And gives the moon her horns, and her eclipsing._
p. 56.
_With horrible fear, as one that greatly dreadeth
A wrongful death, and justice alway seeketh._
p. 149.
Such rhymes in dactylic feet, as in the following verses by Moore
(_Beauty and Song_ ll. 1-4),
_Dówn in yon súmmer vale,
Whére the rill flóws,
Thús said the Níghtingale
Tó his loved Róse_,
are not harsh, because in this case the unaccented syllable which
bears the rhyme is separated from the accented syllable by a thesis.
A variety of the unaccented rhyme is called the =accented-unaccented=;
examples have been quoted before in the chapter treating of the
alliterative-rhyming long line (§§ 61, 62). In the same place some other
verses of the above-quoted song of Moore are given, showing the
admissibility of rhymes between gliding or trisyllabic and masculine
rhyming-syllables or -words (_mélodý: thée_, _Róse bè: thée_). In these
cases the subordinate accent of the third syllable in _mélody_ or the
word _bè_ in the equally long _Róse bè_ is strong enough to make a rhyme
with _thee_ possible, although this last word has a strong syntactical
and rhythmical accent. As a rule such accented-unaccented rhymes, in
which masculine endings rhyme with feminine endings, are very harsh, as
is often the case in Wyatt's poems (cf. Alscher, pp. 123-6), e.g.
_So chánced mé that évery pássión
Wherebý if thát I láugh at ány séason._ p. 7.
§ =218.= C. According to the third principle of classification, by the
position of the rhyming syllable, the varieties of rhyme are as follows:
1. The =sectional rhyme=, so called because it consists of two rhyming
words within one section or hemistich.[184] This kind of rhyme occurs
now and then even in Old English poetry, but it is usually unintentional
(cf. §§ 40-2), e.g. _sǣla and mǣla_; _þæt is sōð metod_ Beow.
1611; in Middle English literature it is frequent, as in Barbour's
Bruce: _and till Ingland agayne is gayne_ i. 144, iii. 185; _That eftyr
him dar na man ga_ iii. 166. In Modern English poetry this kind of rhyme
is more frequent, and often intentionally used for artistic effect:
_Then up with your cup, | till you stagger in speech,
And match me this catch, | though you swagger and screech,
Ah, drink till you wink, | my merry men, each._
Walter Scott, Song from Kenilworth.
2. Very closely related to this is the =inverse rhyme= (as
Guest called it), which occurs when the last accented syllable of
the first hemistich of a verse rhymes with the first accented
syllable of the second hemistich:
_These steps both reach | and teach thee shall
To come by thrift | to shift withall._ Tusser.
This kind of rhyme is generally met with in the popular national long
line of four stresses. Guest gives a much wider range to it. But when it
occurs in other kinds of verse, as in the iambic verse of four or five
feet, it is not to be looked upon as an intentional rhyme, but only as a
consonance caused by rhetorical repetition (the examples are quoted by
Guest):
_And art thou gone and gone for ever?_ Burns.
_I followed fast, but faster did he fly._
Shak. Mids. III. ii. 416.
3. The =Leonine[185] rhyme= or =middle rhyme=, which recurs throughout
the Old English _Rhyming Poem_, and is occasionally used in other Old
English poems. This rhyme connects the two hemistichs of an alliterative
line with each other by end-rhyme and, at the same time, causes the
gradual breaking up of it into two short lines; we find it in certain
parts of the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, in Layamon, in the _Proverbs of
Alfred_, and other poems, e.g.: _his sedes to_ sowen, _his medes to_
mowen Prov. 93-4; _þus we uerden_ þere, _and for þi beoþ nu_ here Lay.
1879-80. See §§ 49, 57-58, 78 for examples from Middle and Modern
English literature of this kind of rhyme (called by the French _rimes
plates_) as well as of the following kind, when used in even-beat
metres.
4. The =interlaced rhyme= (_rime entrelacée_), by means of which two
long-lined rhyming couplets are connected a second time in corresponding
places (before the caesura) by another rhyme, so that they seem to be
broken up into four short verses of alternate or cross-rhyme (_a b a
b_), e.g. in the latter part of Robert Mannyng's _Rhyming Chronicle_
(from p. 69 of Hearne's edition), or in the second version of _Saynt
Katerine_ (cf. the quotations, §§ 77, 78, 150). When, however, long
verses without interlaced rhyme are broken up only by the arrangement of
the writer or printer into short lines, we have
5. The =intermittent rhyme=, whose formula is _a b c b_ (cf. p. 196).
Both sorts of rhyme may also be used, of course, in other kinds of
verse, shorter or longer; as a rule, however, the intermittent rhyme is
employed for shorter, the alternate or cross-rhyme for longer verses,
as, for example, those of five feet.
6. The =enclosing rhyme=, corresponding to the formula _a b b a_, e.g.
in _spray, still, fill, May_, as in the quartets of the sonnet formed
after the Italian model (cf. below, Book II, chap. ix). This sort of
rhyme does not often occur in Middle English poetry; but we find it
later, e.g. in the tail or veer of a variety of stanza used by Dunbar
and Kennedy in their _Flyting Poem_.
7. The =tail-rhyme= (in French called _rime couée_, in German
_Schweifreim_), the formula of which is _a a b c c b_. (For a specimen
see § 79.)
This arrangement of rhymes originated from two long lines of the same
structure, formed into a couplet by end-rhyme, each of the lines being
divided into three sections (whence the name _versus tripertiti
caudati_). This couplet, the formula of which was _- a - a - b || - c
- c - b_, is, in the form in which it actually appears broken up into a
stanza of six short lines, viz. two longer couplets _a a_, _c c_, and a
pair of shorter lines rhyming together as _b b_, the order of rhymes
being _a a b c c b_. (For remarks on the origin of this stanza see §
240.)
§ =219.= As to the quality of the rhyme, purity or exactness, of course,
is and always has been a chief requirement. It is, however, well known
that the need for this exactness is frequently disregarded not only in
Old and Middle English poetry (cf. e.g. the Old English assonances meant
for rhymes, § 40, or the often very defective rhymes of Layamon, § 45)
but even in Modern English poetry. Many instructive examples of
defective rhymes from Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, and Dryden are given
by A.J. Ellis, _On Early Engl. Pronunciation_, iii. 858-74, 953-66, iv.
1033-9.
From these collections of instances we see how a class of imperfect
rhymes came into existence in consequence of the change in the
pronunciation of certain vowels, from which it resulted that many pairs
of words that originally rhymed together, more or less perfectly, ceased
to be rhymes at all to the ear, although, as the spelling remained
unaltered, they retained in their written form a delusive appearance of
correspondence. These 'eye-rhymes', as they are called, play an
important part in English poetry, being frequently admitted by later
poets, who continue to rhyme together words such as _eye: majesty_ Pope,
Temple of Fame, 202-3; _crowns: owns_ ib. 242-3; _own'd: found_ id. Wife
of Bath, 32-3, notwithstanding the fact that the vowel of the two words,
which at first formed perfect rhymes, had long before been diphthongized
or otherwise changed while the other word still kept its original
vowel-sound.
NOTES:
[180] The word stanza is explained by Skeat, _Conc. Etym. Dict._, as
follows:
'STANZA. Ital. stanza, O. Ital. _stantia_, "a lodging, chamber,
dwelling, also _stance_ or staffe of verses;" Florio. So
called from the stop or _pause_ at the end of it.--Low Lat.
_stantia_, an abode.--Lat. _stant-_, stem of pres. pt. of
_stare_.'
[181] Cf. §§ 8, 223-7.
[182] Cf. §§ 60-2 and the author's 'Metrische Randglossen, II.',
_Engl. Stud._, x, pp. 196-200.
[183] Cf. _Sir Thomas Wyatt_, von R. Alscher, Wien, 1886 pp. 119-23.
[184] By the German metrists it is called _Binnenreim_, or
_Innenreim_.
[185] So called from a poet Leo of the Middle Ages (c. 1150) who
wrote in hexameters rhyming in the middle and at the end.
Similar verses, however, had been used occasionally in classic
Latin poetry, as e.g. _Quot caelum stellas, tot habet tua Roma
puellas_, Ovid, Ars Amat. i. 59.
CHAPTER II
THE RHYME AS A STRUCTURAL ELEMENT
OF THE STANZA
§ =220.= On the model of the Provençal and Northern French lyrics, where
the rhyme was indispensable in the construction of stanzas, rhyme found
a similar employment in Middle English poetry. Certain simple kinds of
stanzas, however, were in their formation just as much influenced by the
Low Latin hymn forms, in which at that time rhyme had long been in
vogue.
But the rules prescribed for the formation of stanzas by the Provençal
poets in theory and practice were observed neither by the Northern
French, nor by the Middle English poets with equal rigour, although
later on, it is true, in the court-poetry greater strictness prevailed
than in popular lyrical poetry.
One of the chief general laws relating to the use of rhyme in the
formation of stanzas has already been mentioned in § 214 (at the end). A
few other points of special importance require to be noticed here.
Both in Middle English and in Romanic poetry we find stanzas with a
single rhyme only and stanzas with varied rhymes. But the use of the
same rhymes throughout all the stanzas of one poem (in German called
_Durchreimung_), so frequent in Romanic literature, occurs in Middle
English poetry only in some later poems imitated directly from Romanic
models. As a rule, both where the rhyme in the same stanza is single and
where it is varied, all the stanzas have different rhymes, and only the
rhyme-system, the arrangement of rhymes, is the same throughout the
poem. It is, however, very rarely and only in Modern English literary
poetry that the several stanzas are strictly uniform with regard to the
use of masculine and feminine rhyme; as a rule the two kinds are
employed. Sometimes, it is true, in the anisometrical 'lays', as they
are called, as well as in the later popular ballads (e.g. in _Chevy
Chace_ and _The Battle of Otterbourne_), we find single stanzas
deviating from the rest in rhyme-arrangement as well as in number of
lines, the stanzas consisting of Septenary lines with cross-rhymes and
intermittent rhymes (_a b a b_, and _a b c b_) being combined now and
then with tail-rhyme. This is found to a still greater extent in lyrical
poetry of the seventeenth century (e.g. Cowley, G. Herbert, &c.) as well
as in odic stanzas of the same or a somewhat later period.
§ =221.= It does not often happen in Middle English poetry that a line
is not connected by rhyme with a corresponding line in the same stanza
to which it belongs, but only with one in the next stanza. In Modern
English poetry this peculiarity, corresponding to what are called
_Körner_ in German metres, may not unfrequently be observed in certain
poetic forms of Italian origin, as the terza rima or the sestain. Of
equally rare occurrence in English strophic poetry are lines without any
rhyme (analogous to the _Waisen_--literally 'orphans'--of Middle High
German poetry), which were strictly prohibited in Provençal poetry. In
Middle English literature they hardly ever occur, but are somewhat more
frequent in Modern English poetry, where they generally come at the end
of the stanza. On the other hand the mode of connecting successive
stanzas, technically called _Concatenatio_ (rhyme-linking), so
frequently used by the Provençal and Northern French poets, is very
common in Middle English verse. Three different varieties of this device
are to be distinguished, viz.:
1. The repetition of the rhyme-word (or of a word standing close by it)
of the last line of a stanza, at the beginning of the first line of the
following stanza.
2. The repetition of the whole last line of a stanza, including the
rhyme-word, as the initial line of the following stanza (not very
common); and
3. The repetition of the last rhyme of a stanza as the first rhyme of
the following one; so that the last rhyme-word of one stanza and the
first rhyme-word of the next not only rhyme with the corresponding
rhyme-words of their own stanzas, but also with one another. Such
'concatenations' frequently connect the first and the last part (i.e.
the _frons_ and the _cauda_) of a stanza with each other. They even
connect the single lines of the same stanza and sometimes of a whole
poem, with each other, as e.g. in the 'Rhyme-beginning Fragment' in
Furnivall's _Early English Poems and Lives of Saints_, p. 21 (cf.
_Metrik_, i, p. 317).
§ =222.= Another and more usual means of connecting the single stanzas
of a poem with each other is the =refrain= (called by the Provençal
poets _refrim_, i.e. 'echo'; by German metrists sometimes called
_Kehrreim_, i.e. recurrent rhyme). The refrain is of popular origin,
arising from the part taken by the people in popular songs or
ecclesiastical hymns by repeating certain exclamations, words, or
sentences at the end of single lines or stanzas. The refrain generally
occurs at the end of a stanza, rarely in the interior of a stanza or in
both places, as in a late ballad quoted by Ritson, _Ancient Songs and
Ballads_, ii. 75.
In Old English poetry the refrain is used in one poem only, viz. in
_Deor's Complaint_, as the repetition of a whole line. In Middle and
Modern English poetry the refrain is much more extensively employed. Its
simplest form, consisting of the repetition of certain exclamations or
single words after each stanza, occurs pretty often in Middle English.
Frequent use is also made of the other form, in which one line is
partially or entirely repeated. Sometimes, indeed, two or even more
lines are repeated, or a whole stanza is added as refrain to each of the
main stanzas, and is then placed at the beginning of the poem (cf.
Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 51).
In English the refrain is also called _burthen_, and consists (according
to Guest) of the entire or at least partial repetition of the same
words. Distinct from the burthen or refrain is the _wheel_, which is
only the repetition of the same rhythm as an addition to a stanza. In
Middle English poetry especially a favourite form was that in which a
stanza consisting mostly of alliterative-rhyming verses or half-verses
(cf. §§ 60, 61, 66) is followed by an addition (the _cauda_), differing
very much from the rhythmical structure of the main part (the _frons_)
of the stanza, and connected with it by means of a very short verse
consisting of only one arsis and the syllable or syllables forming the
thesis. This short verse is called by Guest _bob-verse_, and the
_cauda_, connected with the chief stanza by means of such a verse, he
calls _bob-wheel_, so that the whole stanza, which is of a very
remarkable form, might be called the _bob-wheel stanza_. The similar
form of stanza, also very common, where the chief part of the stanza is
connected with the 'cauda', not by a 'bob-verse' but by an ordinary long
line, might be called the _wheel-stanza_. These remarks now bring us to
other considerations of importance with regard to the formation of the
stanza, which will be treated of in the next section.
§ =223. The structure and arrangement of the different parts of the
stanza= in Middle English poetry were also modelled on Low Latin and
especially on Romanic forms.
The theory of the structure of stanzas in Provençal and Italian is
given along with much interesting matter in Dante's treatise _De vulgari
eloquentia_[186], where the original Romanic technical terms are found.
Several terms used in this book have also been taken from German
metrics.
In the history of Middle English poetry two groups of stanzas must be
distinguished: _divisible_ and _indivisible_ stanzas (the _one-rhymed_
stanzas being included in the latter class). The divisible stanzas
consist either of two equal parts (_bipartite equal-membered stanzas_)
or of two unequal parts (_bipartite unequal-membered stanzas_) or
thirdly of two equal parts and an unequal one (_tripartite stanzas_).
Now and then (especially in Modern English poetry) they consist of three
equal parts. These three types are common to Middle and Modern English
poetry. A fourth class is met with in Modern English poetry only, viz.
stanzas generally consisting of _three_, sometimes of _four_ or more
_unequal parts_.
