the metre of a Germanic language can approach a Romance metre. It may be added also that the heroic verse in the Compleynte to Pitee stands nearer the French decasyllabic than that of the Troilus or the Canterbury Tales."

Dr. Lewis, on the other hand, in The Foreign Sources of English Versification, would minimize the foreign sources of Chaucer's couplet. Not only the unaccentual character of the French verse is opposed to the theory of the French source, but also, he believes, the fixed cesura. "In the English verse there is no such thing: indeed there is no cesura at all, in the French sense of the word.... Schipper relegates to a foot-note the suggestion that our heroic verse may have originated in a different way, either through an abridgment of the alexandrine or through an extension of the four-foot line. This is of course more nearly the true view, but it is entirely immaterial which of the last two explanations we hit upon. Accentual verses of four, six, and seven feet were already familiar long before Chaucer's time. They exhibited a more or less regular alternation of arsis and thesis. To devise a verse which should be essentially the same in principle, but should have five accents instead of four, six, or seven, was a task that Chaucer's genius might well achieve unaided" (pp. 98, 99).

It is quite possible that a combination of all these views may be nearest the truth. The objection to the French influence on the ground of the syllabic (non-accentual) quality of the French verse does not seem to be serious, since any imitation of French verse by an Englishman would be likely to take on the accentual form; and, that once done, the need for the fixed cesura would vanish. But it is worth while to emphasize the fact that the genius of English verse was not so averse to the formation of a decasyllabic five-stress line as to make it a serious innovation. This view is further emphasized by the next specimen.

Is not thilke the mery moneth of May, When love-lads masken in fresh aray? How falles it, then, we no merrier bene, Ylike as others, girt in gawdy greene? Our bloncket liveryes bene all to sadde For thilke same season, when all is ycladd With pleasaunce: the grownd with grasse, the Woods With greene leaves, the bushes with bloosming buds. ... Tho to the greene Wood they speeden hem all, To fetchen home May with their musicall: And home they bringen in a royall throne, Crowned as king: and his Queene attone Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend A fayre flocke of Faeries, and a fresh bend Of lovely Nymphs. (O that I were there, To helpen the Ladyes their Maybush beare!) Ah! Piers, bene not thy teeth on edge, to thinke

(Spenser: The Shepherd's Calendar, May. 1579.)

This specimen is properly not in five-stress verse, but in irregular four-stress ("tumbling verse"); compare the specimen on p. 158, above. We have a close approach, however, to the regular five-stress verse, in such lines as the fourth, fifth, eleventh, thirteenth, and seventeenth. On this and similar passages in the Shepherd's Calendar, as illustrating the close relation between the native measure and the newer one, see an article by Professor Gummere, in the American Journal of Philology, vol. vii. pp. 53ff. Other verses cited by Dr. Gummere are:

"Whose way is wildernesse, whose ynne Penaunce." "And dirks the beauty of my blossomes rownd." "That oft the blood springeth from woundes wyde." "There at the dore he cast me downe hys pack."

It is pointed out that the regular five-stress line, when having—as very frequently—only four full stresses (two or three light syllables coming together, especially at the pause), can hardly be distinguished from certain forms of the native four-stress verse. See also the Eclogues for February and August, in the Shepherd's Calendar. Dr. Gummere's conclusion is, that "practically all the elements of Anglo-Saxon verse are preserved in our modern poetry, though in different combinations, with changed proportional importance."

But the false Fox most kindly played his part; For whatsoever mother-wit or art Could work, he put in proof: no practice sly, No counterpoint of cunning policy, No reach, no breach, that might him profit bring, But he the same did to his purpose wring.... He fed his cubs with fat of all the soil, And with the sweet of others' sweating toil; He crammed them with crumbs of benefices, And fill'd their mouths with meeds of malefices. ... No statute so established might be, Nor ordinance so needful, but that he Would violate, though not with violence, Yet under color of the confidence The which the Ape repos'd in him alone, And reckon'd him the kingdom's corner-stone.

(Spenser: Mother Hubbard's Tale, ll. 1137-1166. 1591.)

