Chapter 9

Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fair! How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae fu' o' care!

(BURNS: _Bonnie Doon._ ab. 1790.)

_abab_

Þe grace of god ful of mi[gh]t Þat is king and ever was, Mote among us ali[gh]t And [gh]ive us alle is swet grace.

(From the Harleian Ms. 913. In Mätzner's _Altenglische Sprachproben_, vol. i. p. 125.)

Furnivall prints this in long lines with internal rime, which of itself seems to form the short-line stanza from the long lines.

Of al this world the wyde compas Hit wol not in myn armes tweyne.-- Who-so mochel wol embrace Litel thereof he shal distreyne.

(CHAUCER: _Proverb._ ab. 1380.)

When youth had led me half the race, That Cupid's scourge me caus'd to run, I looked back to meet the place From whence my weary course begun.

(EARL OF SURREY: _Description of the restless state of a lover._ ab. 1545.)

Weep with me, all you that read This little story; And know, for whom a tear you shed Death's self is sorry.

(BEN JONSON: _Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy._ 1616.)

And now the weary world's great medicine, Sleep, This learned host dispensed to every guest, Which shuts those wounds where injured lovers weep, And flies oppressors to relieve the opprest.

(SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT: _Gondibert_, Bk. i. Canto 6. 1651)

Now like a maiden queen she will behold From her high turrets hourly suitors come; The East with incense and the West with gold Will stand like suppliants to receive her doom.

(DRYDEN: _Annus Mirabilis_, stanza 297. 1667.)

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

(GRAY: _Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard._ 1751.)

To Davenant's _Gondibert_ is usually traced the use of this "heroic" stanza (_abab_ in iambic five-stress lines) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In his preface the author said: "I believed it would be more pleasant to the reader, in a work of length, to give this respite or pause, between every stanza, ... than to run him out of breath with continued couplets. Nor doth alternate rime by any lowliness of cadence make the sound less heroic, but rather adapt it to a plain and stately composing of music." Dryden followed Davenant in using the stanza for his _Annus Mirabilis_, saying in his preface: "I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains, or stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them more noble, and of greater dignity, both for the sound and number, than any other verse in use amongst us.... I have always found the couplet verse most easy (though not so proper for this occasion), for there the work is sooner at an end, every two lines concluding the labor of the poet; but in quatrains he is to carry it further on, and not only so, but to bear along in his head the troublesome sense of four lines together." Dryden did not use the stanza again, however, and it is obviously unsuited to a long narrative poem. Saintsbury says: "With regard to the nobility and dignity of this stanza, it may safely be said that _Annus Mirabilis_ itself, the best poem ever written therein, killed it by exposing its faults.... It is chargeable with more than the disjointedness of the couplet, without the possibility of relief; while, on the other hand, the quatrains have not, like the Spenserian stave or the _ottava rima_, sufficient bulk to form units in themselves." (_Life of Dryden_, Men of Letters Series, p. 34.)

It is hard to say what Mr. Saintsbury means in speaking of the _Annus Mirabilis_ as the best poem ever written in the heroic quatrain, when we remember that it is the quatrain of Gray's _Elegy_. On the possible sources of his use of it, see Gosse's _Life of Gray_, in the Men of Letters Series, p. 98 (also his _From Shakespeare to Pope_, p. 140). Mr. Gosse refers to the use of the quatrain by Sir John Davies in the _Nosce Teipsum_ (1599), with which Gray was familiar, and (in addition to Davenant, Dryden, and Hobbes's _Homer_) to the _Love Elegies_ of James Hammond, published 1743. "It is believed that the printing of Hammond's verses incited Gray to begin his _Churchyard Elegy_, and to make the four-line stanza the basis of most of his harmonies.... The measure itself, from first to last, is an attempt to render in English the solemn alternation of passion and reserve, the interchange of imploring and desponding tones, that is found in the Latin elegiac; and Gray gave his poem, when he first published it, an outward resemblance to the text of Tibullus by printing it without any stanzaic pauses." Mr. Gosse neglects the elegies of William Shenstone, which were also in the quatrain, and some of which had apparently been published before the _Churchyard Elegy_. On this matter see Beers's _Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century_, p. 137, where Shenstone is said to have borrowed the stanza from Hammond, and Gray from Shenstone. Shenstone, in his _Prefatory Essay on Elegy_, defended the metrical form and referred to the elegies of Hammond. "Heroic metre, with alternate rhyme, seems well enough adapted to this species of poetry; and, however exceptionable upon other occasions, its inconveniencies appear to lose their weight in shorter elegies, and its advantages seem to acquire an additional importance. The world has an admirable example of its beauty in a collection of elegies not long since published." (Chalmers's _English Poets_, vol. xiii. p. 264.)

For there was Milton like a seraph strong, Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild; And there the world-worn Dante grasped his song, And somewhat grimly smiled.

(TENNYSON: _The Palace of Art._ 1833.)

_abba_

Yet those lips, so sweetly swelling, Do invite a stealing Kiss. Now will I but venture this; Who will read, must first learn spelling.

(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Astrophel and Stella_, Song ii. ab. 1580.)

Let the bird of loudest lay, On the sole Arabian tree, Herald sad and trumpet be, To whose sound chaste wings obey.

(SHAKSPERE: _The Ph[oe]nix and the Turtle_, 1601.)

Though beauty be the mark of praise, And yours of whom I sing, be such As not the world can praise too much, Yet is't your virtue now I raise.