All the kinds of verse that have been previously described in this work
can be used in these different classes of stanzas, both separately and
conjointly. In each group, accordingly, _isometrical_ and
_anisometrical_ stanzas must be distinguished. Very rarely, and only in
Modern English, we find that even the rhythm of the separate verses of a
stanza is not uniform; iambic and trochaic, anapaestic and dactylic, or
iambic and anapaestic verses interchanging with each other, so that a
further distinction between _isorhythmical_ and _anisorhythmical_
stanzas is possible.
§ =224.= The =bipartite equal-membered= stanzas, in their simplest form,
consist of two equal periods, each composed of a prior and a succeeding
member. They are to be regarded as the primary forms of all strophic
poetry.
The two periods may be composed either of two rhyming couplets or of
four verses rhyming alternately with each other. Specimens of both
classes have been quoted above (§ 78). Such equal-membered stanzas can
be extended, of course, in each part uniformly without changing the
isometrical character of the stanza.
§ =225.= The =bipartite unequal-membered= stanzas belong to a more
advanced stage in the formation of the stanza. They are, however, found
already in Provençal poetry, and consist of the 'forehead' (_frons_) and
the 'tail' or veer (_cauda_). The _frons_ and the _cauda_ differ
sometimes only in the number of verses, and consequently, in the order
of the rhymes, and sometimes also in the nature of the verse. The two
parts may either have quite different rhymes or be connected together by
one or several common rhymes. As a simple specimen of this sort of
stanza the first stanza of Dunbar's _None may assure in this warld_ may
be quoted here:
frons: {_Quhome to sall I complene my wo,
{ And kyth my kairis on or mo?_
{ _I knaw nocht, amang riche nor pure,
cauda: { Quha is my freynd, quha is my fo;
{ For in this warld may non assure._
In literary poetry, however, the tripartite stanzas are commoner than
the bipartite unequal-membered stanzas just noticed; they are as much in
favour as the bipartite, equal-membered stanzas are in popular poetry.
In Provençal and Northern French poetry the principle of a triple
partition in the structure of stanzas was developed very early. Stanzas
on these models were very soon imported into Middle English poetry.
§ =226.= The =tripartite= stanzas generally (apart from Modern English
forms) consist of two equal parts and one unequal part, which admit of
being arranged in different ways. They have accordingly different names.
If the two equal parts precede they are called _pedes_, both together
the _opening_ (in German _Aufgesang_ ='upsong'); the unequal part that
concludes the stanza is called the _conclusion_ or the _veer_, _tail_,
or _cauda_ (in German _Abgesang_ ='downsong'). If the unequal part
precedes it is called _frons_ (='forehead'); the two equal parts that
form the end of the stanza are called _versus_ ('turns,' in German
_Wenden_). The former arrangement, however, is by far the more frequent.
There are various ways of separating the first from the last part of the
stanza: (a) by a pause, which, as a rule, in Romanic as well as in
Middle English poetry occurs between the two chief parts; (b) by a
difference in their structure (whether in rhyme-arrangement only, or
both in regard to the kinds and the number of verses). But even then the
two chief parts are generally separated by a pause. We thus obtain three
kinds of tripartite stanzas:
1. Stanzas in which the first and the last part differ in
_versification_; the lines of the last part may either be longer or
shorter than those of the 'pedes'. Difference in rhythmical structure as
well as in length of line is in Middle English poetry confined to the
_bob-wheel_ stanzas, and is not otherwise common except in Modern
English poetry.
2. Stanzas in which the parts differ in _number of verses_. The number
may be either greater or smaller in the last part than in the two
'pedes', which, of course, involves at the same time a difference in the
order of the rhymes. Change of length, however, and change of
versification in the last part in comparison with the half of the first
part are generally combined.
3. Stanzas in which the parts agree in versification but _differ in the
arrangement of the rhymes_; the number of verses in the _cauda_ being
either the same as that of one of the _pedes_, or (as commonly the case)
different from it.
In all these cases the first and the last part of the stanza may have
quite different rhymes, or they may, in stanzas of more artistic
construction, have one or several rhymes in common.
If the _frons_ precedes the _versus_, the same distinctions, of course,
are possible between the two chief parts.
§ =227.= The following specimens illustrate first of all the two chief
kinds of arrangement; i.e. the _pedes_ preceding the _cauda_, and the
_frons_ preceding the _versus_:
{_With longyng y am lad_,
I. pes: {_On molde y waxe mad_,
{ _A maide marreþ me_;
{_Y grede, y grone, vnglad_,
II. pes: {_For selden y am sad_
{ _Þat semly for te se_.
{ _Leuedy, þou rewe me!_
cauda: {_To rouþe þou hauest me rad_,
{_Be bote of þat y bad_,
{ _My lyf is long on þe_.
Wright's Spec. of Lyr. Poetry, p. 29.
{_Jesu, for þi muchele miht_,
frons: { _Þou ȝef vs of þi grace,
{Þat we mowe dai and nyht
{Þenken o þi face._
{_In myn herte hit doþ me god_,
I. versus: {_When y þenke on iesu blod_,
{ _Þat ran doun bi ys syde_,
{_From is herte doun to is fot_;
II. versus: {_For ous he spradde is herte blod_,
{ _His woundes were so wyde_.
ib. p. 83.
Theoretically, the second stanza might also be regarded as a stanza
consisting of two _pedes_ and two _versus_, or, in other words, as a
four-part stanza of two equal parts in each half. Stanzas of this kind
occur pretty often in Middle and Modern English poetry. They mostly,
however, convey the effect of a tripartite stanza on account of the
greater extent of the one pair of equal parts of the stanza.
The tripartition effected only by a difference in the arrangement of
rhymes either in the _pedes_ and the _cauda_, or in the _frons_ and the
_versus_, will be illustrated by the following specimens:
I. pes: {_Take, oh take those lips away_,
{ _That so sweetly were forsworne_;
II. pes: {_And those eyes, the breake of day_,
{ _Lights that doe mislead the morne_.
cauda: {_But my kisses bring againe_,
{_Seales of love, but seal'd in vaine_.
Shak., Meas. IV. i. 4.
frons: {_As by the shore, at break of day_,
{_A vanquish'd Chief expiring lay_,
I. versus: { _Upon the sands, with broken sword_,
{_He traced his farewell to the Free_;
II. versus: { _And, there, the last unfinish'd word_
{_He dying wrote was 'Liberty'_.
Moore, Song.
A very rare variety of tripartition that, as far as we know, does not
occur till Modern English times, is that by which the _cauda_ is placed
between the two _pedes_. This arrangement, of course, may occur in each
of the three kinds of tripartition. A specimen of the last kind (viz.
that in which the _cauda_ is distinguished from the _pedes_ by a
different arrangement of rhymes) may suffice to explain it:
I. pes: {_Nine years old! The first of any_
{_Seem the happiest years that come_:
cauda: {_Yet when I was nine, I said_
{_No such word! I thought instead_
II. pes: {_That the Greeks had used as many_
{_In besieging Ilium_.
Mrs. Browning, ii. 215.
Lastly, it is to be remarked that the inequality of Modern English
stanzas, which may be composed of two or three or several parts, admits,
of course, of many varieties. Generally, however, their structure is
somewhat analogous to that of the regular tripartite stanzas (cf. below,
Book II, chap. vi).
In Romanic poetry the tripartite structure sometimes was carried on also
through the whole song, it being composed either of three or six stanzas
(that is to say, of three equal groups of stanzas), or, what is more
usual, of seven or five stanzas (i.e. of two equal parts and an unequal
part). In Middle English literary poetry, too, this practice is fairly
common;[187] in Modern English poetry, on the other hand, it occurs only
in the most recent times, being chiefly adopted in imitations of Romanic
forms of stanza, especially the _ballade_.
§ =228. The envoi.= Closely connected with the last-mentioned point,
viz. the partition of the whole poem, is the structural element in
German called _Geleit_, in Provençal poetry _tornada_ (i.e. 'turning',
'apostrophe', or 'address'), in Northern French poetry _envoi_, a term
which was retained sometimes by Middle English poets as the title for
this kind of stanza (occasionally even for a whole poem). The tornada
used chiefly in the ballade is a sort of epilogue to the poem proper. It
was a rule in Provençal poetry (observed often in Old French also) that
it must agree in form with the concluding part of the preceding stanza.
It was also necessary that with regard to its tenor it should have some
sort of connexion with the poem; although, as a rule, its purpose was to
give expression to personal feelings. The tornada is either a sort of
farewell which the poet addresses to the poem itself, or it contains the
order to a messenger to deliver the poem to the poet's mistress or to
one of his patrons; sometimes these persons are directly praised or
complimented. In Middle English poetry the envoi mostly serves the same
purposes. But there are some variations from the Provençal custom both
as to contents and especially as to form.
§ =229.= We may distinguish _three kinds_ of so-called envois in Middle
English poetry: (1) Real envois. (2) Concluding stanzas resembling
envois as to their form. (3) Concluding stanzas resembling envois as to
their contents.
The most important are the _real envois_. Of these, two subordinate
species can be distinguished: (_a_) when the form of the envoi differs
from the form of the stanza, as in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p.
92, and even more markedly in Chaucer's _Compleynt to his Purse_, a poem
of stanzas of seven lines, the envoi of which addressed to the king
consists of five verses only; (_b_) when the form of the envoi is the
same as that of the other stanzas of the poem, as e.g. in Wright's
_Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 111 (a greeting to a mistress), in Dunbar's
_Goldin Targe_ (address to the poem itself).
When the poem is of some length the envoi may consist of several
stanzas; thus in Chaucer's _Clerkes Tale_ (stanzas of seven lines) the
envoi has six stanzas of six lines each.
_Concluding stanzas resembling envois in their form_ are generally
shorter than the chief stanzas, but of similar structure. Generally
speaking they are not very common. Specimens may be found in Wright's
_Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, pp. 38, 47, &c.
_Concluding stanzas resembling envois in their contents._ An example
occurs in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 31, where the concluding
stanza contains an address to another poet. Religious poems end with
addresses to God, Christ, the Virgin, invitations to prayer, &c.; for
examples see Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 111, and _Hymns to the
Virgin_ (ed. Furnivall, E. E. T. S. 24), p. 39, &c. All these may
possibly fall under this category.
Even in Modern English poetry the envoi has not quite gone out of use.
Short envois occur in Spenser, _Epithalamium_; S. Daniel, _To the Angel
Spirit of Sir Philip Sidney_ (Poets, iv. 228); W. Scott, _Marmion_
(Envoy, consisting of four-foot verses rhyming in couplets), _Harold_,
_Lord of the Isles_, _Lady of the Lake_ (Spenserian stanzas); Southey,
_Lay of the Laureate_ (x. 139-74), &c.; Swinburne, _Poems and Ballads_,
i, pp. 1, 5, 141, &c.
Concluding stanzas resembling envois occur pretty often in poets of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as Carew, Donne, Cowley, Waller,
Dodsley, &c. (cf. _Metrik_, ii, p. 794 note).
NOTES:
[186] See _The Oxford Dante_, pp. 379-400, or _Opere minori di Dante
Alighieri_, ed. Pietro Fraticelli, vol. ii, p. 146, Florence,
1858, and Böhmer's essay, _Über Dante's Schrift de vulgari
eloquentia_, Halle, 1868.
[187] See B. ten Brink, _The Language and Metre of Chaucer_,
translated by M. Bentinck Smith. London, Macmillan & Co.,
1901, 8º, § 350.
PART II
STANZAS COMMON TO MIDDLE AND MODERN
ENGLISH, AND OTHERS FORMED ON THE
ANALOGY OF THESE
CHAPTER III
BIPARTITE EQUAL-MEMBERED STANZAS
I. _Isometrical stanzas._
§ =230. Two-line stanzas.= The simplest bipartite equal-membered stanza
is that of two isometrical verses only. In the Northern English
translation of the Psalms (_Surtees Society_, vols. xvi and xix) we
find, for the most part, two-line stanzas of four-foot verses rhyming in
couplets, occasionally alternating with stanzas of four, six, eight, or
more lines.
In Middle English poetry, however, this form was generally used for
longer poems that were not arranged in stanzas. Although it would be
possible to divide some of these (e.g. the _Moral Ode_), either
throughout or in certain parts, into bipartite stanzas, there is no
reason to suppose that any strophic arrangement was intended.
In Modern English, on the other hand, such an arrangement is often
intentional, as in R. Browning, _The Boy and the Angel_ (iv. 158), a
poem of four-foot trochaic verses:
_Morning, evening, noon and night
'Praise God!' sang Theocrite._
_Then to his poor trade he turned,
Whereby the daily meal was earned._
Similar stanzas in other metres occur in Longfellow, Tennyson,
Thackeray, Rossetti, &c.; among them we find e.g. eight-foot trochaic
and iambic-anapaestic verses (cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 3).
§ =231.= More frequently we find =four-line stanzas=, consisting of
couplets. In Middle English lyric poetry such stanzas of two short
couplets are occasionally met with as early as in the _Surtees Psalms_,
but they occur more frequently in Modern English, e.g. in M. Arnold,
_Urania_ (p. 217), and in Carew, e.g. _The Inquiry_ (Poets, iii):
_Amongst the myrtles as I walk'd,
Love and my sighs thus intertalk'd:
'Tell me,' said I, in deep distress,
'Where I may find my shepherdess.'_
Regular alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes is very rarely
found in this simple stanza (or indeed in any Middle English stanzas);
it is, properly speaking, only a series of rhyming couplets with a stop
after every fourth line.
This stanza is very popular, as are also various analogous four-line
stanzas in other metres. One of these is the quatrain of four-foot
trochaic verses, as used by M. Arnold in _The Last Word_, and by Milton,
e.g. in _Psalm CXXXVI_, where the two last lines form the refrain, so
that the strophic arrangement is more distinctly marked. Stanzas of
four-foot iambic-anapaestic lines we find e.g. in Moore, '_Tis the last
Rose of Summer_, and similar stanzas of five-foot iambic verses in
Cowper, pp. 359, 410; M. Arnold, _Self-Dependence_ (last stanza).
Less common are the quatrains of four-foot dactylic lines, of three-foot
iambic-anapaestic lines, of six-foot iambic and trochaic lines, of
seven-foot iambic lines, and of eight-foot trochaic lines. But specimens
of each of these varieties are occasionally met with (cf. _Metrik_, ii,
§ 261).
§ =232.= The double stanza, i.e. that of eight lines of the same
structure (_a a b b c c d d_), occurs in different kinds of verse. With
lines of four measures it is found, e.g. in Suckling's poem, _The
Expostulation_ (Poets, iii. 749):
_Tell me, ye juster deities,
That pity lover's miseries,
Why should my own unworthiness
Light me to seek my happiness?
It is as natural, as just,
Him for to love whom needs I must:
All men confess that love's a fire,
Then who denies it to aspire?_
This stanza comes to a better conclusion when it winds up with a
refrain, as in Percy's _Reliques_, II. ii. 13. One very popular form of
it consists of four-foot trochaic lines, e.g. in Burns, p. 197, M.