Spenser's use of the heroic couplet for the Mother Hubbard's Tale is the earliest instance of its adoption in English for satirical verse,—a purpose for which its later history showed it to be peculiarly well fitted.

Upon her head she wore a myrtle wreath, From whence her veil reach'd to the ground beneath: Her veil was artificial flowers and leaves, Whose workmanship both man and beast deceives: Many would praise the sweet smell as she past, When 'twas the odor which her breath forth cast; And there for honey bees have sought in vain, And, beat from thence, have lighted there again. About her neck hung chains of pebble-stone, Which, lighten'd by her neck, like diamonds shone.

(Marlowe: Hero and Leander, ll. 17-26. ab. 1590, pub. 1598.)

Too popular is tragic poesy, Straining his tip-toes for a farthing fee, And doth beside on rimeless numbers tread; Unbid iambics flow from careless head. Some braver brain in high heroic rhymes Compileth worm-eat stories of old times: And he, like some imperious Maronist, Conjures the Muses that they him assist. Then strives he to bombast his feeble lines With far-fetch'd phrase.— ... Painters and poets, hold your ancient right: Write what you will, and write not what you might: Their limits be their list, their reason will. But if some painter in presuming skill Should paint the stars in centre of the earth, Could ye forbear some smiles, and taunting mirth?

(Joseph Hall: Virgidemiarum Libri VI., bk. i. satire 4. 1597.)

Joseph Hall was the most vigorous satirist of the group of Elizabethans who, in the last decade of the sixteenth century, were imitating the satires of Horace, Juvenal, and Persius. Hall's satires have a curiously eighteenth-century flavor, and his couplets are frequently very similar to those of the age of Pope. Thus Thomas Warton (in his History of English Poetry) observed of Hall that "the fabric of the couplets approaches to the modern standard;" and Anderson, who edited the British Poets in 1795, said: "Many of his lines would do honor to the most harmonious of our modern poets. The sense has generally such a pause, and will admit of such a punctuation at the close of the second line, as if it were calculated for a modern ear." On the verse of these Elizabethan satirists in general, see The Rise of Formal Satire in England, by the present editor (Publications of the Univ. of Penna.).

On the other hand, the verse of the satires of John Donne, from which the following specimen is taken, is the roughest and most difficult of all the satires of the group. The reputation of Donne's satires for metrical ruggedness has affected unjustly that of his other poetry and that of the Elizabethan satires in general. Dryden said: "Would not Donne's Satires, which abound with so much wit, appear more charming if he had taken care of his words and of his numbers?" (Essay on Satire.) And Pope "versified" two of them, so as to bring them into a form pleasing to the ear of his age.

Therefore I suffered this: towards me did run A thing more strange than on Nile's slime the sun E'er bred, or all which into Noah's ark came: A thing which would have posed Adam to name; Stranger than seven antiquaries' studies, Than Afric's monsters, Guiana's rarities;... Sleeveless his jerkin was, and it had been Velvet, but 'twas now (so much ground was seen) Become tufftaffaty; and our children shall See it plain rash awhile, then nought at all. This thing hath travelled, and faith, speaks all tongues, And only knoweth what to all states belongs.

(John Donne: Satire iv. ll. 17 ff. ab. 1593.)

This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons peas, And utters it again when God doth please. He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares At wakes, and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs; And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know, Have not the grace to grace it with such show. This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve. Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve. He can carve too, and lisp: why, this is he That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy; This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice, That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice In honorable terms: nay, he can sing A mean most meanly, and, in ushering, Mend him who can: the ladies call him sweet; The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.

(Shakspere: Love's Labor's Lost, V. ii. 315-330. ab. 1590.)

The use of rimed couplets in Shakspere's dramas is especially characteristic of his earlier work. In this play, Love's Labor's Lost, Dowden says, "there are about two rhymed lines to every one of blank verse" (Shakspere Primer, p. 44). In the late plays, on the other hand, rime disappears almost altogether. It will be observed that while Shakspere's heroic verse is usually fairly regular, with not very many run-on lines, it yet differs in quality from that of satires. The dramatic use moulds it into different cadences, and the single couplet is, perhaps, less noticeably the unit of the verse.