(BEN JONSON: _Elegy_, in _Underwoods_. 1616.)

Lord, in thine anger do not reprehend me, Nor in thy hot displeasure me correct; Pity me, Lord, for I am much deject, And very weak and faint; heal and amend me.

(MILTON: _Psalm vi._ 1653.)

Away, those cloudy looks, that lab'ring sigh, The peevish offspring of a sickly hour! Nor meanly thus complain of fortune's power, When the blind gamester throws a luckless die.

(COLERIDGE: _To a Friend._ ab. 1795.)

Twelve struck. That sound, by dwindling years Heard in each hour, crept off; and then The ruffled silence spread again, Like water that a pebble stirs.

(ROSSETTI: _My Sister's Sleep._ 1850.)

I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

(TENNYSON: _In Memoriam_, xxvii. 1850.)

Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, That rollest from the gorgeous gloom Of evening over brake and bloom And meadow, slowly breathing bare

The round of space, and rapt below Thro' all the dewy-tasselled wood, And shadowing down the horned flood In ripples, fan my brows and blow

The fever from my cheek, and sigh The full new life that feeds thy breath Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, Ill brethren, let the fancy fly

From belt to belt of crimson seas On leagues of odor streaming far, To where in yonder orient star A hundred spirits whisper "Peace."

(TENNYSON: _ibid._, lxxxiv.)

This stanza (_abba_ in four-stress iambics) is commonly known as the "_In Memoriam_ stanza," from its familiar use by Tennyson. Tennyson is indeed said to have invented it for his own use, not knowing of its earlier appearance in the works of Jonson and Rossetti. Professor Corson has an interesting passage on the poetic quality of the stanza: "By the rhyme-scheme of the quatrain, the terminal rhyme-emphasis of the stanza is reduced, the second and third verses being most closely braced by the rhyme. The stanza is thus admirably adapted to that sweet continuity of flow, free from abrupt checks, demanded by the spiritualized sorrow which it bears along. Alternate rhyme would have wrought an entire change in the tone of the poem. To be assured of this, one should read, aloud of course, all the stanzas whose first and second, or third and fourth, verses admit of being transposed without affecting the sense. By such transposition, the rhymes are made alternate, and the concluding rhymes more emphatic." Compare the stanza quoted above from section xxvii. with the transposed form:

"I feel it when I sorrow most; I hold it true, whate'er befall; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all."

On the passage quoted from section lxxxiv. Professor Corson also observes: "The four stanzas of which it is composed constitute but one period, the sense being suspended till the close. The rhyme-emphasis is so distributed that any one, hearing the poem read, would hardly be sensible of any of the slightest checks in the continuous and even movement of the verse.... There is no other section of _In Memoriam_ in which the artistic motive of the stanza is so evident." (_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 70-77.)

_aaba_

Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes entendeth, Which now my breast, surcharg'd, to music lendeth! To you, to you, all song of praise is due, Only in you my song begins and endeth.

(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Astrophel and Stella._ Song i, ab. 1580.)

Here the third line (the same in all the stanzas) has an additional internal rime.

Oh, make the most of what we yet may spend, Before we too into the dust descend; Dust into dust, and under dust, to lie, Sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and--sans end!

(EDW. FITZGERALD: _Paraphrase of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam._ 1859.)

For groves of pine on either hand, To break the blast of winter, stand; And further on, the hoary Channel Tumbles a billow on chalk and sand.

(Tennyson: _To the Rev. F. D. Maurice._ 1854.)

This delightful stanza (used also by Tennyson in _The Daisy_) seems to be an imitation of the well-known Alcaic stanza of Horace:

"Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte, nec jam sustineant onus Silvae laborantes, geluque Flumina constiterint acuto."

Ah, yet would God this flesh of mine might be Where air would wash and long leaves cover me, Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers, Or where the wind's feet shine along the sea.

(SWINBURNE: _Laus Veneris._)

REFRAIN STANZAS

In this group of refrain stanzas there is no attempt to make the range of illustrations complete, but only to suggest how the refrain idea has been variously used in forming the structure of the stanza. In some cases, for example, it will be seen that the refrain is a mere appendage or _coda_ to the stanza; in others it is made by rime a part of the organized structure.

Blow, northerne wynd, Sent þou my suetyng! Blow, norþern wynd, Blou! blou! blou!

(Song from Harleian Ms. 2253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p. 168.)

I that in heill wes and glaidness, Am trublit now with gret seikness, And feblit with infirmitie; _Timor Mortis conturbat me._

(WILLIAM DUNBAR: _Lament for the Makaris._ ab. 1500.)

Now Simmer blinks on flowery braes, And o'er the crystal streamlets plays; Come, let us spend the lightsome days In the birks of Aberfeldy.

(BURNS: _The Birks of Aberfeldy._ 1787.)

I wish I were where Helen lies; Night and day on me she cries; O that I were where Helen lies On fair Kirconnell lea!

(_Fair Helen_; old ballad.)

O sing unto my roundelay, O drop the briny tear with me, Dance no more at holy-day, Like a running river be. My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow tree.

(CHATTERTON: Minstrel's Roundelay from _Ælla_. ab. 1770.)

The twentieth year is well-nigh past, Since first our sky was overcast; Ah, would that this might be the last! My Mary!

(COWPER: _My Mary._ 1793.)

Duncan Gray cam' here to woo-- Ha, ha, the wooing o't! On blithe Yule night, when we were fou-- Ha, ha, the wooing o't! Maggie coost her head fu' heigh, Looked asklent and unco skeigh, Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh; Ha, ha, the wooing o't!