Arnold, _A Memory Picture_, p. 23 (the two last lines of each stanza
forming a refrain), or of four-foot iambic-anapaestic lines (Burns, _My
heart's in the Highlands_). Somewhat rarely it is made up of five-foot
iambic or septenaric lines (cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 262).[188]
§ =233.= We have next to consider the stanzas of four isometrical lines
with intermittent rhyme (_a b c b_). As a rule they consist of three- or
four-foot verses, which are really Alexandrines or acatalectic
tetrameters rhyming in long couplets, and only in their written or
printed arrangement broken up into short lines; as, e.g., in the
following half-stanza from the older version of the _Legend of St.
Katherine_, really written in eight-lined stanzas (ed. Horstmann,
_Altenglische Legenden, Neue Folge_, Heilbronn, 1881, p. 242):
_He that made heven and erthe
and sonne and mone for to schine,
Bring ous into his riche
and scheld ous fram helle pine!_
Examples of such stanzas of four-foot trochaic and three-foot iambic
verses that occur chiefly in Percy's _Reliques_ (cf. _Metrik_, ii, §
264), but also in M. Arnold, _Calais Sands_ (p. 219), _The Church of
Brou, I., The Castle_ (p. 13, feminine and masculine verse-endings
alternating), _New Rome_, p. 229, _Parting_, p. 191 (iambic-anapaestic
three-beat and two-beat verses), _Iseult of Ireland_, p. 150 (iambic
verses of five measures); cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 264.
§ =234.= Stanzas of eight lines result from this stanza by doubling, i.
e. by adding a second couplet of the same structure and rhyme to the
original long-line couplet. Such a form with the scheme _a b c b d b e
b_ meet in the complete stanza of the older _Legend of St. Katherine_
just referred to:
_He that made heven and erthe
and sonne and mone for to schine,
Bring ous into his riche
and scheld ous fram helle pine!
Herken, and y you wile telle
the liif of an holy virgine,
That treuli trowed in Jhesu Crist:
hir name was hoten Katerine_,
This sort of doubling, however, occurs in Modern English poetry more
rarely than that which is produced by adding a second long-lined
couplet, but with a new rhyme, so that when the stanza is arranged in
short lines we have the scheme _a b c b d e f e_.
A stanza like this of trochaic lines we find in _Hymns Ancient and
Modern_, No. 419:
_King of Saints, to whom the number
Of Thy starry host is known,
Many a name, by man forgotten,
Lives for ever round Thy Throne;
Lights, which earth-born mists have darkened,
There are shining full and clear,
Princes in the court of heaven,
Nameless, unremembered here._
Still more frequent are stanzas of this kind consisting of four-foot and
three-foot iambic lines, or of two-foot iambic-anapaestic and
trochaic-dactylic lines (cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 265).
§ =235.= More popular than the stanza just noticed is that developed
from the long-lined couplets by inserted rhyme. A very instructive
example of this development is given in the later version of the _Legend
of St. Katherine_ (ed. by Horstmann) which is a paraphrase of the older.
The first half-stanza is as follows:
_He that made bothe sunne and mone
In heuene and erthe for to schyne,
Bringe vs to heuene, with him to wone,
And schylde vs from helle pyne!_
Stanzas like this, which are frequent in Low Latin, Provençal, and Old
French poetry, are very common in Middle and Modern English poetry.
Examples may be found in Ritson's _Ancient Songs_, i, p. 40, Surrey, pp.
37, 56, &c., Burns, p.97, &c., M. Arnold, _Saint Brandan_, p. 165, &c.
Masculine and feminine rhymes do not alternate very often (cf. Percy's
_Reliques_, I. iii. 13). More frequently we find stanzas with refrain
verses, e.g. Wyatt, p. 70.
Stanzas of this kind consisting of four- or three-foot iambic, trochaic,
iambic-anapaestic, trochaic-dactylic lines, of three-foot iambic lines,
or of two-foot dactylic or other lines are also very common, e.g. in M.
Arnold's _A Modern Sappho_ (with alternating masculine and feminine
verse-endings), _Pis Aller_ (p. 230), _Requiescat_ (p. 21).
Another stanza of great importance is what is called the elegiac stanza,
which consists of four five-foot verses with crossed rhymes. In Middle
English literature it was only used as a part of the _Rhyme-Royal_ and
of the eight-lined stanza. In Modern English, however, it has been used
from the beginning more frequently; it occurs already in Wyatt (p. 58):
_Heaven and earth and all that hear me plain
Do well perceive what care doth make me cry
Save you alone, to whom I cry in vain;
Mercy, Madam, alas! I die, I die!_
Other examples are found in M. Arnold's poems _Palladium_ (p. 251),
_Revolutions_ (p. 254), _Self Deception_ (p. 225, with alternate
masculine and feminine rhymes). This stanza is very popular throughout
the Modern English period (cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 267).
Stanzas of this kind, however, consisting of trochaic verses, of
six-foot (as in Tennyson's _Maud_), seven- and eight-foot metres are not
very frequently met with (cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 269).
§ =236.= The four-lined, cross-rhyming stanza gives rise by doubling to
the eight-lined (_a b a b a b a b_), which occurs very often in Middle
English, as in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 99, or in the
_Luve-Rone_ by Thomas de Hales, ed. Morris (_Old Eng. Misc._, p. 93),
where both masculine and feminine rhymes are used:
_A Mayde cristes me bit yorne,
þat ich hire wurche a luue ron:
For hwan heo myhle best ileorne
to taken on oþer soþ lefmon,
Þat treowest were of alle berne
and beste wyte cuþe a freo wymmon;
Ich hire nule nowiht werne,
ich hire wule teche as ic con._
Stanzas of this kind are met with also in Modern English, as in Burns
(p. 262); stanzas of four-stressed lines are found in Wright's _Spec. of
Lyr. Poetry_, p. 110, and others of three-foot verses in _Polit. Poems_,
i. 270.
There is still another mode of doubling, by which the four originally
long-lined verses are broken up by the use of two different inserted
rhymes; the scheme is then: _a b a b c b c b_. This is the stanza to
which the second version of the _Legend of St. Katherine_ has been
adapted in paraphrasing it from the first (cf. §§ 77, 78, 235):
_He that made bothe sunne and mone
In heuene and erthe for to schyne,
Bringe vs to heuene, with him to wone,
And schylde vs from helle pyne!
Lystnys, and I schal you telle
The lyff off an holy virgyne,
That trewely Jhesu louede wel:
Here name was callyd Kateryne._
This stanza occurs, e.g., in Burns (p. 201). Less common is the form of
stanza _a b a b a c a c_ (e.g. in Wyatt, p. 48) resulting from the
breaking up two rhyming couplets of long lines by inserted rhyme (not
from four long lines with one rhyme).
The common mode of doubling is by adding to a four-lined stanza a second
of exactly the same structure, but with new rhymes. Some few examples
occur in Middle English in the _Surtees Psalter_, Ps. xliv, ll. 11, 12.
Very frequently, however, we find it in Modern English constructed of
the most varying metres, as, e.g., of five-foot iambic verses in
Milton, _Psalm VIII_ (vol. iii, p. 29):
_O Jehovah our Lord, how wondrous great
And glorious is thy name through all the earth,
So as above the heavens thy praise to set!
Out of the tender mouths of latest birth,
Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou
Hast founded strength, because of all thy foes,
To stint the enemy, and slack the avenger's brow,
That bends his rage thy providence to oppose._
More popular are stanzas of this kind consisting of three- or four-foot
iambic, trochaic, and iambic-anapaestic verses, sometimes with alternate
masculine and feminine rhymes. (For specimens see _Metrik_, ii, § 271.)
§ =237.= Only very few examples occur of the sixteen-lined doubling of
this stanza, according to the scheme _a b a b c d c d e f e f g h g
h₂_; it occurs, e.g., in Moore, _When Night brings the Hour_. Another
form of eight lines (_a b c d . a b c d₃_) is met with in Rossetti,
_The Shadows _(ii. 249); it seems to be constructed on the analogy of a
six-lined stanza (_a b c . a b c_), which is used pretty often. This
stanza, which is closely allied to the tail-rhyme stanza described in §
238, consists most commonly of four-foot iambic verses; it occurs, e.g.,
in Campbell, _Ode to the Memory of Burns_ (p. 19):
_Soul of the Poet! whereso'er
Reclaim'd from earth, thy genius plume
Her wings of immortality:
Suspend thy harp in happier sphere,
And with thine influence illume
The gladness of our jubilee._
Specimens of forms of stanzas like this, consisting of other kinds of
verse, e.g. of three-foot trochaic-dactylic verse, as in M. Arnold's
_The Lord's Messenger_ (p. 231), are given in _Metrik_, ii, § 272.
§ =238.= From the four- and eight-lined bipartite equal-membered
isometrical stanzas, dealt with in the preceding paragraphs, it will be
convenient to proceed to the six-lined stanzas of similar structure. To
these belongs a certain form of the tail-rhyme stanza, the nature and
origin of which will be discussed when we treat of the chief form, which
consists of unequal verses. The isometrical six-lined stanzas to be
discussed here show the same structure as the common tail-rhyme stanza,
viz. _a a b c c b_. An example is afforded in a song, Ritson, i. 10:
_Sith Gabriel gan grete
Ure ledi Mari swete,
That godde wold in hir lighte,
A thousand yer hit isse,
Thre hundred ful iwisse,
Ant over yeris eighte._
In Modern English this stanza occurs very often, e.g. in Drayton, _To
the New Year_ (Poets, iii. 579); as a rule, however, it consists of
four-foot iambic verses; e.g. in Suckling in a song (_Poets_, iii.
748):
_When, dearest, I but think of thee,
Methinks all things that lovely be
Are present, and my soul delighted:
For beauties that from worth arise,
Are like the grace of deities,
Still present with us though unsighted._
In this poem all the tail-verses are feminine throughout; in other cases
there are masculine and feminine verses, more often we find masculine or
feminine exclusively; but usually they interchange without any rule.
Examples of these varieties, and also of similar stanzas consisting of
three-foot trochaic verses, of two- and three-foot iambic-anapaestic,
and of five-foot iambic lines are given in _Metrik_, ii, § 273.
Stanzas of this form consisting of two-stressed verses occurring in
Middle English poems have been quoted in § 65.
§ =239.= A variety that belongs to Modern English only is that in which
the tail-verses are placed at the head of the half-stanzas, according to
the formula _a b b a c c_. It occurs in Ben Jonson's _Hymn to God_
(Poets, iv. 561), consisting of two-foot iambic verses; another example,
with four-foot trochaic verses, occurs in Mrs. Browning, _A Portrait_
(iii. 57); cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 274.
A twelve-lined stanza, resulting from the doubling of the six-line
stanza, is found only in Middle English poetry, its arrangement of
rhymes being _a a b c c b d d b e e b_; or with a more elaborate
rhyme-order, _a a b a a b c c b c c b_, as in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr.
Poetry_, p. 41.
Still another modification of the simple six-lined stanza consists in
the addition of a third rhyme-verse to the two rhyming couplets of each
half-stanza; so that an eight-lined stanza results with the scheme _a a
a b c c c b_. Two specimens of this kind of stanza, consisting of
two-stressed lines and occurring in Early English dramatic poetry, have
been quoted above, § 70.
The same stanza of two-foot verses occurs in the _Coventry Mysteries_,
p. 342. In Modern English, too, we find it sometimes, consisting of
three-foot iambic verses, as in Longfellow, _King Olaf's Death Drink_
(p. 577). Stanzas of five-, four-, and two-foot iambic verses and other
metres are likewise in use. (For examples see _Metrik_, ii, § 275.)
Some rarely occurring extended forms of this stanza are exemplified in
Metrik, ii, § 277, their schemes being _a ~ a ~ b ~ c d ~ d ~ b ~ c₄_,
_a ~ b ~ c ~ d e ~ f ~ g ~ d₃_, _a b b c a d d c₄_, _a a a a b c c c c
b₄_.
Sixteen-lined stanzas of this kind of two-stressed verses (rhyming _a a
a b c c c b d d d b e e e b_) that were frequently used in Middle
English Romances have been quoted and discussed above, § 65.
II. _Anisometrical Stanzas._
§ =240.= In connexion with the last section, the chief species of the
=tail-rhyme stanza= may be discussed here first of all. This stanza, as
a rule, consists of four four-foot and two three-foot verses, rhyming
according to the scheme _a a₄ b₃ c c₄ b₃_; cf. the following
specimen (Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 101):
_Lustneþ alle a lutel þrowe,
Ȝe þat wolleþ ou selue yknowe,
Unwys þah y be:
Ichulle telle ou ase y con,
Hou holy wryt spekeþ of mon;
Herkneþ nou to me._
The last line of each half-stanza, the tail-verse proper, was originally
simply a refrain. The tripartite character of the half-stanza and the
popular origin of the stanza was shown long ago by Wolf, _Über die Lais,
Sequenzen und Leiche_, p. 27 (cf. _Engl. Metrik_, i, pp. 353-7).
According to him this stanza was developed first of all from choruses
sung in turn by the people and from the ecclesiastical responses which
also had a popular origin, and lastly from the sequences and 'proses' of
the middle ages.
A sequence-verse such as:
_Egidio psallat coetus | iste laetus | Alleluia_,
in its tripartition corresponds to the first half of the above-quoted
Middle English tail-rhyme stanza:
_Lustneþ alle a lutel þrowe | ȝe þat wolleþ ou selue yknowe |
Unwys þah y be._
When two long lines like this, connected with each other by the rhyme of
the last section, the two first sections of each line being also
combined by leonine rhyme, are broken up into six short verses, we have
the tail-rhyme stanza in the form above described. This form was
frequently used in Low Latin poetry, and thence passed into Romanic and
Teutonic literature.
A form even more extensively used in Middle and Modern English poetry is
that in which the tail-verse has feminine instead of masculine endings.
A Modern English specimen from Drayton's poem _To Sir Henry Goodere_
(_Poets_, iii. 576) may be quoted; it begins:
_These lyric pieces, short and few,
Most worthy Sir, I send to you,
To read them be not weary:
They may become John Hewes his lyre,
Which oft at Powlsworth by the fire
Hath made us gravely merry._
This, the chief form of the tail-rhyme stanza, has been in use
throughout the whole Modern English period. There has, however, never
been any fixed rule as to the employment of feminine or masculine
rhymes. Sometimes feminine tail-rhymes with masculine couplets are used
(as in the example above), sometimes masculine rhymes only, while in
other instances masculine and feminine rhymes are employed
indiscriminately.
Iambic-anapaestic verses of four or three measures were also sometimes
used in this form of stanza, as in Moore, _Hero and Leander_.
There are a great many varieties of this main form; the stanza may
consist, for instance, of four- and two-foot iambic or trochaic lines,
or of iambic lines of three and two, five and three, five and two
measures, according to the schemes _a a b c c₄ b₂_, _a a₃ b₂ c c₃ b₂_,
_a a₅ b₃ c c₅ b₃_, _a a₅ b₂ c c₅ b₂_, and _a₃ b b₅ a₃ c c₅_ (the
tail-verses in front). For examples see _Metrik_, ii, § 279.
§ =241.= The next step in the development of this stanza was its
enlargement to twelve lines (_a a₄ b₃ c c₄ b₃ d d₄ b₃ e e₄ b₃_) by
doubling. This form occurs in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_,
p. 43:
_Lenten is come wiþ loue to toune,
Wiþ blosmen and wiþ briddes roune,
Þat all þis blisse bryngeþ:
Dayes eȝes in þis dales,
Notes suete of nyhtegales,
Vch foule song singeþ.