Shepherd, I pray thee stay. Where hast thou been? Or whither goest thou? Here be woods as green As any; air likewise as fresh and sweet As where smooth Zephyrus plays on the fleet Face of the curled streams; with flowers as many As the young spring gives, and as choice as any; Here be all new delights, cool streams and wells, Arbors o'ergrown with woodbines, caves, and dells; Choose where thou wilt, whilst I sit by and sing, Or gather rushes, to make many a ring For thy long fingers; tell thee tales of love,— How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove, First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes She took eternal fire that never dies; How she conveyed him softly in a sleep, His temples bound with poppy, to the steep Head of old Latmus, where she stoops each night, Gilding the mountain with her brother's light, To kiss her sweetest.

(Fletcher: The Faithful Shepherdess, I. iii. ab. 1610.)

Fletcher uses the couplet in this drama with a freedom hardly found elsewhere until the time of Keats; see the remark of Symonds, quoted p. 210, below.

If Rome so great, and in her wisest age, Fear'd not to boast the glories of her stage, As skilful Roscius, and grave Æsop, men, Yet crown'd with honors, as with riches, then; Who had no less a trumpet of their name Than Cicero, whose every breath was fame: How can so great example die in me, That, Allen, I should pause to publish thee? Who both their graces in thyself hast more Outstript, than they did all that went before: And present worth in all dost so contract, As others speak, but only thou dost act. Wear this renown. 'Tis just, that who did give So many poets life, by one should live.

(Ben Jonson: Epigram LXXXIX, to Edward Allen. 1616.)

Jonson is thought by some to have been the founder of the classical school of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which made the heroic couplet peculiarly its own. See on this subject an article by Prof. F. E. Schelling, "Ben Jonson and the Classical School," in the Publications of the Modern Language Association, n. s. vol. vi. p. 221. Professor Schelling finds in Jonson's verse all the characteristics of the later couplet of Waller and Dryden: end-stopped lines and couplets, a preference for medial cesura, and an antithetical structure of the verse. "No better specimen of Jonson's antithetical manner could be found," he says further, than the Epigram here quoted. So far as this antithetical quality of Jonson's verse is concerned, Professor Schelling's view cannot be questioned; but that Jonson shows any singular preference for end-stopped lines and couplets may be seriously questioned.

These mighty peers placed in the gilded barge, Proud with the burden of so brave a charge, With painted oars the youths begin to sweep Neptune's smooth face, and cleave the yielding deep; Which soon becomes the seat of sudden war Between the wind and tide that fiercely jar. As when a sort of lusty shepherds try Their force at football, care of victory Makes them salute so rudely breast to breast, That their encounters seem too rough for jest; They ply their feet, and still the restless ball, Tossed to and fro, is urged by them all: So fares the doubtful barge 'twixt tide and winds, And like effect of their contention finds.

(Waller: Of the Danger his Majesty [being Prince] escaped in the Road at St. Andrews. 1623?)

Such is the mould that the blest tenant feeds On precious fruits, and pays his rent in weeds; With candied plantains, and the juicy pine, On choicest melons and sweet grapes they dine, And with potatoes fat their wanton swine; Nature these cates with such a lavish hand Pours out among them, that our coarser land Tastes of that bounty, and does cloth return, Which not for warmth but ornament is worn; For the kind spring, which but salutes us here, Inhabits there and courts them all the year; Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live, At once they promise what at once they give; So sweet the air, so moderate the clime, None sickly lives, or dies before his time.... O how I long my careless limbs to lay Under the plantain's shade, and all the day With amorous airs my fancy entertain, Invoke the Muses, and improve my vein!

(Waller: The Battle of the Summer Islands, canto i. 1638.)