(BURNS: _Duncan Gray._ ab. 1790.)

My heart is wasted with my woe, Oriana. There is no rest for me below, Oriana. When the long dun wolds are ribb'd with snow, And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow, Oriana, Alone I wander to and fro, Oriana.

(TENNYSON: _Ballad of Oriana._ ab. 1830.)

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, (Toll slowly) And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness-- Round our restlessness His rest.

(ELIZABETH B. BROWNING: _Rhyme of the Duchess May._ ab. 1845.)

"Ah! what white thing at the door has cross'd, Sister Helen? Ah! what is this that sighs in the frost?" "A soul that's lost as mine is lost, Little brother!" (O Mother, Mary Mother, Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven!)

(ROSSETTI: _Sister Helen._ 1870.)

Laetabundus Exultet fidelis chorus, Alleluia! Egidio psallat coetus Iste laetus, Alleluia!

(ST. BERNARD: _De Nativitate Domini._)

Sermone Marcus Tullius, Fortuna Cesar Julius Tibi non equantur. Tibi summa prudentia, Prefulgens et potentia Celesti dono dantur.

(From a 12th c. MS.: _Regulae de Rhythmis._ In Schipper's _Englische Metrik_, vol. i. p. 354.)

Quant li solleiz conviset en leon En icel tens qu'est ortus pliadon Perunt matin, Une pulcellet odit molt gent plorer Et son ami dolcement regreter, Ex si lli dis.

(Early French version of the _Song of Songs_, quoted in LEWIS's _Foreign Sources of Modern English Versification_, p. 89.)

The special form of refrain stanza appearing in the first of these foreign specimens (the Alleluia hymn form) is generally thought to have been the source of the "tail-rime stanza" illustrated in the other two specimens, and in the several pages which follow. The characteristic feature of this stanza is the presence of two short lines riming together and serving as "tails" to the first and second parts of the body of the stanza. The same name appears in all the languages: "versus caudati" in the mediæval Latin, "rime couée" in the French, and "Schweifreim" in modern German. It is easy to see, what the following specimens illustrate, how stanzas constructed on this fundamental principle might be varied greatly in particular forms, according to the number, length, and rime-arrangement of the longer lines.

Men may merci have, traytour not to save, for luf ne for awe, Atteynt of traytorie, suld haf no mercie, wiþ no maner lawe.

(ROBERT MANNING of Brunne: _Chronicle._ ab. 1330.)

For Edward gode dede Þe Baliol did him mede a wikked bounte. Turne we ageyn to rede and on our geste to spede a Maddok þer left we. (_Ibid._)

Manning's chronicle was a translation of the French chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft. Although the translator designed to avoid the various complicated measures used in the original, and kept pretty closely to alexandrines (see p. 254, below), in the passages here represented he followed the tail-rime of the original. In the first case the stanza form is not represented in the manuscript, though of course implicit in the rimes. The name of the stanza, "rime couée," appears very early in Manning's Prologue, in the famous passage in which he expressed his preference for metrical simplicity:

Als þai haf wrytenn and sayd Haf I alle in myn Inglis layd, In symple speche as I couthe, That is lightest in mannes mouthe. I mad noght for no disours, Ne for no seggers no harpours, Bot for þe luf of symple menn That strange Inglis cann not kenn. For many it ere that strange Inglis In ryme wate never what it is, And bot þai wist what it mente Ellis me thoght it were alle shente.

I made it not for to be praysed, Bot at þe lewed menn were aysed. If it were made in ryme couwee, Or in strangere or entrelace, Þat rede Inglis it ere inowe Þat couthe not haf coppled a kowe, Þat outhere in couwee or in baston Som suld haf ben fordon, So þat fele men þat it herde Suld not witte howe þat it ferde.

... And forsoth I couth noght So strange Inglis as þai wroght, And menn besoght me many a tyme To turne it bot in light ryme. þai sayd, if I in strange it turne, To here it manyon suld skurne. For it ere names fulle selcouthe, þat ere not used now in mouthe. And therfore for the comonalte, þat blythely wild listen to me, On light lange I it begann, For luf of the lewed mann.

(Hearne ed., vol. i. pp. xcix, c.)

Lines 15-22 may be paraphrased thus: "If it were made in _rime couée_, in _rime strangere_, or _rime entrelacée_, there are plenty of those who read English who could not have put the tail-verses together; so that either in the tail-verse or the _baston_ some would have been confused, and many men that heard it would not know how it went." The "interlaced" (alternate) rime was a familiar form. _Baston_ seems usually to be an equivalent for "stanza" or "stave." It seems uncertain whether by _rime strangere_ Manning had in mind any particular form of stanza or rime-arrangement.

Stand wel, moder, under rode, Byholt þy sone wiþ glade mode; Blyþe, moder, myht þou be! Sone, hou shulde y blyþe stonde? Y se þin fet, y se þin honde Nayled to þe harde tre.

(Song from Harleian MS. 3253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p. 206.)

Listeth, lordes, in good entent, And I wol telle verrayment Of mirthe and of solas; Al of a knyght was fair and gent In bataille and in tourneyment, His name was sir Thopas ...

An elf-queen wol I love, y-wis, For in this world no womman is Worthy to be my make In toune; Alle othere wommen I forsake, And to an elf-queen I me take By dale and eek by doune!