Þe þrestlecoc him þreteþ oo;
Away is huere wynter woo,
When woderoue springeþ.
Þis foules singeþ ferli fele,
Ant wlyteþ on huere wynter wele,
Þat al þe wode ryngeþ._
We are not in a position to quote a Modern English specimen of this
stanza, but it was very popular in Middle English poetry, both in
lyrics and in legends or romances, and in later dramatic poetry.[189]
§ =242.= As to the =further development of the tail-rhyme stanza,= the
enlarged forms must first be mentioned. They are produced by adding a
third line to the principal lines of each half-stanza; the result being
an eight-lined stanza of the formula _a a a₄ b₃ c c c₄ b₃_. Stanzas
of this form occur in Early Middle English lyrics, e.g. in Wright's
_Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 51 (with a refrain-stanza) and _Polit.
Songs_, p. 187 (four-stressed main verses and two-stressed tail-verses,
the latter having occasionally the appearance of being in three-beat
rhythm).
A later example is found in Dunbar's poem _Off the Fenȝeit Freir of
Tungland_; in the Miracle Plays the form was also in favour. Isometrical
stanzas of this kind have been mentioned above (§§ 238, 239).
In Modern English poetry this stanza is extensively used. We find it in
Drayton, _Nymphidia_ (Poets, iii. 177), with feminine tail-verses:
_Old Chaucer doth of Topas tell,
Mad Rablais of Pantagruel,
A later third of Dowsabel,
With such poor trifles playing:
Others the like have laboured at,
Some of this thing and some of that,
And many of they know not what,
But that they must be saying_.
Other examples of this stanza, as of similar ones, consisting of four-
and three-foot trochaic and iambic-anapaestic verses, are given in
_Metrik_, ii, § 280.
There are some subdivisions of this stanza consisting of verses of three
and two measures, of four and two measures, four and one measure, five
and two, and five and one measure, according to the formulae _a a a₃ b₂
c c c₃ b₂_, _a a a₄ b₂ c c c₄ b₂_, _a a a₄ b₁ c c c₄ b₁_, _a a a₅ b₂ c
c c₅ b₂_, _a a a₅ b₁ c c c₅ b₁_. For specimens see _Metrik_, ii, § 281.
The ten-lined tail-rhyme stanza occurs very rarely; we have an example
in Longfellow's _The Goblet of Life_ (p. 114), its formula being _a a a
a₄ b₃ c c c c₄ b₃_.
§ =243.= We find, however, pretty often--though only in Modern
English--certain variant forms of the enlarged eight- and ten-lined
tail-rhyme stanzas, the chief verses of which are of unequal length in
each half-stanza; as in Congreve's poem, _On Miss Temple_ (Poets, vii.
568). In this poem the first verse of each half-stanza is shortened by
one foot, in accordance with the formula _a₃ a a₄ b₃ c₃ c c₄ b₃_:
_Leave, leave the drawing-room,
Where flowers of beauty us'd to bloom;
The nymph that's fated to o'ercome,
Now triumphs at the wells.
Her shape, and air, and eyes,
Her face, the gay, the grave, the wise,
The beau, in spite of box and dice,
Acknowledge, all excels._
Stanzas of cognate form are quoted in _Metrik_, ii, §§ 283-5,
constructed according to the schemes: _a a₂ a₄ b₃ c c₂ c₄ b₃_, _a₃ b b₄
c ~₂ a₃ d d₄ c ~₂_ (with a varying first rhyme in the chief verses), _a
a b b₄ c₂ d d e e₄ c₂_ (ten lines, with a new rhyming couplet in the
half-stanza), _a a b b c₃ C₂ a a b b c₃ C₂_ (an analogous twelve-lined
stanza, extended by refrain in each half-stanza), _a b a b₅ c₃ d e d e₅
c₃_ (crossed rhymes in the principal verses).
Two uncommon variations that do not, strictly speaking, belong to the
isocolic stanzas, correspond to the formulas _a b b₅ c₂ c d d₅ a₂_, _a b
a₄ c ~₂ b a b₄ c ~₂_.
§ =244.= Another step in the development of the tail-rhyme stanza
consisted in making the principal verses of the half-stanza shorter than
the tail-verse. Models for this form existed in Low Latin, Provençal,
and Old French poetry (cf. _Metrik_, i, § 366). In Middle English,
however, there are not many stanzas of this form. We have an example in
Dunbar's poem _Of the Ladyis Solistaris at Court_ (_a a₂ b₃ c c₂ b₃ d d₂
e₃ f f₂ e₃_):
_Thir Ladyis fair,
That makis repair,
And in the Court ar kend,
Thre dayis thair
Thay will do mair,
Ane mater for till end,
Than thair gud men
Will do in ten,
For any craft thay can;
So weill thay ken
Quhat tyme and quhen
Thair menes thay sowld mak than._
The same rhythmical structure is found in the old ballad, _The Notbrowne
Maid_, in Percy's _Reliques_, vol. ii. In this collection the poem is
printed in twelve-lined stanzas of four- and three-foot verses. Skeat,
however, in his _Specimens of English Literature_, printed it in stanzas
of six long lines.
In either arrangement the relationship of the metre to the Septenary
verse comes clearly out.
In Modern English this stanza is also very popular. It occurs in Scott
(p. 460, _a a₂ b₃ c c₂ b₃_), Burns (doubled, p. 61, _a a₂ b₃ c c₂ b₃ d
d₂ e₃ f f₂ e₃_, p. 211, _a a₂ b₃ c c₂ b₃ d d₂ b₃ e e₂ b₃_).
Often there are also two- and three-foot iambic-anapaestic
verses combined in stanzas of this kind, as in Cowper (p. 427),
Burns (p. 244), &c.
Subordinate varieties of this stanza consisting of other verses are
quoted, with specimens, in _Metrik_, ii, §§ 286-8, after the formulas:
_a a₄ b₅ c c₄ b₅, a a₄ b₆ c c₄ b₆_, _a a₃ b₅ c c₃ b₅, a a₃ b c c b₄_,
_a a₂ b₄ c c₂ b₄, a ~ a ~ b ~ b ~ c d ~ d ~ e ~ e ~₂ c₃_.
§ =245.= A small group of tail-rhyme stanzas consists of those
in which the second chief verses are shorter than the first.
Such a variety occurs in a tail-rhyme stanza of four-foot trochaic
verses, the second verse of each half-stanza being shortened by two
measures. It was used by Donne in his translation of Psalm 137 (_Poets_,
iv, 43):
_By Euphrates' flow'ry side
We did 'bide,
From dear Juda far absented,
Tearing the air with our cries,
And our eyes
With their streams his stream augmented._
The same stanza we find in Longfellow, _Tales of a Wayside Inn_, v (p.
552). Similar stanzas are quoted in _Metrik_, ii, § 289, their schemes
being _a₃ a₂ b₃ c₃ c₂ b₃, a₃ a₂ b₅ c₃ c₂ b₅, a₄ b₃ b₂ a₄ c₃ c₂_ (the
tail-rhyme verse put in front).
§ =246.= There are also some stanzas (_a b₄ c₃ a b₄ c₃_) which may be
looked upon as modelled on the tail-rhyme stanza; such a stanza we find
in Mrs. Browning's poem, _A Sabbath morning at Sea_ (iii. 74); its
formula being _a b₄ c₃ a b₄ c₃_:
_The ship went on with solemn face:
To meet the darkness on the deep,
The solemn ship went onward:
I bowed down weary in the place,
For parting tears and present sleep
Had weighed mine eyelids downward._
Other stanzas of this kind show the scheme: _a₄ b₅ c₃ a₄ b₅ c₃_, _a b₂
c₄ a b₂ c₄_, _a₂ b₃ c₁ a₂ b₃ c₁_, _a ~ b a ~ b₄ c ~6 d~ e d ~ e₄ c ~6_;
cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 290.
A stanza belonging to this group, and consisting of ten lines rhyming
according to the formula _a b a b₃ c₆ d e d e₃ c₆_, occurs in M.
Arnold's _Empedocles on Etna_, p. 446 (printed in stanzas of five
lines).
§ =247.= Another metre, which was equally popular with the tail-rhyme
stanza with its many varieties, is the stanza formed of two Septenary
verses (catalectic tetrameters). In the Middle English period we find it
used with feminine rhymes only; afterwards, however, there are both
feminine and masculine rhymes, and in modern times the feminine ending
is quite exceptional. This metre, broken up into four lines, is one of
the oldest and most popular of equal-membered stanzas. One of its
forms[190] has in hymn-books the designation of _Common Metre_.
Middle and Modern English specimens of this simple form
have been given above (§§ 77, 78, 136, 138-40); in some of
them the verses rhyme and are printed as long lines; in others
the verses rhyme in long lines but are printed as short ones
(_a b c b_), and in others, again, the verses both rhyme and are
printed as short lines (_a b a b_).
On the analogy of this stanza, especially of the short-lined rhyming
form, and of the doubled form with intermittent rhyme (which is,
properly speaking, a stanza rhyming in long lines), there have been
developed many new strophic forms. One of the most popular of these is
the stanza consisting alternately of four- and three-foot
iambic-anapaestic verses. In this form is written, e.g. the celebrated
poem of Charles Wolfe, _The Burial of Sir John Moore_ (cf. § 191):
_Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried._
In other poems there are masculine rhymes only, as in Cowper (p. 429).
Stanzas of this structure, composed of trochaic verses or of trochaic
mixed with iambic or of dactylic mixed with iambic-anapaestic verses,
are not frequent. (For examples see _Metrik_, ii, § 292.)
§ =248.= Some other analogical developments from this type, however,
occur pretty often; a stanza of alternate four- and two-foot verses (_a₄
b ~₂ a₄ b ~₂_) is used, for example, by Ben Jonson (_Poets_, iv. 545):
_Weep with me all you that read
This little story;
And know, for whom a tear you shed,
Death's self is sorry._
Another of five- and four-foot verses (_a₅ b₄ a₅ b₄_) occurs in Cowley,
_The long Life_ (Poets, v. 264):
_Love from Time's wings hath stol'n the feathers sure,
He has, and put them to his own,
For hours, of late, as long as days endure,
And very minutes hours are grown._
Other less common analogous forms are given in _Metrik_, ii, § 298, the
formulas being _a₅ b₃ a₅ b₃_, _a₃ b₅ a₃ b₅_, _a₅ b₂ a₅ b₂_, _a₂ b₅ a₂
b₅_.
There are also stanzas of anisometrical verses rhyming in couplets, but
they occur very rarely. An example is Donne's _The Paradox_ (Poets, iv.
397), after the scheme _a₅ a₅ b₅ b₃_:
_No lover saith I love, nor any other
Can judge a perfect lover:
He thinks that else none can or will agree
That any loves but he._
§ =249.= Pretty often we find--not indeed in middle English, but in
Modern English poetry--eight-lined (doubled) forms of the different
four-lined stanzas. Only doubled forms, however, of the formula _a₄ b₃
a₄ b₃ c₄ d₃ c₄ d₃_ are employed with any frequency; they have either
only masculine rhymes or rhymes which vary between masculine and
feminine. An example of the latter kind we have in Drayton's _To his coy
Love_ (Poets, iii. 585):
_I pray thee, love, love me no more,
Call home the heart you gave me,
I but in vain that saint adore,
That can, but will not save me:
These poor half kisses kill me quite;
Was ever man thus served?
Amidst an ocean of delight,
For pleasure to be starved._
Eight-lined stanzas with the following schemes are not common:--_a₄ b₃
c₄ b₃ a₄ b₃ c₄ b₃_, _a₄ b₃ a₄ b₃ c₄ b₃ c₄ b₃_, _a₄ b₃ a₄ b₃ a₄ b₃ a₄ b₃_, _a
~₃ b₄ a ~₃ b₄ c ~₃ d₄ c ~₃ d₄_, _a₄ b₃ c₄ b₃ d₄ e₃ f₄ e₃._ Only in the last
stanza and in the usual form _a b a b c d c d_ we find trochaic and
iambic-anapaestic verses. An example of the latter sort which is pretty
often met with we have in Cunningham's _The Sycamore Shade_ (Poets, x.
717):
_T'other day as I sat in the sycamore shade,
Young Damon came whistling along,
I trembled--I blush'd--a poor innocent maid!
And my heart caper'd up to my tongue:
Silly heart, I cry'd, fie! What a flutter is here!
Young Damon designs you no ill,
The shepherd's so civil, you've nothing to fear,
Then prythee, fond urchin, lie still._
For specimens of the other subordinate varieties and of the rare
twelve-lined stanza (_a₄ b₃ c₄ b₃ d₄ b₃ e₄ f₃ d₄ f₃ g₄ f₃_ and _a₄ b ~₃
a₄ b ~₃ a₄ b ~₃ c₄ d ~₃ c₄ d ~₃ c₄ d ~₃_) see _Metrik_, ii, §§ 295, 296.
§ =250.= There are also doubled forms of the before-mentioned analogical
development of the Septenary, the schemes of which are as follows:
_a₄ b ~₂ a₄ b ~₂ a₄ b ~₂ a₄ b ~₂_, _a₃ b ~₂ a₃ b ~₂ c₃ d ~₂ c₃ d ~₂_,
_a ~₂ b₃ a ~₂ b₃ c ~₂ d₃ c ~₂ d₃_, _a ~₄ b₅ a ~₄ b₅ c ~₄ d₅ c ~₄ d₅_,
and _a₅ a₄ b₅ b₄ c₅ c₄ d₅ d₄_.
We must here refer to some eight-lined stanzas which have this common
feature that the two half-stanzas are exactly alike, but the
half-stanzas themselves consist of unequal members. These, however, will
be treated in the next chapter.
In this connexion may be also mentioned the doubled _Poulter's Measure_,
which occurs somewhat frequently, as in _Hymns Ancient and Modern_, No.
149:
_Thou art gone up on high,
To mansions in the skies;
And round Thy Throne unceasingly
The songs of praise arise.
But we are lingering here,
With sin and care oppressed;
Lord, send Thy promised Comforter,
And lead us to Thy rest._
The same form of stanza was used in Hood's well-known _Song of the
Shirt_ (p. 183).
Other stanzas of similar structure are given with specimens in _Metrik_,
ii, §§ 300, 301; their formulas are _a₄ a₄ b₂ b₅ c₄ c₄ d₂ d₅_, _a b a₄
b₃ c d c₄ d₃_ (Moore, _Dreaming for ever_), _a₃ b b₃ a₃ c₃ d d₄ c₃_, _a
b a₃ b₂ c d c₃ d₂_, _a₃ b₂ c₄ a₂ d₃ b₂ c₄ d₂_; in the same place we have
mentioned some ten-lined stanzas of the forms _a a₄ b b₂ a₄ c c₄ d d₂
c₄_ (Moore, The Young May Moon) and _a₃ a₂ b₅ b₂ c₄ d₃ d₂ e₅ e₂ c₄_,
&c.
CHAPTER IV
ONE-RHYMED INDIVISIBLE AND BIPARTITE
UNEQUAL-MEMBERED STANZAS
§ =251.= These different kinds of stanzas may be conveniently treated
together, since they are closely allied with each other, in that both of
them--the indivisible stanzas usually, and the bipartite
unequal-membered stanzas frequently--exhibit a one-rhymed principal
part.