Edmund Waller is the chief representative of the early classical poetry of the seventeenth century, and of the polishing and regulating of the couplet which prepared the way for the verse of Dryden and Pope. The dominant characteristic of this verse is its avoidance of enjambement, or run-on lines, still more of run-on couplets. The growing precision of French verse at the same time was perhaps influential in England. Malherbe, who was at the French court after 1605, set rules for more regular verse, and forbade, among other things, the use of run-on lines—a precept which held good in French poetry until the nineteenth century. The influence of Waller in England was, for a considerable period, hardly less than that of Malherbe in France. Dryden said that "the excellence and dignity" of rime "were never known till Mr. Waller taught it; he first made writing easily an art; first showed us to conclude the sense most commonly in distichs, which, in the verse of those before him, runs on for so many lines together that the reader is out of breath to overtake it. This sweetness of Mr. Waller's lyric poesy was afterward followed, in the epic, by Sir John Denham, in his Cooper's Hill." (Epistle Dedicatory of The Rival Ladies.) In another place Dryden observed that only Waller, in English, had surpassed Spenser in the harmony of his verse. Dryden's view was later echoed by Pope, who exhorted his readers to

"praise the easy vigor of a line Where Denham's strength and Waller's sweetness join."

(Essay on Criticism, l. 360.)

But the most remarkable praise of Waller is found in the Preface to his posthumous poems, 1690, generally attributed to Bishop Atterbury. "He was indeed the parent of English verse, and the first that shewed us our tongue had beauty and numbers in it.... The tongue came into his hands like a rough diamond; he polished it first, and to that degree that all artists since him have admired the workmanship, without pretending to mend it.... He undoubtedly stands first in the list of refiners, and for aught I know, last, too; for I question whether in Charles the Second's reign English did not come to its full perfection; and whether it has not had its Augustan Age, as well as the Latin.... We are no less beholding to him for the new turn of verse, which he brought in, and the improvement he made in our numbers. Before his time men rhymed, indeed, and that was all: as for the harmony of measure, and that dance of words which good ears are so much pleased with, they knew nothing of it. Their poetry then was made up almost entirely of monosyllables, which, when they come together in any cluster, are certainly the most harsh, untunable things in the world. If any man doubts of this, let him read ten lines in Donne, and he'll quickly be convinced. Besides, their verses ran all into one another, and hung together, throughout a whole copy, like the hook't atoms that compose a body in Des Cartes. There was no distinction of parts, no regular stops, nothing for the ear to rest upon. But as soon as the copy began, down it went like a larum, incessantly; and the reader was sure to be out of breath before he got to the end of it. So that really verse in those days was but downright prose, tagged with rhymes. Mr. Waller removed all these faults, brought in more polysyllables and smoother measures, bound up his thoughts better and in a cadence more agreeable to the nature of the verse he wrote in: so that wherever the natural stops of that were, he contrived the little breakings of his sense so as to fall in with 'em. And for that reason, since the stress of our verse lies commonly upon the last syllable, you'll hardly ever find him using a word of no force there."[21] Waller's editor thus clearly discerns the very characteristics of his verse which are avoided by the master-poets—the coincidence of phrase-pauses and verse-pauses, and regularity in the placing of stress.