(CHAUCER: _Sir Thopas_, from _Canterbury Tales_. ab. 1385.)

The tail-rime stanza had become a favorite for the metrical romances of the fourteenth century; but Chaucer evidently saw its inappropriateness for long narrative poems, and ridiculed it--with certain other elements of the romances--in this _Rime of Sir Thopas_. The Host is made to interrupt the story:

"'Myn eres aken of thy drasty speche; Now swiche a rym the devel I beteche! This may wel be rym dogerel', quod he."

My patent pardouns, ye may se, Cum fra the Cane of Tartarei, Weill seald with oster schellis; Thocht ye have na contritioun, Ye sall have full remissioun, With help of buiks and bellis.

(SIR DAVID LINDSAY: _Ane Satyre of the Three Estates._ ab. 1540.)

Seinte Marie! levedi briht, Moder thou art of muchel miht, Quene in hevene of feire ble; Gabriel to the he lihte, Tho he brouhte al wid rihte Then holi gost to lihten in the. Godes word ful wel thou cnewe; Ful mildeliche thereto thou bewe, And saidest, "So it mote be!" Thi thone was studevast ant trewe; For the joye that to was newe, Levedi, thou have merci of me!

(_Quinque Gaudia._ In Mätzner's _Altenglische Sprachproben_, vol. i. p. 51.)

Here the principle of the tail-rime is extended to four tail-verses. See also the specimen on p. 111, below.

All, dear Nature's children sweet, Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet, Blessing their sense! Not an angel of the air, Bird melodious or bird fair, Be absent hence.

(Song from _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, by Shakspere and Fletcher. pub. 1634.)

Fair stood the wind for France, When we our sails advance, Nor now to prove our chance Longer not tarry; But put unto to the main, At Caux, the mouth of Seine, With all his martial train, Landed King Harry.

(DRAYTON: _Agincourt._ ab. 1600.)

I am a man of war and might, And know thus much, that I can fight, Whether I am i' th' wrong or right, Devoutly. No woman under heaven I fear, New oaths I can exactly swear, And forty healths my brains will bear Most stoutly.

(SIR JOHN SUCKLING: _A Soldier._ ab. 1635.)

The stanzas that follow show various combinations and applications of the same principle--the use of shorter verses in connection with longer.

A wayle whyte ase whalles bon, A grein in golde þat goldly shon, A tortle þat min herte is on, In toune trewe; Hire gladshipe nes never gon, Whil y may glewe.

(Song from Harleian MS. 2253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p. 161.)

Of on that is so fayr and bri[gh]t, _velut maris stella_, Bri[gh]ter than the day is li[gh]t, _parens et puella_; Ic crie to the, thou se to me, Levedy, preye thi sone for me, _tam pia_, That ic mote come to the _Maria_.

(_Hymn to the Virgin_, from Egerton MS. 613. In Mätzner's _Altenglische Sprachproben_, vol. i. p. 53.)

Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursel's as ithers see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us An' foolish notion: What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, An' e'en devotion!

(BURNS: _To a Louse on a Lady's Bonnet._ 1786.)

O goodly hand, Wherein doth stand My heart distract in pain; Dear hand, alas! In little space My life thou dost restrain.

(SIR THOMAS WYATT: In Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets._ pub. 1557.)

Old Ocean's praise Demands my lays; A truly British theme I sing;

A theme so great, I dare compete, And join with Ocean, Ocean's king.

(EDWARD YOUNG: _Ocean, an Ode._ 1728.)

No more, no more This worldly shore Upbraids me with its loud uproar! With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Under the walls of Paradise!

(THOMAS BUCHANAN READ: _Drifting._ ab. 1850.)

In these stanzas a pair of long lines bind together the first and second parts of the composition, just as the short lines do in the original _rime couée_.

Young was and is universally condemned for choosing this form of stanza for his odes. He was led to do so by his admiration for the passage in Dryden's _Ode for St. Cecilia's Day_, running:

"Assumes the god, Affects to nod, And seems to shake the spheres."

Here, said Young, Dryden was expressing "majesty"; hence, since he wished his odes to be majestic, he used the short, choppy measure throughout. (See his Introductory Essay to his Odes, in Chalmers's _English Poets_, vol. xiii.) On the other hand, the stanza as used by Read has been almost universally admired.

Hail, old Patrician Trees, so great and good! Hail, ye Plebeian Underwood! Where the poetic birds rejoice, And for their quiet nests and plenteous food Pay with their grateful voice.

(COWLEY: _Of Solitude._ ab. 1650.)

To-night this sunset spreads two golden wings Cleaving the western sky; Winged too with wind it is, and winnowings Of birds; as if the day's last hour in rings Of strenuous flight must die.

(ROSSETTI: _Sunset Wings._ 1881.)

Ye dainty Nymphs, that in this blessed brook Do bathe your breast, Forsake your watery bowers, and hither look At my request: And eke you Virgins that on Parnasse dwell, Whence floweth Helicon, the learned well, Help me to blaze Her worthy praise, Which in her sex doth all excel.

(SPENSER: _The Shepherd's Calendar, April._ 1579.)

You, that will a wonder know, Go with me, Two suns in a heaven of snow Both burning be; All they fire, that do but eye them, But the snow's unmelted by them.

(CAREW: _In Praise of his Mistress._ ab. 1635.)

Go, lovely Rose! Tell her, that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be.

(WALLER: _Go, lovely Rose._ ab. 1650.)