I. _One-rhymed and indivisible stanzas._
The =one-rhymed stanzas=, taken as a whole, cannot without qualification
be ranged under any of the other kinds of stanza. The four-lined and
eight-lined stanzas of this form, it is true, do for the most part seem
to belong so far as their syntactical structure is concerned to the
bipartite, equal-membered class (_a a, a a; a a a a, a a a a_). But
those of six lines may belong either to the bipartite (_a a a, a a a_)
or to the tripartite class (_a a, a a, a a_). It is even more difficult
to draw a sharp line of distinction when the strophes have an odd number
of lines.
In no case is there such a definite demarcation between the chief parts
in these one-rhymed stanzas as exists in stanzas with varied rhymes,
whether based upon crossed rhymes or on rhyming couplets.
=Three-lined stanzas= of the same structure as the four-lined stanzas to
be described in the next section were not used before the Modern period.
They occur pretty often, and are constructed of widely different kinds
of verse; in Drayton's _The Heart_ (Poets, iii. 580) three-foot lines
are used:
_If thus we needs must go,
What shall our one heart do,
This one made of our two?_
Stanzas of this kind, consisting of three-foot trochaic and dactylic
verses, as well as stanzas of four-foot iambic, iambic-anapaestic,
trochaic, and dactylic verses, are also met with in the Modern period.
Even more popular, however, are those of five-foot iambic verses, as e.
g. in Dryden, pp. 393, 400, &c. Stanzas of longer verses, on the other
hand, e.g. six-foot dactylic, seven-foot trochaic, iambic, or
iambic-anapaestic and eight-foot trochaic verses, occur only
occasionally in the more recent poets, e.g. Tennyson, Swinburne, R.
Browning, D.G. Rossetti, &c. (cf. _Metrik_, ii, §§ 303-4).
Some other Modern English anisometrical stanzas may also be mentioned,
as one in Cowley with the formula _a₅ a₄ a₅_ in _Love's Visibility_
(Poets, v. 273):
_With much of pain, and all the art I knew
Have I endeavour'd hitherto
To hide my love, and yet all will not do._
For other forms see _Metrik_, ii, § 305.
§ =252. Four-lined, one-rhymed stanzas= of four-foot verses (used in Low
Latin, Provençal and Old French poetry, cf. _Metrik_, i, p. 369) are
early met with in Middle English poems, as in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr.
Poetry_, pp. 57 and 68.
The first begins with these verses, which happen to show a prevailing
trochaic rhythm.
_Suete iesu, king of blysse,
Myn huerte loue, min huerte lisse,
Þou art suete myd ywisse,
Wo is him þat þe shall misse._
_Suete iesu, myn huerte lyht,
Þou art day withoute nyht;
Þou ȝeue me streinþe ant eke myht,
Forte louien þe aryht_.
This simple form of stanza is also found in Modern English poetry;
apparently, however, only in one of the earliest poets, viz. Wyatt (p.
36).
It occurs also in Middle English, consisting of four-stressed,
rhyming-alliterative long-lines, as e.g. in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr.
Poetry_, p. 237; and of simple four-stressed long lines in Wyatt (p.
147), and Burns (pp. 253, 265, &c.).
In Middle English poetry Septenary verses are often used in this way on
the Low Latin model (cf. _Metrik_, i, pp. 90, 91, 370), as well as
Septenary-Alexandrine verses, e.g. Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p.
93:
_Blessed be þou, leuedy, ful of heouene blisse,
Suete flur of parays, moder of mildenesse,
Preyȝe iesu, þy sone, þat he me rede and wysse
So my wey forte gon, þat he me neuer misse._
In Modern English stanzas of this kind, consisting of Septenary verses,
are of rare occurrence. We have an example in Leigh Hunt's _The jovial
Priest's Confession_ (p. 338), a translation of the well-known poem
ascribed to Walter Map, _Mihi est propositum in taberna mori_ (cf. §§
135, 182).
Shorter verses, e.g. iambic lines of three measures, are also very
rarely used for such stanzas; e.g. in Donne and Denham (_Poets_, iv. 48
and v. 611).
§ =253.= A small group of other stanzas connected with the above may be
called =indivisible stanzas=. They consist of a one-rhymed main part
mostly of three, more rarely of two or four lines, followed by a shorter
refrain-verse, a _cauda_, as it were, but in itself too unimportant to
lend a bipartite character to the stanza. Otherwise, stanzas like these
might be looked upon as bipartite unequal-membered stanzas, with which,
indeed, they stand in close relationship. Three-lined stanzas of this
kind occur in Modern English only; as e.g. a stanza consisting of an
heroic couplet and a two-foot refrain verse of different rhythm: _a a₄
B₂_ in Moore's Song:
_Oh! where are they, who heard in former hours,
The voice of song in these neglected bowers?
They are gone--all gone!_
Other stanzas show the formulas _a a₅ b₃_ and _a a₄ b₃_. Their structure
evidently is analogous to that of a four-lined Middle English stanza _a
a a₄ B₃_, the model of which we find in Low Latin and Provençal poetry
(cf. _Metrik_, i. 373) and in Furnivall's _Political, Religious, and
Love Poems_, p. 4:
_Sithe god hathe chose þe to be his knyȝt,
And posseside þe in þi right,
Thou hime honour with al thi myght,
Edwardus Dei gracia_.
Similar stanzas occur also in Modern English poets: _a a a₄ B₂_ in
Wyatt, p. 99, _a a a₅ B₃_ in G. Herbert, p. 18, &c. We find others with
the formula _a a a₄ b₂ a a a₄ b₂_ in Dunbar's _Inconstancy of Love_, and
with the formula _a a a₄ b₃ c c c₄ b₃ d d d₄ b₃_, in Dorset (_Poets_,
vi. 512); there are also stanzas of five lines, e.g. _a a a a₄ B₂_
(Wyatt, p. 80).
An older poem in Ritson's _Anc. Songs_, i. 140 (_Welcom Yol_), has the
same metre and form of stanza, but with a refrain verse of two measures
and a two-lined refrain prefixed to the first stanza: _A B₄ a a a₄ B₂
c c c₄ B₂_. A similar extended stanza is found in Wyatt (p. 108) _A₃
b b b₃ A₃ B₂_; _A₃ c c c₃ A₃ B₂_. There are also in modern poetry
similar isometrical stanzas, as in Swinburne (_Poems_, ii. 108) on the
scheme _a a a b₅_, _c c c b₅_, _d d d b₅_, _e e e f₅_, _g g g f₅_, _h h
h f₅_; in Campbell (p. 73) _a a a b₄_, _c c c b₄_, _d d d b₄_; and in M.
Arnold, _The Second Best_ (p. 49), with feminine endings in the main
part of the stanza, _a ~ a ~ a ~ b₄_, _c ~ c ~ c ~ b₄_, _d ~ d ~ d ~
b₄_, &c.
II. _Bipartite unequal-membered isometrical stanzas._
§ =254.= These are of greater number and variety. The shortest of them,
however, viz. =stanzas of four lines=, are found only in Modern English;
first of all, stanzas arranged according to the formula _a a b a_; in
this case _b_ can be used as refrain also, as in Sidney, _Astrophel and
Stella_, Song I (Grosart, i. 75):
_Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes entendeth,
Which now my breast, surcharg'd to musick lendeth!
To you, to you, all song of praise is due,
Only in you my song begins and endeth._
Similar stanzas of four-foot iambic and of two-foot iambic-anapaestic
lines occur in Tennyson, _The Daisy_ (p. 270), and in Longfellow, _King
Olaf and Earl Sigwald_ (p. 573).
Stanzas with the scheme _a b b a_ also belong to this group, the two
halves not being exactly equal, but only similar to each other on
account of the unequal arrangement of rhymes.
Such a stanza of four-foot iambic verses occurs in an elegy of Ben
Jonson's (_Poets_, iv. 571):
_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_.
and notably in Tennyson's _In Memoriam_. Both this stanza and the
similar stanza of trochaic verses are found pretty often (cf. _Metrik_,
ii, § 311).
§ =255.= More frequently =five-lined stanzas= occur. One on the scheme
_a b b a a₄_, similar to that just mentioned, is used in Sidney, _Psalm
XXVIII_; others, composed in various metres, have a one-rhymed _frons_
or _cauda_, e.g. _a a a b b₃_ in Wyatt, p. 128, _a a b b b₄_ in Moore
(_Still when Daylight_) and other poets. Of greater importance are some
stanzas on the formula _a a b a b_; they may be looked upon as
isometrical tail-rhyme-stanzas, shortened by one chief verse; as _a a b
a B₄_, often occurring in Dunbar, e.g. in _The Devil's Inquest_, and
in Wyatt, p. 29:
_My lute awake, perform the last
Labour, that thou and I shall waste,
And end that I have now begun;
And when this song is sung and past,
My lute! be still, for I have done._
Another form of this stanza, consisting of five-foot lines with refrain,
occurs in Swinburne, _In an Orchard_ (_Poems_, i. 116), and a variety
consisting of three-foot verses is found in Drayton's _Ode to Himself_
(Poets, iii, p. 587). More frequently this stanza is found with the two
parts in inverted order (_a b a a b₄_), as in Moore:
_Take back the sigh, thy lips of art
In passion's moment breath'd to me:
Yet, no--it must not, will not part,
'Tis now the life-breath of my heart,
And has become too pure for thee._
There are also five-foot iambic and three-foot iambic-anapaestic and
other lines connected in this way, as in G. Herbert (p. 82); in
Longfellow, _Enceladus_ (p. 595); on the scheme _a b c c b₃_ in
Wordsworth, i. 248; and in R. Browning according to the formula _a b c c
b₄_ (vi. 77). The allied form of stanza, _a a b b a_, probably
originating by inversion of the two last verses of the former stanza (_a
a b a b_), occurs in Middle English in the poem _Of the Cuckoo and the
Nightingale_.[191]
_The god of love,--a! benedicite,
How mighty and how greet a lord is he!
For he can make of lowe hertes hye,
And of hye lowe, and lyke for to dye,
And harde hertes he can maken free._
The same stanza, both of four- and five-foot lines, is frequently
employed by Dunbar; e.g. _On his Heid-Ake, The Visitation of St.
Francis_, &c. We find it also in modern poets, composed of the same, or
of other verses; Moore, e.g., has used it with five-foot
iambic-anapaestic lines, in _At the mid hour of Night_.
A stanza on the model _a b a b b_ is a favourite in Modern English; it
is formed from the four-lined stanza (_abab_) by repeating the last
rhyme. It consists of the most different kinds of verse; an example is
Carew's _To my inconstant Mistress_ (Poets, iii. 678):
_When thou, poor excommunicate
From all the joys of love, shall see
The full reward, and glorious fate,
Which my strong faith shall purchase me,
Then curse thine own inconstancy._
For other specimens in lines of five, three, and four feet see _Metrik_,
ii. 307.
Much less common is the form _a b b a b_, which occurs e.g. in
Coleridge's _Recollections of Love_ (_a b b a b₄_).
Five-lined stanzas of crossed rhymes are not very rare; an example of
the form _a b a b a₄_ is found in R. Browning's _The Patriot_ (iv. 149):
_It was roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad:
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day._
For specimens of other forms see _Metrik_, ii, § 318.
§ =256.= The simplest kind of isometrical stanzas of this group is that
in which the four-lined one-rhymed stanza is extended by the addition of
a couplet with a new rhyme, so that it forms a =six-lined stanza=. A
Latin stanza of this kind consisting of Septenary verses is given in
Wright's _Pol. Poems_, i. 253, and a Middle English imitation of it, ib.
p. 268, in the poem _On the Minorite Friars_. The same stanza composed
of four-stressed verses is used by Minot in his poem _Of the batayl of
Banocburn_ (ib. i. 61):
_Skottes out of Berwik and of Abirdene,
At the Bannok burn war ȝe to kene;
Thare slogh ȝe many sakles, als it was sene;
And now has king Edward wroken it, I wene.
It es wrokin, I wene, wele wurth the while;
War ȝit with the Skottes, for thai er ful of gile._
Here the _frons_ is connected with the _cauda_, which recurs in each
stanza as a kind of refrain, by means of _concatenatio_. Two other poems
of Minot's (v, ix) are written in similar stanzas of six and eight
lines. In the ten-lined stanza of the poem in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr.
Poetry_, p. 25, which is of similar structure, we find the doubling of
the _frons_.
A six-lined stanza of this kind, which has the formula _a a a b B B_ (_B
B_ being refrain-verses), is used by Dunbar in his _Gray-Horse_ poem and
in _Luve Erdly and Divine_. The latter begins:
_Now culit is Dame Venus brand;
Trew Luvis fyre is ay kindilland,
And I begyn to undirstand,
In feynit luve quhat foly bene;
Now cumis Aige quhair Yowth hes bene,
And true Luve rysis fro the splene._
The same kind of stanza occurs in Wyatt, p. 137. Other forms are: _a a b
a b b₅_, in Wyatt, p. 71; _a b c c b a₄_ in John Scott, _Conclusion_
(Poets, ix. 773); _a b c b c a₄_ in Tennyson, _A Character_ (p. 12):
_With a half-glance upon the sky
At night he said, 'The wanderings
Of this most intricate Universe
Teach me the nothingness of things.'
Yet could not all creation pierce
Beyond the bottom of his eye._
Longer isometrical stanzas are unfrequent, and need hardly be mentioned
here (cf. _Metrik_, ii, p. 556).
III. _Bipartite unequal-membered anisometrical stanzas._
§ =257. Two-lined and four-lined stanzas.= The shortest stanzas of this
kind consist of two anisometrical lines, rhyming in couplets, e.g. four-
and five-foot, five- and three-foot lines, &c.
These have been mentioned before (§ 207); but as a rule they are used,
like the heroic couplet, in continuous systems only, without strophic
arrangement.
The _Poulter's Measure_ (§§ 146, 206) must be mentioned in this place.
This metre, also, is in narrative poetry employed without strophic
arrangement; but in lyrical poetry it is sometimes written in stanzas.
In this case it is mostly printed as a stanza of four lines, even when
rhyming in long lines, i.e. with intermittent rhyme (_a b₃ c₄ b₃_);
e.g. in Tennyson, _Marriage Morning_ (p. 285):
_Light, so low upon earth,
You send a flash to the sun,
Here is the golden close of love,
All my wooing is done._
The division into stanzas is still more distinctly recognizable when
there are crossed rhymes (_a b₃ a₄ b₃_), as e.g. in a song in Percy's
_Reliques_, I. ii. 2, _The Aged Lover renounceth Love_ (quoted by the
grave-digger in Shakespeare's _Hamlet_):
_I lothe that I did love,
In youth that I thought swete,
As time requires: for my behove
Me thinkes they are not mete._
This stanza occurs very frequently (cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 321), but is
rarely formed of trochaic verses.
Another rare variety on the scheme _a ~ b₃ c₄ b₃_ is found in Mrs.
Hemans, _The Stream is free_ (vii. 42), and in M. Arnold's _The Neckan_
(p. 167).