The most important discussion of the influence of Waller on English poetry, and on the heroic couplet in particular, is found in Mr. Gosse's book, From Shakespeare to Pope. Mr. Gosse regards Waller as inventing for himself the couplet of the classical school; "master," in 1623, of such verse as "was not imitated by a single poet for nearly twenty years" (p. 50). This view is criticised in an interesting article by Dr. Henry Wood, in the American Journal of Philology, vol. xi. p. 55. While Mr. Gosse places Waller's earliest couplets in 1621 and 1623, Dr. Wood would date them as late as 1626, and shows that Waller wrote nothing else until 1635. Meantime had appeared (the first volume at least as early as 1623) the translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, by George Sandys, in which, says Wood, all the characteristics of Waller's verse appear. "At all events," is his conclusion, "it was Sandys, and not Waller, who at the beginning of the third decade of the century, first of all Englishmen, made a uniform practice of writing in heroic couplets, which are, on the whole, in accord with the French rule, and which, for exactness of construction, and for harmonious sification, go far towards satisfying the demands of the later 'classical' school in England." Dr. Wood emphasizes the probable influence of the French poets on these early heroic couplets, calling attention to the fact that Sandys was in France in 1610. There is no evidence, however, that he was there for more than a few days, en route to more eastern countries. Waller was not in France till 1643. The whole question of the influence of French poetry in England before the Restoration still remains to be carefully investigated. Meantime, the cautious student will hesitate to put too much stress on any single point of departure for the new style of versification. Many influences must have combined to make it popular. We have seen Professor Schelling emphasizing the influence of Jonson; he also very justly points out "that it is a mistake to consider that the Elizabethans often practised the couplet with the freedom, not to say license, that characterizes its nineteenth century use in the hands of such poets as Keats." Compare the couplets of even so romantic a poet as Marlowe, in the specimen given above from Hero and Leander. And even Mr. Gosse, in partial divergence from the doctrines of From Shakespeare to Pope, says of the satiric verse of the Elizabethan Rowlands: "There are lines in this passage which Pope would not have disdained to use. It might, indeed, be employed as against that old heresy, not even yet entirely discarded, that smoothness of heroic verse was the invention of Waller. As a matter of fact, this, as well as all other branches of the universal art of poetry, was understood by the great Elizabethan masters; and if they did not frequently employ it, it was because they left to such humbler writers as Rowlands an instrument incapable of those noble and audacious harmonies on which they chiefly prided themselves." (Introduction to the Works of Rowlands, Hunterian Club ed., p. 16.)

A tribute to the incoming influence of the couplet is cited by Dr. Wood from the poems of Sir John Beaumont (1582-1627). In his verses To His Late Majesty, concerning the True Forme of English Poetry, Beaumont said:

"In every language now in Europe spoke By nations which the Roman empire broke, The rellish of the Muse consists in rime, One verse must meete another like a chime.... In many changes these may be exprest, But those that joyne most simply run the best: Their forme surpassing farre the fetter'd staves, Vaine care, and needlesse repetition saves."

(Chalmer's English Poets, vol. vi. p. 31.)[22]

Rough Boreas in Æolian prison laid, And those dry blasts which gathered clouds invade, Outflies the South with dropping wings; who shrouds His terrible aspect in pitchy clouds. His white hair streams, his swol'n beard big with showers; Mists bind his brows, rain from his bosom pours. As with his hands the hanging clouds he crushed, They roared, and down in showers together rushed. All-colored Iris, Juno's messenger, To weeping clouds doth nourishment confer. The corn is lodged, the husbandmen despair, Their long year's labor lost, with all their care. Jove, not content with his ethereal rages, His brother's auxiliaric floods engages.

(George Sandys: Ovid's Metamorphoses, bk. i. 1621.)

On the significance of Sandys's verse, see preceding notes on Waller, and the note on its possible relation to Pope, p. 201 below.

My eye, descending from the hill, surveys Where Thames amongst the wanton valleys strays; Thames, the most loved of all the Ocean's sons By his old sire, to his embraces runs, Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, Like mortal life to meet eternity.... No unexpected inundations spoil The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil, But godlike his unwearied bounty flows, First loves to do, then loves the good he does; Nor are his blessings to his banks confined, But free and common as the sea or wind.... O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream My great example, as it is my theme! Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull, Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.

(Sir John Denham: Cooper's Hill. 1642.)

"Denham," says Mr. Gosse, "was the first writer to adopt the precise manner of versification introduced by Waller." (Ward's English Poets, vol. ii. p. 279.) On his praise by Dryden and Pope, see notes on p. 188 above. The last four lines of the specimen here given have been universally admired.

But say, what is't that binds your hands? does fear From such a glorious action you deter? Or is't religion? But you sure disclaim That frivolous pretence, that empty name; Mere bugbear word, devis'd by us to scare The senseless rout to slavishness and fear, Ne'er known to awe the brave, and those that dare. Such weak and feeble things may serve for checks To rein and curb base-mettled heretics, ... Such whom fond in-bred honesty befools, Or that old musty piece, the Bible, gulls.

(John Oldham: Satires upon the Jesuits, Sat. i. 1679.)