The use of short lines somewhat intricately introduced among longer ones, is characteristic of the stanzas of the lyrical poets of the first part of the seventeenth century. It may perhaps be traced in part to the influence of Donne.

Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles Miles and miles On the solitary pastures where our sheep Half-asleep Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop As they crop.

(BROWNING: _Love among the Ruins._ 1855.)

Compare with this (although it is not divided into stanzas) Herrick's _Thanksgiving to God_:

Lord, thou hast given me a cell Wherein to dwell; A little house, whose humble roof Is weatherproof; Under the spars of which I lie Both soft and dry.

When God at first made Man, Having a glass of blessings standing by, Let us (said He) pour on him all we can: Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie, Contract into a span.

(GEORGE HERBERT: _The Gifts of God._ 1631.)

The following specimens illustrate various forms of stanzas distinguished by arrangement of rime, without reference to the length of lines:

_abccb_

In vain, through every changeful year Did Nature lead him as before; A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more.

(WORDSWORTH: _Peter Bell._ 1798.)

_ababb_

Survival of the fittest, adaptation, And all their other evolution terms, Seem to omit one small consideration, To wit, that tumblebugs and angleworms Have souls: there's soul in everything that squirms.

(WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY: _The Menagerie._ 1901.)

_aabbb_

Mary mine that art Mary's Rose, Come in to me from the garden-close. The sun sinks fast with the rising dew, And we marked not how the faint moon grew; But the hidden stars are calling you.

(ROSSETTI: _Rose Mary._ 1881.)

_aabcdd_

Hail seint michel, with the lange sper! Fair beth thi winges: up thi scholder Thou hast a rede kirtil a non to thi fote. Thou ert best angle that ever god makid. This vers is ful wel i-wrog[gh]t; Hit is of wel furre y-brog[gh]t.

(_Satire on the People of Kildare_, from Harleian Ms. 913, in Guest's _English Rhythms_, Skeat ed., p. 616.)

_aaaabb_

What beauty would have lovely styled, What manners pretty, nature mild, What wonder perfect, all were filed Upon record in this blest child. And till the coming of the soul To fetch the flesh, we keep the roll.

(BEN JONSON: _Epitaph; Underwoods, liii._ 1616.)

_ababab_

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies: And all that's best of dark or bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

(BYRON: _She Walks in Beauty._ 1815.)

_ababcc_

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

(WORDSWORTH: _I wandered lonely as a cloud._ 1804.)

O, how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow! Her eyes seen in her tears, tears in her eye; Both crystals, where they view'd each other's sorrow,-- Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry; But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain, Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.

(SHAKSPERE: _Venus and Adonis_, st. 161. 1593.)

_ababbcc_ ("_Rime royal_")

Humblest of herte, hyest of reverence, Benigne flour, coroune of vertues alle, Sheweth unto your rial excellence Your servaunt, if I durste me so calle, His mortal harm, in which he is y-falle, And noght al only for his evel fare, But for your renoun, as he shal declare.

(CHAUCER: _Compleynte unto Pite._ ab. 1370.)

And on the smale grene twistis sat The lytil suete nyghtingale, and song So loud and clere, the ympnis consecrat Of luvis use, now soft now lowd among, That all the gardynis and the wallis rong Ryght of thaire song, and on the copill next Of thaire suete armony, and lo the text.

(JAMES I. of Scotland: _The King's Quhair_, st. 33. ab. 1425.)

For men have marble, women waxen, minds, And therefore are they form'd as marble will; The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill: Then call them not the authors of their ill, No more than wax shall be accounted evil, Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil.

(SHAKSPERE: _The Rape of Lucrece_, st. 178. 1594.)

In a far country that I cannot name, And on a year long ages past away, A King there dwelt in rest and ease and fame, And richer than the Emperor is to-day: The very thought of what this man might say From dusk to dawn kept many a lord awake, For fear of him did many a great man quake.

(WILLIAM MORRIS: _The Earthly Paradise; The Proud King._ 1868.)

The "rime royal" stanza is one of Chaucer's contributions to English verse, and about 14,000 lines of his poetry are in this form. Its use by King James in the _King's Quhair_ was formerly thought to be the source of the name; but it seems more likely that the name, like the form, was of French origin, and is to be connected with such terms as _chant royal_ and _ballat royal_, familiar in the nomenclature of courtly poetry (see Schipper, vol. i. p. 426). The stanza was used by Chaucer with marvellous skill for purposes of continuous narrative, and was a general favorite among his imitators in the fifteenth century, being used by Lydgate, Occleve, Hawes, Dunbar, then by Skelton, and by Barclay in the _Ship of Fooles_. It appears popular as late as the time of Sackville's part of the _Mirror for Magistrates_ (1563).[9] Later than Shakspere's _Rape of Lucrece_ it is rarely found. (But see Milton's unfinished poem on _The Passion_, where he used a form of the rime royal with concluding alexandrine.)

Strictly speaking, the "rime royal" is always in five-stress verse, but in the following specimen the same rime-scheme appears in the irregular six-or-seven-stress verse of one of the Mysteries.

The story sheweth further, that, after man was blyste, The Lord did create woman owte of a ribbe of man, Which woman was deceyvyd with the Serpentes darkned myste; By whose synn ower nature is so weake no good we can; Wherfor they were dejectyd and caste from thence than Unto dolloure and myseri and to traveyle and payne, Untyll Godes spryght renuid; and so we ende certayne.