Similar to the common _Poulter's Measure_ stanza is another stanza of
iambic-anapaestic verses on the formula _a a₃ b₄ a₃_ (in _b_
middle-rhyme is used, so that the scheme may also be given as _a a₃ b b₂
a₃_.)We find it in Burns, the _a_-rhymes being masculine (p. 245) and
feminine (p. 218).
Four-lined stanzas of two rhyming couplets of unequal length are fairly
common; as e.g. on the model _a a₅ b b₄_ in Dryden, _Hymn for St.
John's Eve_:
_O sylvan prophet! whose eternal fame
Echoes from Judah's hills and Jordan's stream,
The music of our numbers raise,
And tune our voices to thy praise._
Other schemes that occur are _a a₄ b b₅_, _a a b₄ b₅_, _a a b₄ b₂_, _a
a₄ b₃ b₂_, _a₄ a₂ b b₄_, _a₅ a₃ b b₅_; there are even forms with lines
of unequal length in each part, as e.g.: _a₄ a₅ b₇ b₅_, _a₇ a₄ b₂ b₆_,
_a₅ a₃ b₅ b₄_, _a₅ a₄ b₄ b₆_. For examples see _Metrik_, ii (§§ 322-4).
Enclosing rhymes are also found; and in this case the lines of the same
length usually rhyme together, as in the formula _a₃ b b₅ a₃_ in Mrs.
Hemans, _The Song of Night_ (vi. 94):
_I come to thee, O Earth!
With all my gifts!--for every flower sweet dew
In bell, and urn, and chalice, to renew
The glory of its birth._
Sometimes verses are used partly of unequal length: _a₃ b₅ b₃ a₄_ in M.
Arnold, _A Nameless Epitaph_ (p. 232), or _a₅ b₂ b₄ a₅_, _a b b₄ a₃_,
&c. (cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 325).
§ =258.= Stanzas of this kind frequently occur with crossed rhymes. Most
commonly two longer verses are placed between two shorter ones, or vice
versa; thus we have the formula _a₃ b a₅ b₃_ in Southey's _The Ebb-Tide_
(ii. 193):
_Slowly thy flowing tide
Came in, old Avon! scarcely did mine eyes,
As watchfully I roam'd thy green-wood side,
Perceive its gentle rise._
Other forms are _a₂ b a₃ b₂_, _a₄ b a₅ b₄_, _a₅ b a₄ b₅_ (cf. _Metrik_,
ii, § 326).
Three isometrical verses and one shorter or longer end-verse can also be
so connected, as e.g. on the scheme _a b a₄ b₂_ in Pope, _Ode on
Solitude_ (p. 45):
_Happy the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground_;
or in Cowper on the model _a b a₄ b₅_ in _Divine Love endures no Rival_
(p. 418):
_Love is the Lord whom I obey,
Whose will transported I perform;
The centre of my rest, my stay,
Love's all in all to me, myself a worm._
Similar stanzas both with this and other arrangements of rhymes (as e.
g. _a b a₅ b₃_, _a b a₄ b₂_, _a b a₃ b₅_) are very popular. A specimen
of the first of these formulas is found in M. Arnold's _Progress_ (p.
252), and one of the second in his _A Southern Night_ (p. 294). For
other examples see _Metrik_, ii, §§ 326-7.
More rarely a short verse begins the stanza (e.g. _a₃ b a b₅_ in
Mrs. Hemans, _The Wish_, vi. 249), or is placed in the middle on the
scheme _a₅ b₂ a b₅_ (as in G. Herbert, _Church Lock and Key_,
p. 61). For specimens see _Metrik_, ii, §§ 328, 329.
Stanzas of one isometrical and another anisometrical half are not
frequently met with; a specimen of the form _a b₄ a₅ b₂_ is
found in G. Herbert's _Employment_ (p. 51).
More common are stanzas of two anisometrical halves; in this case either
the two middle or the isolated verses are generally isometrical; e.g. on
the scheme _a₅ b a₄ b₃_ in G. Herbert, _The Temper_ (p. 49):
_How should I praise thee, Lord! how should my rymes
Gladly engrave thy love in steel,
If what my soul doth feel sometimes,
My soul might ever feel!_
or on _a₄ b₃ a₄ b₅_ in Milton, _Psalm V_ (vol. iii, p. 24):
_Jehovah, to my words give ear,
My meditation weigh;
The voice of my complaining hear,
My king and God, for unto thee I pray._
Stanzas like these are very much in vogue, and may be composed of the
most varied forms of verse (cf. _Metrik_, ii; § 330).
§ =259.= Among the =five-lined stanzas= the first place must be given to
those in which the arrangement of rhymes is parallel, as these are found
in Middle English as well as in Modern English poetry. A stanza of form
_a a a₄ b₃ b₆_ occurs in Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 60:
_Wynter wakeneþ al my care,
nou þis leues waxeþ bare;
ofte y sike ant mourne sare,
when hit cómeþ in my þóht,
óf this wórldes ióie, hóu hit geþ ál to nóht._
A similar structure (_a a a₄ b₃ b₅_) is shown in a stanza of a poem
quoted by Ritson, _Ancient Songs_, i. 129; the poem belongs to the
fifteenth century.
Still more numerous are these stanzas in Modern English; e.g. the form
_a a a₃ b b₅_ occurs in Herbert, _Sinne_ (p. 58), _a a a₃ b₄ b₃_ in
Shelley (iii. 244), _a a a b₄ b₅_ in Suckling (_Poets_, iii. 734); a
still more irregular structure (_a₄ a₅ b b₄ b₅_) in Cowley, _All for
love_ (Poets, v. 263):
_'Tis well, 'tis well with them, say I.
Whose short liv'd passions with themselves can die;
For none can be unhappy who,
'Midst all his ills, a time does know_
(_Though ne'er so long_) _when he shall not be so_.
Here again we meet with the stanzas mentioned above, which are partially
characterized by enclosing rhymes, e.g. corresponding to the formula _a
b b a_, as in M. Arnold, _On the Rhine_ (p. 223), or on the scheme _a a
b b₄ a₅_, as in Byron, _Oh! snatch'd away_, &c. (p. 123):
_Oh! snatch'd away in beauty's bloom,
On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;
But on thy turf shall roses rear
Their leaves, the earliest of the year;
And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom._
For other stanzas on the formulas _a a₅ b b₄ A₃_, _a₅ b b₄ a₅ a₄_, _a₃ b
b₂ a a₃_, &c., see _Metrik_ (ii, §§ 332, 333).
In others the chief part of the stanza shows crossed rhyme, as e.g. on
the scheme _a b a b₄ b₃_ in Poe, _To Helen_ (p. 205):
_Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore._
Other stanzas take the forms _a₅ b₄ a₅ b₄ b₅_, _a₅ b₂ a₄ b₃ b₅_, _a₄ b₃
a₄ b₃ b₂_, &c. More uncommon are such forms as _a₃ b b₅ a₄ b₅, a b₅ b₃ a
b₅_, &c. (For specimens see _Metrik_, ii, § 334.)
Stanzas with crossed rhymes throughout, on the other hand, are very
frequent, as e.g. type _a b a b₄ a₃_ in R. Browning's _By the Fireside_
(iii. 170):
_How well I know what I mean to do
When the long dark autumn evenings come;
And where, my soul, is thy pleasant hue?
With the music of all thy voices, dumb
In life's November too!_
There are many other forms, sometimes very complicated, as e.g. _a b a
b₄ a₃_, _a b₄ a₂ b a₆_, _a₃ b a₄ b₃ a₅_, &c. (For examples see _Metrik_,
ii, § 335.)
§ =260.= The tail-rhyme stanzas shortened by one verse occupy an
important position among the five-lined stanzas.
These curtailed forms occur as early as the Middle English period, e.g.
in an envoi on the model _a a₄ b₂ a₄ b₂_, forming the conclusion of a
poem in six-lined stanzas (_a a a₄ b₂ a₄ b₂_), printed in Wright's
_Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 38.
_Ich wolde ich were a þrestelcok,
A bountyng oþer a lauerok.
Swete bryd!
Bituene hire curtel ant hire smok
Y wolde ben hyd._
In Modern English the common form of stanza is much employed, consisting
of four- and three-foot verses, _a a₄ b₃ a₄ b₃_; there are many
varieties of this scheme, as _a a b a₄ b₃_, _a₅ a b₄ a₅ b₃_, _a a₂ b a₄
b₃_, &c. (cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 336).
A similar form, with shortening in the first half-stanza, also occurs in
Middle English poetry, though only as an envoi of another form of
stanza, viz, in the _Towneley Mysteries_ (pp. 34-323):
_Vnwunne haueþ myn wonges wet,
Þat makeþ me rouþes rede;
Ne sem i nout þer y am set,
Þer me calleþ me fule flet
And waynoun! wayteglede._
This stanza is also frequently used in Modern English, e.g. by Thomas
Moore, _Nay, do not weep_.
A similar stanza on the model _a₄ b₂ a a₄ b₂_ is used by Moore in _Echo_
(ii. 211):
_How sweet the answer Echo makes
To music at night,
When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,
And far away, o'er lawns and lakes,
Goes answering light._
We find specimens of this stanza consisting of other metres and of
different structure (isometrical in the first half-stanza), e.g. on
the schemes _a₅ b₃ a a₅ b₃_, _a b a a₄ b₃_, &c. (For specimens see
_Metrik_, ii, § 337.)
Stanzas of this kind are also formed with three rhymes, e.g. _a b₃ c c₂
b₄_, _a b₃ c c₂ b₃_, _a ~ b₄ c ~ c ~₂ b₄_, &c. (For specimens cf.
_Metrik_, ii, § 338.)
Another class of shortened tail-rhyme stanzas, which is deficient not in
one of the rhyming couplets, but in one of the tail-verses, comes in
here. Omission of the first tail-verse, producing a stanza on the scheme
_a a b b c_, occurs in Wordsworth, _The Blind Highland Boy_ (ii. 368):
_Now we are tired of boisterous joy,
Have romped enough, my little Boy!
Jane hangs her head upon my breast,
And you shall bring your stool and rest;
This corner is your own._
Another stanza, which is used in Carew's _Love's Courtship_ (Poets, iii.
707), is formed on the scheme _a a₄ b₂ c c₄_, where the tail-verse of
the second half-stanza is wanting. As to the other varieties, arising
from the use of other metres, cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 338.
Sometimes stanzas of three rhymes occur, rhyming crosswise throughout,
and of various forms, e.g. _a b a c₄ b₃_ in Longfellow, _The Saga of
King Olaf_ (p. 565); _a b₄ c₃ a₄ c₂_ in Coleridge; _a b a b₅ C₃_ in
Mrs. Hemans (iv. 119); _a b a b₄ C₃_ in Moore, _Weep, Children of
Israel_:
_Weep, weep for him, the Man of God--
In yonder vale he sunk to rest;
But none of earth can point the sod
That flowers above his sacred breast.
Weep, children of Israel, weep!_
For other varieties see _Metrik_, ii, § 339.
§ =261.= Unequal-membered anisometrical =stanzas of six lines= are only
rarely met with in Middle English, as e.g. _a a₄ b b b a₂_ in Dunbar's
poem, _Aganis Treason_.
They occur, on the other hand, very frequently in Modern English,
especially with parallel rhymes on the scheme _a a a a₄ B C₂_ in _The
Old and Young Courtier_ (Percy's _Rel._ II. iii. 8):
_An old song made by an aged-old pate,
Of an old worshipful gentleman, who had a greate estate,
That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate,
And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate;
Like an old courtier of the queen's,
And the queen's old courtier._
For specimens of other stanzas, the rhymes of which are arranged in a
similar way (according to _a₅ a a b b₄ b₅_, or with partly enclosing
rhymes, as _a₅ b b b b₃ a₅_, _a a b b b₄ a₂_, _a a₄ b b b a₂_, &c.), see
_Metrik_, ii, § 340.
Forms based upon the tail-rhyme stanza are very popular; of great
importance is the entwined form on a Provençal model (cf. Bartsch,
_Provenzalisches Lesebuch_, p. 46) which was imitated in Middle English
poetry. It corresponds to the scheme _a a a₄ b₃ a₄ b₃_ and gives the
impression, according to Wolf in his book, _Über die Lais_, &c., p. 230,
note 67, that the second part of a common tail-rhyme stanza is inserted
into the first, though it is also possible that it may have been formed
from the extended tail-rhyme stanza _a a a₄ b₃ a a a₄ b₃_ by shortening
the second part by two chief verses. The first stanza of a poem in
Wright's _Spec. of Lyr. Poetry_, p. 94, may serve as a specimen:
_Ase y me rod þis ender day,
By grene wode to seche play,
Mid herte y þohte al on a may,
Suetest of alle þinge;
Lyþe, and ich ou telle may
Al of þat suete þinge._
This stanza occurs frequently in the _Towneley Mysteries_, pp. 120-34,
254-69, &c. In Modern English, however, we find it very seldom; as an
example (iambic-anapaestic verses of four and three measures) we may
refer to Campbell's _Stanzas on the battle of Navarino_ (p. 176).
More frequent in Modern English, on the other hand, is a variety of this
stanza with two-foot tail-verses on the scheme _a a a₄ b₂ a₄ b₂_; it is
especially common in Ramsay and Fergusson, and occurs in several poems
of Burns, e.g. in his _Scotch Drink_ (p. 6):
_Let other Poets raise a fracas
'Bout vines, an' wines, an' drunken Bacchus,
An' crabbit names an' stories wrack us,
An' grate our lug,
I sing the juice Scotch bear can mak us,
In glass or jug._
The same form of stanza is used by Wordsworth and by M. Arnold in his
poem _Kaiser Dead_ (p. 495).
The same stanza sometimes occurs with the order of the parts inverted
like _a₄ b₃ a a a₄ b₃_, e.g. in Longfellow's _Voices of the Night_ (p.
40).
Other unequal-membered varieties of the anisometrical tail-rhyme stanza
correspond to _a a₃ b₅ a a₅ b₆_ (cf. the chapter on the Spenserian
stanza and its imitations), _a a b c c₄ b₃_ (M. Arnold, _Horatian Echo_,
p. 47), _a a b c c₃ b₅_, _a₅ a₃ b₅ c c b₅_, _a₄ a₂ b₄ c₂ c₅ b₄_, _a₄ b₃
a c c₄ b₃_ (entwined _frons_), _a a₄ b₃ c₃ b₄ c₅_ (entwined _cauda_).
For examples see _Metrik_, ii, § 343.
Here again we must mention stanzas which in their structure are
influenced by the tail-rhyme stanza and are formed on the scheme _a b c
a b c_; of these we have several examples in G. Herbert, on the scheme
_a b c₅ a b₄ c₅_, e.g. in _Magdalena_ (p. 183):
_When blessed Marie wip'd her Saviour's feet,
(Whose precepts she had trampled on before)
And wore them for a jewell on her head,
Shewing his steps should be the street,
Wherein she thenceforth evermore
With pensive humblenesse would live and tread._
Other stanzas of his correspond to _a₅ b₄ c₃ c₄ b₃ a₅_, _a₃ b₅ c₄ c₄ b₅
a₃_, &c. In Moore we have a similar stanza: _a b₄ c₂ b a₄ c₂_ which is
unequal-membered on account of the arrangement of rhyme (cf. _Metrik_,
ii, § 344). An unusual form of stanza, which may also be classed under
this head, occurs in M. Arnold's _Human Life_ (p. 40), its formula being
_a₃ b₄ c a c b₅_.