"Oldham was the first," says Mr. Gosse, "to liberate himself, in the use of the distich, from this under-current of a stanza, and to write heroic verse straight on, couplet by couplet, ascending by steady strides and not by irregular leaps. (Any one who will venture to read Oldham's disagreeable Satire upon the Jesuits, written in 1679, will see the truth of this remark, and note the effect that its versification had upon that series of Dryden's satires which immediately followed it.) In Pope's best satires we see this art carried to its final perfection; after his time the connecting link between couplet and couplet became lost, and at last in the decline poems became, as some one has said, mere cases of lancets lying side by side. But in Dryden's day the connection was still only too obvious, and it strikes me that it may have been from a consciousness of this defect, that Dryden adopted that triplet, with a final alexandrine, which he is so fond of introducing." (From Shakespeare to Pope, p. 201.)

Of these the false Achitophel was first, A name to all succeeding ages curst: For close designs and crooked counsels fit, Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit, Restless, unfixed in principles and place, In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace; A fiery soul, which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay, And o'er-informed the tenement of clay. A daring pilot in extremity, Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high, He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit. Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide; Else, why should he, with wealth and honor blest, Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? Punish a body which he could not please, Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?... In friendship false, implacable in hate, Resolved to ruin or to rule the state; To compass this the triple bond he broke, The pillars of the public safety shook, And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke; Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting fame, Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.

(Dryden: Absalom and Achitophel, part I. ll. 150-179. 1681.)

Dryden was the first great English poet after Chaucer to make the heroic couplet his chief vehicle of expression, and he put far more variety and vigor into it than had been achieved by his nearer predecessors. As Pope said:

"Waller was smooth, but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full resounding line, The long majestic march, the energy divine."

(Epistle ii., 267.)

And Gray, some years later, symbolized Dryden's couplet in these fine lines of the Progress of Poesy:

"Behold, where Dryden's less presumptuous car, Wide o'er the fields of glory bear Two coursers of ethereal race, With necks in thunder clothed, and long-resounding pace."

On Dryden's development of the couplet, see especially Saintsbury's Life of Dryden (English Men of Letters Series), pp. 17, 171. "The whole structure of the decasyllabic line before the middle of the seventeenth century was ill calculated for the perfecting of the couplet. Accustomed either to the stately plainness of blank verse, or to the elaborate intricacies of the stanza, writers had got into the habit of communicating to their verse a slow and somewhat languid movement." (p. 17.) "In versification the great achievement of Dryden was the alteration of what may be called the balance of the line, causing it to run more quickly, and to strike its rhymes with a sharper and less prolonged sound. One obvious means of obtaining this was, as a matter of course, the isolation of the couplet, and the avoidance of overlapping the different lines one upon the other. The effect of this overlapping, by depriving the eye and voice of the expectation of rest at the end of each couplet, is always one of two things. Either the lines are converted into a sort of rhythmic prose, made musical by the rhymes rather than divided by them, or else a considerable pause is invited at the end of each, or of most lines, and the cadence of the whole becomes comparatively slow and languid. Both these forms, as may be seen in the works of Mr. Morris, as well as in the older writers, are excellently suited for narration of some considerable length. They are less well suited for satire, for argument, and for the moral reflections which the age of Dryden loved. He therefore set himself to elaborate the couplet with its sharp point, its quick delivery, and the pistol-like detonation of its rhyme. But there is an obvious objection, or rather there are several obvious objections which present themselves to the couplet. It was natural that to one accustomed to the more varied range of the older rhythm and metre, there might seem to be a danger of the snip-snap monotony into which, as we know, it did actually fall when it passed out of the hands of its first great practitioners. There might also be a fear that it would not always be possible to compress the sense of a complete clause within the narrow limits of twenty syllables. To meet these difficulties Dryden resorted to three mechanical devices—the hemistich, the alexandrine, and the triplet, all three of which could be used indifferently to eke out the space or to give variety of sound.... In poetry proper the hemistich is anything but pleasing, and Dryden, becoming convinced of the fact, almost discarded it. The alexandrine and the triplet he always continued to use." (pp. 171, 172.)