(Prologue to Norwich Whitsun Play of the Creation and Fall. In Manly's _Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama_, vol. i p. 5.)

_ababcca_

Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave That child, when thou hast done with him, for me! Let me sit all the day here, that when eve Shall find performed thy special ministry, And time come for departure, thou, suspending Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending, Another still, to quiet and retrieve.

(BROWNING: _The Guardian Angel._ 1855.)

_ababccb_

The City is of Night; perchance of Death, But certainly of Night; for never there Can come the lucid morning's fragrant breath After the dewy dawning's cold grey air; The moon and stars may shine with scorn or pity; The sun has never visited that city, For it dissolveth in the daylight fair.

(JAMES THOMSON: _The City of Dreadful Night._ 1874.)

_abababab_

Trew king, that sittes in trone, Unto the I tell my tale, And unto the I bid a bone, For thou ert bute of all my bale: Als thou made midelerd and the mone, And bestes and fowles grete and smale. Unto me send thi socore sone, And dresce my dedes in this dale.

(LAURENCE MINOT: _Battle of Halidon Hill._ 1352.)

On Minot's lyrics see ten Brink's _History of English Literature_, Kennedy translation, vol. i. p. 323.

_ababbaba_

Since love is such that as ye wot Cannot always be wisely used, I say, therefore, then blame me not, Though I therein have been abused. For as with cause I am accused, Guilty I grant such was my lot; And though it cannot be excused, Yet let such folly be forgot.

(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _That the power of love excuseth the folly of loving_, ab. 1550.)

_ababbcbc_

In a chirche þer i con knel Þis ender day in on morwenynge, Me lyked þe servise wonder wel, For þi þe lengore con i lynge. I sei[gh] a clerk a book forþ bringe, Þat prikked was in mony a plas; Faste he sou[gh]te what he schulde synge, And al was _Deo gracias_!

(From the Vernon and Simeon MSS.; in _Anglia_, vii. 287.)

This Julius to the Capitolie wente Upon a day, as he was wont to goon, And in the Capitolie anon him hente This false Brutus, and his othere foon, And stikede him with boydekins anoon With many a wounde, and thus they lete him lye; But never gronte he at no strook but oon, Or elles at two, but if his storie lye.

(CHAUCER: _The Monk's Tale_, ll. 713-720. ab. 1375.)

This stanza is sometimes called the "_Monk's Tale_ stanza," from its use by Chaucer in that single tale of the Canterbury group. Although it has been little used by later poets, it may have given Spenser a suggestion for his characteristic stanza (see below, p. 102).

Farewell! if ever fondest prayer For other's weal availed on high, Mine will not all be lost in air, But waft thy name beyond the sky. 'Twere vain to speak, to weep, to sigh: Oh! more than tears of blood can tell, When rung from guilt's expiring eye, Are in that word--Farewell!--Farewell!

(BYRON: _Farewell, if ever fondest prayer._ 1808.)

_ababccdd_

Will no one tell me what she sings? Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again!

(WORDSWORTH: _The Solitary Reaper._ 1803.)

_abababcc_ (_ottava rima_)

She sat, and sewed, that hath done me the wrong Whereof I plain, and have done many a day; And, whilst she heard my plaint in piteous song, She wished my heart the sampler, that it lay. The blind master, whom I have served so long, Grudging to hear that he did hear her say, Made her own weapon do her finger bleed, To feel if pricking were so good in deed.

(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _Of his love that pricked her finger with a needle_, in Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets_. pub. 1557.)

This _ottava rima_ is a familiar Italian stanza made classic by Ariosto and Tasso, and introduced into England by Wyatt, together with the sonnet and other Italian forms. Professor Corson says, "Such a rhyme-scheme, especially in the Italian, with its great similarity of endings, is too 'monotonously iterative'; and the rhyming couplet at the close seems, as James Russell Lowell expresses it, 'to put on the brakes with a jar.'" (_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 89 f.)

O! who can lead, then, a more happie life Than he that with cleane minde, and heart sincere, No greedy riches knowes nor bloudie strife, No deadly fight of warlick fleete doth feare; Ne runs in perill of foes cruell knife, That in the sacred temples he may reare A trophee of his glittering spoyles and treasure, Or may abound in riches above measure.

(SPENSER: _Virgil's Gnat_, ll. 121-128. 1591.)

For as with equal rage, and equal might, Two adverse winds combat, with billows proud, And neither yield (seas, skies maintain like fight, Wave against wave oppos'd, and cloud to cloud); So war both sides with obstinate despite, With like revenge; and neither party bow'd: Fronting each other with confounding blows, No wound one sword unto the other owes.

(DANIEL: _History of the Civil War_, bk. vi. ab. 1600.)

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, While the still morn went out with sandals gray; He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills, And now was dropt into the western bay: At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue: To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

(MILTON: _Lycidas_; Epilogue. 1638.)

This is a single stave of the _ottava rima_, at the close of the varying metrical forms of _Lycidas_. Professor Corson says: "The Elegy having come to an end, the _ottava rima_ is employed, with an admirable artistic effect, to mark off the Epilogue in which Milton ... speaks in his own person."

They looked a manly, generous generation; Beards, shoulders, eyebrows, broad, and square, and thick, Their accents firm and loud in conversation, Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp, and quick, Showed them prepared, on proper provocation, To give the lie, pull noses, stab and kick; And for that very reason, it is said, They were so very courteous and well-bred.

(JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE: _The Monks and the Giants._ 1817.)