§ =262. A stanza of seven lines= is used in Dunbar's poem _The
Merchants of Edinborough_, formed on the scheme _a a a b₄ B₂ a₄ B₄_; it
is very interesting on account of the duplication of the refrain-verses
(_B₂_, _B₄_). Apart from the first short refrain-verse the arrangement
of rhymes is the same as it is in the entwined tail-rhyme stanza:
_Quhy will ȝe, merchantis of renoun,
Lat Edinburgh, ȝour nobill toun,
For laik of reformatioun
The commone proffeitt tyne and fame?
Think ȝe noht schame,
That onie other regioun
Sall with dishonour hurt ȝour name!_
The Modern English stanzas also mostly bear a greater or less
resemblance to the tail-rhyme stanza. This relationship is evident in a
stanza like _a a₄ b₃ c c c₄ b₃_, used in Wordsworth, _To the Daisy_
(iii. 42):
_Sweet flower! belike one day to have
A place upon thy Poets grave,
I welcome thee once more:
But He, who was on land, at sea,
My Brother, too, in loving thee,
Although he loved more silently,
Sleeps by his native shore._
A peculiar form of stanza occurring in M. Arnold's _In Utrumque Paratus_
(p. 45) with the formula _a₅ b₃ a c b c₅ b₃_ likewise belongs to this
group.
In other instances the longer part comes first on the model _a a a₄ b₃ c
c₄ b₃_, e.g. in Mrs. Hemans, _The Sun_ (iv. 251).
Other stanzas correspond to _a a₃ b₂ c c c₃ B₂_ and _a a a b c c₂ b₃_.
In other cases the equal-membered tail-rhyme stanza becomes
unequal-membered by adding to the second tail-verse another verse
rhyming with it, the formula being then _a a₄ B₂ a a₄ b B₂_ (e.g. in
Longfellow, _Victor Galbraith_, p. 503) or _a a₂ b₄ c c₂ b₄ B₃_ (in
Moore, _Little man_), or _a a₃ b₂ c ~ c ~ b b₃_ (id., _The Pilgrim_).
Less closely allied to the tail-rhyme stanza are the forms which are
similar to it only in one half-strophe, e.g. those on the model _a₄ b₂
a b c c₄ b₂_ (Shelley, _To Night_, iii. 62), _a b₃ c c₂ a a₄ b₃_ (id.
_Lines_, iii. 86), _a b b₄ r₂ a R₄ r₂_ (Tennyson, _A Dirge_, p. 16). For
other examples see _Metrik_, ii, § 347.
§ =263.= There are also some eight-, nine-, and ten-lined stanzas
similar to the tail-rhyme stanza. An =eight-lined stanza= of the form
_a₄ b a₅ c₂, b₄ d d₅ c₂_ occurs in Herbert, _The Glance_ (p. 18), and
one of the form _a ~ a ~₄ B c ~ d c ~ d₄ B₃_ in Moore's _Thee, thee,
only thee_:
_The dawning of morn, the daylight's sinking,
The night's long hours still find me thinking
Of thee, thee, only thee.
When friends are met, and goblets crown'd,
And smiles are near, that once enchanted,
Unreach'd by all that sunshine round,
My soul, like some dark spot, is haunted
By thee, thee, only thee._
A stanza used by Wordsworth in _Stray Pleasures_ (iv. 12) corresponds to
_a a₂ b₃ c c d d₂ b₃_.
Two stanzas used by M. Arnold correspond to the formulas _a a₂ b₂ c₅ d₄
c₃ d₄ b₂_ (_a a_ printed as one line) in _A Question_ (p. 44), and _a a₃
b₅ c c₃ d b d₃_ in _The World and the Quietist_ (p. 46).
A =stanza of nine lines= is found in Tennyson's _Lady of Shalott_ (p.
28); it is on the scheme _a a a a b c c c₄ b_; one of ten lines in his
_Greeting to the Duchess of Edinburgh_ (p. 261) on the model _a b b a₅
C₂ d e e d₅ C₃_ (cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 349).
Other stanzas of this kind are related to the Septenary or the
_Poulter's Measure_, e.g. those on the schemes _a₄ b₃ a b c d c₄ d₃_,
_a b a₄ b₃ c d₃ c₄ d₃_, and _a b₂ a₄ b₂ c₃ d₂ c₄ d₂_, examples of which,
from Moore, are given in _Metrik_, ii, § 348.
=Stanzas of eleven= and =twelve lines= are rare. For examples see
_Metrik_, ii, § 350.
§ =264. The bob-wheel stanzas.= This important class of bipartite
unequal-membered anisometrical stanzas was very much in vogue in the
Middle English period. They consist (see § 222) of a _frons_ (longer
verses of four stresses, or Septenary and Alexandrine verses) and a
_cauda_, which is formed of shorter verses and is joined to the _frons_
by one or several 'bob-verses', belonging generally to the first part or
'upsong' (in German _Aufgesang_).
Sometimes it is doubtful whether these stanzas belong to the bipartite
or to the tripartite class, on account of the variety of rhymes in the
_frons_. But as they mostly consist of two quite unequal parts, they
certainly stand in a closer relationship to the bipartite stanzas.
A simple stanza of this kind on the scheme _A A₇ C₁ B₇_ occurs in
William of Shoreham (printed in short lines on the model _A₄ B₃ C₄ B₃ d₁
E₄ D₃_):
_Nou here we mote in this sermon of ordre maky saȝe,
Then was bytokned suithe wel wylom by the ealde lawe
To aginne,
Tho me made Godes hous and ministres therinne._
A six-lined stanza of Alexandrines and Septenaries on the scheme _A A B
B₆ c₁ C₆_ is found in the poem _On the evil Times of Edward II_
(Wright's _Polit. Songs_, p. 323). Another variety originated by the
breaking up of the longer verses into short ones by inserted rhyme, as
in the closing stanzas of a poem by Minot (ed. Hall, p. 17) according to
the formula _A B A B A B A B₃ c₁ A C₃_; cf. the last stanza:
_King Edward, frely fode,
In Fraunce he will noght blin
To make his famen wode
That er wonand tharein.
God, that rest on rode,
For sake of Adams syn,
Strenkith him maine and mode,
His reght in France to win,
And have.
God grante him graces gode,
And fro all sins us save._
A similar form of stanza (_A B A B A B A B₃ c₁ B C₃_) is used in the
Romance of _Sir Tristrem_; that of the Scottish poem _Christ's Kirk on
the Green_, however, is formed on the model _A₄ B₃ A₄ B₄ A₄ B₃ b₁ B₄_.
§ =265.= Still more common than stanzas of this kind composed of
even-beat verses, are those of four-stressed rhyming verses with or
without alliteration.
Under this head comes a poem in Wright's _Polit. Songs_, p. 69 (cf. §
60), on the scheme _A A A A₄ B₃ c₁ C₃ B₄_, or rather _A A A A₄ b₂ c₁ c₂
B₄_, the bob-verse being thus inserted in the _cauda_. The common form
comes out more clearly in another poem, ibid., p. 212 (st. 1, quoted pp.
100-1), corresponding to _A A A A₄ b₁ c c₂ b₂_, where _A A A A₄_ are
verses of four stresses, _b a_ one-stressed bob-verse or the half-verse
of a long line, _c c₂ b₂_ half-verses of two stresses.
_The Tournament of Tottenham_ (Ritson's _Anc. Songs_, i. 85-9) is
written in a similar form of stanza with the formula _A A A A₄ b c c c
b₂_; the cauda consisting of five verses with two stresses only.
This form of stanza is further developed by connecting the halves of the
long lines with each other by the insertion of rhymes in the same way as
in the stanzas of isometrical verses. An example may be seen in Wright's
_Polit. Songs_, p. 153, the scheme being _A A A A₄ b b₁ b₂_ or _A A A A₄
b₁ b₂ b₄_ (or, with the longer lines broken up, _A B A B A B A B₂ c c₁
c₂_, or _A B A B A B A B₂ c₁ c₂ C₄_, &c.).
Similar stanzas, especially those on the model _A A A A₄ b₁ c c c₂ b₂_
(_A B A B A B A B₂ c₁ d d d₂ c₂_) were much used in the mystery plays,
as e.g. in the _Towneley Mysteries_ (pp. 20-34), even when in the
dialogue the single lines are divided between different speakers (cf.
_Metrik_, i, pp. 390-1).
The four-stressed long lines sometimes alternate with Alexandrine and
Septenary verses. In these plays stanzas of an eight-lined _frons_
consisting of long verses, rhyming crosswise and corresponding to _A B A
B A B A B₄ c₁ d d d₂ c₂_ are also common:
_Peasse at my bydyng, ye wyghtys in wold!
Looke none be so hardy to speke a word bot I,
Or by Mahwne most myghty, maker on mold,
With this brande that I bere ye shalle bytterly aby;
Say, wote ye not that I am Pylate, perles to behold?
Most doughty in dedes of dukys of the Jury,
In bradyng of batels I am the most bold,
Therefor my name to you wille I descry,
No mys.
I am fulle of sotelty,
Falshod, gylt, and trechery;
Therefor am I namyd by clergy
As mali actoris._
Other stanzas, the first _cauda_-verse of which has four beats (on the
scheme _A B A B A B A B C₄ d d d c₂_), were also very much in vogue.
Stanzas of this kind occur in the poems _Golagros and Gawane_, _The Buke
of the Howlat_, _Rauf Coilȝear_, and _The Awntyrs of Arthure at the
Terne Wathelyne_ (S. T. S. vol. 28; cf. § 61). An interesting variety of
the common form (with a five-lined _cauda_) we have in the poem _Of
sayne John the Euangelist_ (E. E. T. S., 26, p. 87). The stanza consists
of an eight-lined _frons_ of crossed rhymes and a _cauda_ formed by a
six-lined tail-rhyme stanza[192] of two-beat verses, on the scheme _A B
A B A B A B₄ c c d c c d₂_.
As to the rhythmical structure of the half-verses used in the _cauda_ of
the stanza cf. the explanations given in § 64.
§ =266.= The bob-wheel stanzas[193] were preserved in the North in
Scottish poetry (e.g. Alex. Montgomerie) up to the Modern English
period.[194] It is not unlikely that they found their way from this
source into Modern English poetry, where they are also met with, though
they have not attained any marked popularity.
It must, however, be kept in mind that the Modern English bob-wheel
stanzas are not a direct imitation of the Middle English. Sometimes they
were influenced probably by the odes, as there is a marked likeness
between these two forms, e.g. in two stanzas of Donne (_Poets_, iv. 24
and 39) on the schemes _A B A B C C₄ d d₁ D₄_ and _A₂ A₅ B₄ C C₅ B₄ d₁ D
E E₅_; or in a stanza of Ben Jonson in an ode to Wm. Sidney (_Poets_,
iv. 558) on the model _A₅ B₄ c c₁ B₃ a d d e₂ E₅_, and in another in
_The Dream_ (iv. 566), _A A₄ B₃ C C₄ A₅ A₄ B₃ b₁ D D₃ E E₄ B₅_.
In this and other cases they consist of even-measured, seldom of
four-stressed verses, as e.g. in Suckling, who seems to have been very
fond of these forms of stanza; cf. the following stanza on the model _A
A₄ B₃ c c₁ b₂_ (_Poets_, iii. 736):
_That none beguiled be by time's quick flowing,
Lovers have in their hearts a clock still going;
For though time be nimble, his motions
Are quicker
And thicker
Where love hath its notions._
Other bob-wheel stanzas in Suckling show the schemes _A A₄ a₂ b b₃_ (ib.
iii. 740), _A A A₄ B B₅ c₂ c₁ C D₄ d₂_ (ib. iii. 729), _A A B B₄ c₁ c d₂
D₅_ (ib. 739).
More similar to the older forms is a stanza of a song in Dryden formed
after _A A B B C₄ d d e e₂ e₃_ (p. 339).
In Modern poetry such stanzas are used especially by Burns, Scott, and
sometimes by Moore. So we have in Burns a fine simple stanza on the
model _A₄ B₃ A₄ B₃ c₁ B₃_, similar to the Shoreham stanza (cf. § 264):
_It was a' for our rightfu' king
We left fair Scotland's strand,
It was a' for our rightfu' king
We e'er saw Irish land,
My dear;
We e'er saw Irish land._
Similar stanzas occur in Moore on the formula _A₄ B₃ A₄ B₃ a₁ B₃_ in
_Then fare thee well_, on _A₄ B ~₃ A₄ B ~₃ c₁ B ~₃_ in _Dear Fanny_.
Other stanzas by the same poet have a somewhat longer _cauda_, as _A₄ B
~₃ A₄ B ~₃ c ~ c ~ d ~ d ~1 A₄ C ~₃_ or _A B ~ A B ~ C ~ C ~₄ d d₂ E F ~
E F ~₄_.
A stanza used by Sir Walter Scott in _To the Sub-Prior_ (p. 461) is
formed on the model _A A B B₄ c₁ c₂ C₄_, the _frons_ consisting of
four-stressed verses:
_Good evening, Sir Priest, and so late as you ride,
With your mule so fair, and your mantle so wide;
But ride you through valley, or ride you o'er hill,
There is one that has warrant to wait on you still.
Back, back,
The volume black!
I have a warrant to carry it back._
Most of these stanzas admit of being looked upon as tripartite on
account of the bipartite structure of the _frons_.
Other stanzas may be viewed as consisting of three unequal parts (if not
regarded as bipartite); such, for instance, is the stanza on the scheme
(_a_) ~ _A_ ~ (_b_) _~ B ~₄ c₁_ (_d_) _D₄ b ~1 e e e c c₂ C₄_ occurring
in Shelley's _Autumn, A Dirge_ (iii. 65), where the symbols (_a_)and
(_b_) denote middle rhymes.
Stanzas of this kind are met with also in modern poetry, as e.g. in
Thackeray, Mrs. Browning, and Rossetti (cf. _Metrik_, ii, §§ 353, 354).
CHAPTER V
TRIPARTITE STANZAS
I. _Isometrical stanzas._
§ =267.= In the anisometrical stanzas (which might, as being the older
species, have been treated of first) the distinction between the first
and the last part of the stanza (_frons_ and _cauda_) is marked as a
rule by a difference of metre in them; in isometrical stanzas, on the
other hand, the distinction between the two parts depends solely on the
arrangement of the rhyme. For this reason certain =six-lined stanzas=
consisting of two equal parts and a third of the same structure (the
formula being _a a b b c c₄_ or the like), which now and then occur in
the _Surtees Psalter_ (e.g. Ps. xliv, st. 5), cannot strictly be called
tripartite.
Stanzas like these are, however, not unfrequent in Modern English
poetry, as e.g. in a song of Carew's (_Poets_, iii. 292):
_Cease, thou afflicted soul, to mourn,
Whose love and faith are paid with scorn;
For I am starv'd that feel the blisses
Of dear embraces, smiles and kisses,
From my soul's idol, yet complain
Of equal love more than disdain._
For an account of many other stanzas of the same or similar structure
(consisting of trochaic four-foot lines, iambic-anapaestic lines of four
stresses, or lines of five, six, and seven measures), see _Metrik_, ii,
§§ 355, 356.