With every morn their love grew tenderer, With every eve deeper and tenderer still; He might not in house, field, or garden stir, But her full shape would all his seeing fill; And his continual voice was pleasanter To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill; Her lute-string gave an echo of his name, She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.

(KEATS: _Isabella._ 1820.)

As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow, And wished that others held the same opinion; They took it up when my days grew more mellow, And other minds acknowledged my dominion: Now my sere fancy "falls into the yellow Leaf," and Imagination droops her pinion, And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.

(BYRON: _Don Juan_, canto iv. st. 3. 1821.)

Of the _ottava rima_, as used by Frere and Byron, Austin Dobson says: "It had already been used by Harrington, Drayton, Fairfax, and (as we have seen) in later times by Gay; it had even been used by Frere's contemporary, William Tennant; but to Frere belongs the honor of giving it the special characteristics which Byron afterward popularised in _Beppo_ and _Don Juan_. Structurally the _ottava rima_ of Frere singularly resembles that of Byron, who admitted that _Whistlecraft_ was his 'immediate model.' ... Byron, taking up the stanza with equal skill and greater genius, filled it with the vigor of his personality, and made it a measure of his own, which it has ever since been hazardous for inferior poets to attempt." (Ward's _English Poets_, vol. iv. p. 240.) Byron may indeed be said--in the words of the present specimen--to have turned what was commonly a romantic stanza "to burlesque."

_aabaabbab_

O hie honour, sweit hevinlie flour degest, Gem verteous, maist precious, gudliest. For hie renoun thow art guerdoun conding, Of worschip kend the glorious end and rest, But quhome in richt na worthie wicht may lest. Thy greit puissance may maist avance all thing, And poverall to mekill availl sone bring. I the require sen thow but peir art best, That efter this in thy hie blis we ring.

(GAWAIN DOUGLAS: _The Palace of Honour._ ab. 1500.)

_ababcccdd_

My love is like unto th' eternal fire, And I as those which therein do remain; Whose grievous pains is but their great desire To see the sight which they may not attain: So in hell's heat myself I feel to be, That am restrained by great extremity, The sight of her which is so dear to me. O! puissant love! and power of great avail! By whom hell may be felt e'er death assail!

(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _Of the extreme torment endured by the unhappy lover._ ab. 1550.)

_ababbcbcc_ ("_Spenserian stanza_")

By this the Northerne wagoner had set His sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre That was in Ocean waves yet never wet, But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre To all that in the wide deepe wandring arre; And chearefull Chaunticlere with his note shrill Had warned once, that Ph[oe]bus fiery carre In hast was climbing up the Easterne hill, Full envious that night so long his roome did fill.

(SPENSER: _The Faerie Queene_, bk. i. canto 2, st. 1. 1590.)

And more to lulle him in his slumber soft, A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe, And ever-drizling raine upon the loft, Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne Of swarming Bees, did cast him in a swowne. No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes, As still are wont t'annoy the walled towne, Might there be heard; but carelesse Quiet lyes Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes.

(SPENSER: _ib._ bk. i. canto 1, st. 41.)

This stanza, which Spenser invented for his own use and to which his name is always given, was apparently formed by adding an alexandrine to the _ababbcbc_ stanza of Chaucer. In it Spenser wrote the greater part of his poetry, and its use marks the Spenserian influence wherever found, especially among the poets of the eighteenth century,--Thomson, Shenstone, Beattie, and the like.

James Russell Lowell, in his Essay on Spenser, comments as follows: "He found the _ottava rima_ ... not roomy enough, so first ran it over into another line, and then ran that added line over into an alexandrine, in which the melody of one stanza seems forever longing and feeling forward after that which is to follow.... Wave follows wave with equable gainings and recessions, the one sliding back in fluent music to be mingled with and carried forward by the next. In all this there is soothingness, indeed, but no slumberous monotony; for Spenser was no mere metrist, but a great composer. By the variety of his pauses--now at the close of the first or second foot, now of the third, and again of the fourth--he gives spirit and energy to a measure whose tendency it certainly is to become languorous." (_Works_, vol. iv. pp. 328, 329.)

See also the chapters on the Spenserian stanza in Corson's _Primer of English Verse_, where its use for pictorial effects is interestingly discussed.

A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye, And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, Forever flushing round a summer sky: There eke the soft delights, that witchingly Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast, And the calm pleasures always hovered nigh; But whate'er smacked of noyaunce, or unrest, Was far far off expelled from this delicious nest.

(THOMSON: _The Castle of Indolence_, canto i. 1748.)

Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow, Emblem right meet of decency does yield: Her apron dyed in grain, as blue, I trowe, As is the hare-bell that adorns the field: And in her hand, for sceptre, she does wield Tway birchen sprays, with anxious fear entwined, With dark distrust and sad repentance filled, And stedfast hate, and sharp affliction joined, And fury uncontrolled and chastisement unkind.

(SHENSTONE: _The Schoolmistress._ 1742.)

Thomson's _Castle of Indolence_, although not published till 1748, seems to have been written and circulated before Shenstone's _Schoolmistress_. Thomson caught the spirit of Spenser and his stanza better than any other imitator until the days of Keats. On the revival of the stanza at this period, see Beers's _English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century_, chap. iii., on "the Spenserians." Earliest of the group, according to Mr. Gosse, was Akenside's _Virtuoso_ (1737. See _Eighteenth Century Literature_, p. 311).

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent, Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! And oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle.

(BURNS: _The Cotter's Saturday Night._ 1785.)

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand: I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.

(BYRON: _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, canto iv, st. i. 1818.)

A casement high and triple-arch'd there was, All garlanded with carven imag'ries Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass, And diamonded with panes of quaint device, Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes, As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings; And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.

(KEATS: _Eve of St. Agnes._ 1820.)

Professor Corson remarks: "Probably no English poet who has used the Spenserian stanza, first assimilated so fully the spirit of Spenser, ... as did Keats; and to this fact may be partly attributed his effective use of it as an organ for his imagination in its 'lingering, loving, particularizing mood.'" (_Primer of English Verse_, p. 124.)

The splendors of the firmament of time May be eclips'd, but are extinguish'd not; Like stars to their appointed height they climb, And death is a low mist which cannot blot The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, And love and life contend in it for what Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.

(SHELLEY: _Adonais_, st. 44. 1821.)

With reference to his use of this stanza Shelley remarked, in the Preface to _The Revolt of Islam_: "I have adopted the stanza of Spenser (a measure inexpressibly beautiful), not because I consider it a finer model of poetical harmony than the blank verse of Shakespeare and Milton, but because in the latter there is no shelter for mediocrity: you must either succeed or fail.... But I was enticed also by the brilliancy and magnificence of sound which a mind that has been nourished upon musical thoughts can produce by a just and harmonious arrangement of the pauses of this measure." Professor Corson (_Primer of English Verse_, p. 112) quotes Mr. Todhunter as saying: "Compare the impetuous rapidity and pale intensity of Shelley's verse with the lulling harmony, the lingering cadence, the voluptuous color of Spenser's, or with the grandiose majesty of Byron's.... In _Adonais_, indeed, a poem on which he bestowed much labor, he handles the stanza in a masterly manner, and endows it with an individual music beautiful and new."

"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land, "This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." In the afternoon they came unto a land In which it seemed always afternoon. All round the coast the languid air did swoon, Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. Full-faced above the valley stood the moon; And like a downward smoke, the slender stream Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

(TENNYSON: _The Lotos-Eaters._ 1833.)

_abababccc_

A fisher boy, that never knew his peer In dainty songs, the gentle Thomalin, With folded arms, deep sighs, and heavy cheer, Where hundred nymphs, and hundred muses in, Sunk down by Chamus' brinks; with him his dear Dear Thyrsil lay; oft times would he begin To cure his grief, and better way advise; But still his words, when his sad friend he spies, Forsook his silent tongue, to speak in watry eyes.

(PHINEAS FLETCHER: _Piscatory Eclogues._ ab. 1630.)

Fletcher was an imitator of Spenser, and here devises a stanza differing little from his master's. The final alexandrine is used with the same effect. For other instances of final alexandrines, doubtless used under the general influence of the Spenserian stanza, see the following specimens.

_aabaabcc_

Ring out, ye crystal spheres! Once bless our human ears, If ye have power to touch our senses so; And let your silver chime Move in melodious time; And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow; And with your ninefold harmony, Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.

(MILTON: _On the Morning of Christ's Nativity._ 1629.)

_ababbcbcdd_

What? Ælla dead? and Bertha dying too? So fall the fairest flowrets of the plain. Who can unfold the works that heaven can do, Or who untwist the roll of fate in twain? Ælla, thy glory was thy only gain; For that, thy pleasure and thy joy was lost. Thy countrymen shall rear thee on the plain A pile of stones, as any grave can boast. Further, a just reward to thee to be, In heaven thou sing of God, on earth we'll sing of thee.

(CHATTERTON: _Ælla,_ st. 147. 1768.)

This is the ten-line "Chatterton stanza," a variant of the Spenserian stanza, devised by Chatterton, which he claimed ante-dated Spenser by one or two centuries. His claim for it was of course purely fictitious.

_aabbbcc_

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

(OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES: _The Chambered Nautilus._ 1858.)

See also the notable use of the alexandrine in Shelley's _Skylark_, p. 34, above.

_ababababbcbc_

The dubbement dere of doun and dalez, Of wod and water and wlonke playnez, Bylde in me blys, abated my balez, Fordidde my stresse, dystryed my paynez. Doun after a strem that dryghly halez, I bowed in blys, bred-ful my braynez; The fyrre I folghed those floty valez, The more strenghthe of joye myn herte straynez, As fortune fares theras ho fraynez, Whether solace ho sende other ellez sore, The wygh, to wham her wylle ho waynez, Hyttez to have ay more and more.

(_The Pearl_, st. xi. Fourteenth century.)

Mr. Israel Gollancz says, in his Introduction to this poem: "I can point to no direct source to which the poet of _Pearl_ was indebted for his measure; that it ultimately belongs to Romance poetry I have little doubt. These twelve-line verses seem to me to resemble the earliest form of the sonnet more than anything else I have as yet discovered.... Be this as it may, all will, I hope, recognize that there is a distinct gain in giving to the 101 stanzas of the poem the appearance of a sonnet sequence, marking clearly the break between the initial octave and the closing quatrain.... The refrain, the repetition of the catch-word of each verse, the trammels of alliteration, all seem to have offered no difficulty to our poet; and if power over technical difficulties constitutes in any way a poet's greatness, the author of _Pearl_, from this point of view alone, must take high rank among English poets." (Introduction, pp. xxiv, xxv.)

Other examples of intricate stanza structure are found in _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_, supposed to be by the author of _Pearl_. See in