It is only rarely that we find stanzas formed on the scheme _a a a a b
b_ (e.g. in the _Surtees Psalter_, xlix. 21; in Ben Jonson, _Poets_,
iv. 574); or on the formula _a a b b a b₄_, as in Swinburne, _Poems_, i.
248.
One form, analogous to the stanza first mentioned in this section and
used pretty often in Modern English, has crossed rhymes _a b a b a b_.
It occurs with four-foot verses in Byron, _She walks in Beauty_:
_She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies:
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies._
The same stanza of trochaic or iambic-anapaestic metres of three or five
measures is also frequently met with (cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 358).
The tripartite character of a strophe appears somewhat more distinctly
in stanzas formed on the scheme _a b a b b b_, or _a b a b b x_ (cf.
_Metrik_, ii, §359).
The only stanzas, however, that are in the strictest sense to be
regarded as tripartite are those in which the first and the last part
are clearly distinguished by the arrangement of rhymes, as e.g. in the
type _a b a b c c_. This stanza is very popular in Modern English
poetry; in the Middle English period, however, we find it very rarely
used, as e.g. in the _Coventry Mysteries_, p. 315.
In Modern English it occurs e.g. in Surrey, _A Prayse of his Love_ (p.
31):
_Give place, ye lovers, here before
That spend your boasts and brags in vain;
My Lady's beauty passeth more
The best of yours, I dare well sayen,
Than doth the sun the candle light,
Or brightest day the darkest night._
This form of stanza is used with lines of the same metres by many other
poets, e.g. by M. Arnold, pp. 195, 197, 256, 318. Similar stanzas of
four-foot trochaic (cf. p. 285), or of four-stressed verses, and
especially of five-foot verses, are very popular. They are found e.g. in
Shakespeare's _Venus and Adonis_, M. Arnold's _Mycerinus_ (first part,
p. 8), &c. (cf. _Metrik_, ii, §§ 360, 361).
Similar stanzas, however, in which the _frons_ precedes the _versus_,
according to the formula _a a b c b c_ (cf. p. 285), do not occur
frequently; a rare form, also, is that in which the _cauda_ is placed
between the two _pedes_ (cf. p. 285 and _Metrik_, ii, §362).
§ =268.= Still more popular than the six-lined stanzas, both in the
Middle and in the Modern English periods, are those =of seven lines=,
which are modelled on Old French lyric poetry, the prevailing type
being that of an Old French ballade-stanza, viz. _a b a b b c c_. But it
is not before the middle of the fifteenth century that we meet with an
example of this stanza consisting of four-foot verses, viz. in Lydgate's
Minor Poems (_Percy Society_, 1840), p. 129; a specimen of four-stressed
verses occurs in the _Chester Plays_, pp. 1-7 and pp. 156-8. We may,
however, take it for granted that this form of stanza was known long
before that time, since four-foot verses were used much earlier than
those of five feet, and a six-lined stanza of five-foot verses occurs
(for the first time, so far as we know) as early as in Chaucer's
_Compleynte of the Dethe of Pite_, and subsequently in many other of his
poems (e.g. _Troylus and Cryseyde_, _The Assembly of Fowles_, _The
Clerkes Tale_) and in numerous other poems of his successors, e.g. in
_The Kingis Quair_ by King James I of Scotland. It has been sometimes
maintained that this stanza was called _rhyme royal_ stanza because that
royal poet wrote his well-known poem in it; this, however, is not so.
Guest long ago pointed out (ii. 359) that this name is to be derived
from the French term _chant-royal_, applied to certain poems of similar
stanzas which were composed in praise of God or the Virgin, and used to
be recited in the poetical contests at Rouen on the occasion of the
election of a 'king'. Chaucer's verses to Adam Scrivener are of this
form and may be quoted as a specimen here (after Skeat's text, p. 118):
_Adam scriveyn, if euer it thee bifalle
Boece or Troylus to writen newe,
Under thy lokkes thou most haue the scalle,
But after my making thou write trewe.
So oft a day I mot thy werk renewe
Hit to corrects and eek to rubbe and scrape,
And al is through thy negligence and rape._
In Modern English this beautiful stanza was very popular up to the end
of the sixteenth century; Shakespeare, e.g., wrote his _Lucrece_ in it;
afterwards, however, it unfortunately fell almost entirely out of use
(cf. _Metrik_, ii, § 364).
The same form of stanza, composed of two-, three-, or four-foot verses
also occurs almost exclusively in the Early Modern English period (cf.
ib., § 363).
Some varieties of this stanza, mostly formed of three-, four-, and
five-foot verses, correspond to the schemes _a b a b c c b₄_ (e.g. in
Akenside, Book I, Ode iii), _a b a b c b c₅_ (Spenser, _Daphnaïda_, p.
542), _a b a b c b c₂_ (R. Browning, vi. 41). Other stanzas of seven
lines are _a b a b c c a₄_, _a a b b c c a₄_, _a a b b a c c₄_, _a b a b
C d C₃_, _a a b b c c c₄_, _a b a b c c c₄_, _a b a b c c c₅_, _a b a c
c d d₅_ (for specimens see _Metrik_, ii, §§ 365, 366).
§ =269. Eight-lined isometrical stanzas= are also frequently used in the
Middle and Modern English period, though not so often as those of six
and seven lines.
The scheme _a b a b b a b a_, formed from the simple equal-membered
stanza of eight lines _a b a b a b a b_, it would seem, by inversion of
the last two couplets, is rare in Middle English. We find it in the
_Digby Plays_, consisting of four-foot verses. In Modern English, too,
it is not very common; we have an example in Wyatt, e.g. pp. 118, 135,
and another in the same poet, formed of five-foot verses (_a b a b b a b
a₅_), p. 135.
Much more in favour in the Middle as well as in the Modern English
period is the typical form of the eight-lined stanza, corresponding to
the scheme _a b a b b c b c_. It is formed from the preceding stanza by
the introduction of a new rhyme in the sixth and eighth verses, and it
had its model likewise in a popular ballade-stanza of Old French lyrical
poetry.
In Middle English poetry this stanza is very common, consisting either
of four-stressed verses (e.g. in _The Lyfe of Joseph of Arimathia_, E.
E. T. S., vol. 44, and _On the death of the Duke of Suffolk_, Wright's
_Polit. Poems_, ii. 232) or of four-foot or five-foot verses. As an
example of the form consisting of four-foot verses we may quote a stanza
from Wright's _Polit. Songs_, p. 246:
_Alle þat beoþ of huerte trewe,
A stounde herkneþ to my song
Of duel, þat deþ haþ diht us 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._
Many other examples occur in later poetry, e.g. in Minot, Lydgate,
Dunbar, Lyndesay, in Wyatt, p. 119, Burns, p. 59, Walter Scott, p. 160,
&c.
Similar stanzas of two-stressed and three-foot verses are only of rare
occurrence; we find them e.g. in Percy's _Rel._ II. ii. 3; Wyatt, p.
41.
The same stanza, consisting of five-foot verses, was used by Chaucer in
his _A B C_, the first stanza of which may be quoted here:
_Almyghty and al merciable Quene,
To whom that al this world fleeth for socour
To have relees of sinne, sorwe, and teene!
Glorious Virgyne, of alle floures flour,
To thee I flee, confounded in errour!
Help, and releve, thou mighty debonaire,
Have mercy of my perilous langour!
Venquysshed m' hath my cruel adversaire._
Chaucer uses the same stanza in some other minor poems, and also in _The
Monkes Tale_; besides this we find it often in Lydgate, Dunbar, Kennedy;
more rarely in Modern English poetry; e.g. in Spenser's _Shepheard's
Cal., Ecl. XI_, S. Daniel's _Cleopatra_, &c.
Now and then some other eight-lined stanzas occur, e.g. one with the
formula _a b a b b c c b_ in Chaucer's _Complaynt of Venus_, and in the
_Flyting_ by Dunbar and Kennedy. The scheme _a a b b c d c d_ is used in
a love-song (_Rel. Ant._ i. 70-4). In the Modern English period we have
stanzas on the schemes _a ~ b a ~ b c c d ~ d ~₄_ (in Sidney, _Psalm
XLIII_), _a b a b c c c b₄_ (Scott, _Helvellyn_, p. 472), _a ~ b a ~ b c
~ c ~ d ~ d ~₂_ (Moore); cf. _Metrik_, ii, §§ 369-71.
There are also eight-lined stanzas formed by combination with tail-rhyme
stanzas, as _a a b a a b c c₄_, _a a b c c d d b₄_, but they are not
frequent; a stanza corresponding to the formula _a a b a a b c c₄_ we
have in Spenser, _Epigram III_ (p. 586); and the variety _a a b c c d d
b₄_ (the _cauda_ being enclosed by the _pedes_) occurs in Moore.
The same peculiarity we find in stanzas formed on the scheme _A A b c b
c A A₄_ (Moore), or _a a b c b c d d₄_ (Wordsworth, ii. 267); cf.
_Metrik_, ii, §§ 372, 373.
§ =270.= Stanzas of a still larger compass are of rare occurrence in
Middle English poetry. =A nine-lined stanza= corresponding to the
formula _a a b a a b b c c₅_ we have in Chaucer's _Complaynt of Mars_;
it seems to be formed from the _rhyme royal_ stanza, by adding one verse
to each _pes_; but it might also be looked upon as a combination with
the tail-rhyme stanza. Another stanza of this kind, with the formula _a
a b a a b b a b₅_, is used in Chaucer's _Complaynt of Faire Anelyda_ and
in Dunbar's _Goldin Targe_.
A similar stanza, corresponding to the formula _a a b c c b d b d₄_,
occurs in Modern English poetry in John Scott, _Ode XII_. Other stanzas
used in the Modern English period are formed with parallel rhymes, as e.
g. on the scheme _a a a b b b c c c₄_ (Walter Scott, _Lady of the Lake_,
p. 187); forms with crossed rhymes throughout or partly are also used,
as e.g. by Wyatt, p. 121, according to the formula _a b a b c c c d
d₅_:
_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 restrain'd 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 ere death assail!_
As to other schemes (_a b a b b c d c d₅_, _a b a b b c b c c₅_, _a b a
b c d c d R₄_, _a b a b c d c d d₄_, &c.) cf. _Metrik_, ii, §§ 374-6.
§ =271.= A Middle English =stanza of ten lines=, similar to those of
nine lines, is used by Chaucer in the _Envoy_ to his _Complaynt of Mars
and Venus_ (_a a b a a b b a a b₅_); another on the model _a b a b b c c
b b b₄_is found in a poem _Long Life_ (E. E. T. S., 49, p. 156, quoted
in _Metrik_, i. p. 421).
Some of the Modern English stanzas again are formed by combination with
different varieties of the tail-rhyme stanza, as e.g. one according to
the formula _a a b ~ c c b ~ d d e e₄_ in Prior, _The Parallel_ (Poets,
vii. 507):
_Prometheus, forming Mr. Day,
Carv'd something like a man in clay.
The mortal's work might well miscarry;
He, that does heaven and earth control,
Alone has power to form a soul,
His hand is evident in Harry.
Since one is but a moving clod,
T'other the lively form of God;
'Squire Wallis, you will scarce be able
To prove all poetry but fable._
A stanza of trochaic verses corresponding to a similar scheme, viz. _a a
b c c b d d d b₄_, is used by Tennyson in _The Window_ (p. 284).
Sometimes the scheme is _a b a b c c d e e d₄_ (where there are two
_pedes_ forming a _frons_, and a tail-rhyme stanza equivalent to two
_versus_), as in Akenside, Book I, Ode II (_Poets_, ix. 773).
Some stanzas, on the other hand, have a parallel arrangement of rhymes,
_a a b b c c d d e E_ (_e E_ being the _cauda_) as in Walter Scott,
_Soldier, Wake_ (p. 465); or more frequently crossed rhymes, _a b a b c
d c d e e₅_, _a b a b c d c d e e₄_, the first eight verses forming the
upsong (_pedes_); or with a four-lined upsong _a a b b c d c d e e₄_, _a
a b b c d d e d e₃_, _a b a b b c c d c D₅_. The last-mentioned form has
been used several times by Swinburne, e.g. _Poems_, ii, pp. 126, 215,
219, &c., in his ballads. For specimens see _Metrik_, ii, §§ 379-81.
§ =272. Stanzas of eleven lines= are very scarce in Middle English
poetry, if used there at all, and even in Modern English very few
examples occur. A stanza of Swinburne's may be mentioned here, imitated
from an Old French ballade- (or rather _chant-royal_) stanza,
corresponding to the formula _a b a b c c d d e d E₅_ and used in a
_Ballad against the Enemies of France_ (Poems, ii. 212). Cf. _Metrik_,
ii, §382.
=Twelve-lined stanzas= are much more frequently used, even in Middle
English poetry; one of four-foot verses according to the scheme _a b a b
a b a b b c b C_ (the stanzas being connected into groups by
_concatenatio_) occurs in the fine fourteenth-century poem, _The Pearl_.
Another of four-stressed verses corresponding to the formula _a b a b a
b a b c d c d_ we have in Wright's _Polit. Songs_, p. 149; one of
four-foot verses together with other forms of stanzas (_a b a b a b a b
a b a b_, _a b a b c d c d e f e f_) we have in the poem on the
_Childhood of Christ_ (ed. Horstmann, Heilbronn, 1878).
But it is chiefly in Modern English poetry that stanzas of twelve lines
are very common, especially stanzas consisting of three equal parts,
with crossed rhymes. In some of these there is no difference at all in
the structure of the three parts, as e.g. in a stanza by Prior
(_Poets_, vii. 402) on the model _a b a b c d c d e f e f₄_; while in
others the refrain (consisting of the four last verses) forms the
_cauda_, as e.g. in Moore's _Song on the Birthday of Mrs. ----_:
_Of all my happiest hours of joy,
And even I have had my measure,
When hearts were full, and ev'ry eye
Hath kindled with the light of pleasure,
An hour like this I ne'er was given,
So full of friendship's purest blisses;
Young Love himself looks down from heaven,
To smile on such a day as this is.
Then come, my friends, this hour improve,
Let's feel as if we ne'er could sever;
And may the birth of her we love
Be thus with joy remember'd ever!_
Now and then certain modifications of this form of stanza are met with,
especially stanzas the four-lined refrain of which forms not only the
end, but also the beginning, of the stanza (but as a rule only in the
first stanza, the others having the refrain only at the end); e.g. _A B
A B c d c d A B A B₃_ (st. 1), _d e d e f g f g A B A B₃_. (st. 2), _h i
h i k l k l A B A B₃_ (st. 3), in Moore, _Drink to her_.
In other poems Moore uses this type of stanza with lines of four
stresses, as in _Drink of this cup_, and with lines of two stresses, as
in _When the Balaika_. For some rarely occurring stanzas of this kind
see _Metrik_, ii, §§ 385, 386.
A =stanza of thirteen lines= corresponding to the formula _a b a b b c b
c d e e e d₄_ occurs in the Middle English poem _The Eleven Pains of
Hell_ (E. E. T. S., 49, p. 210). Another one on the scheme _a ~ a ~ B c
~ c ~ B d ~ d ~ d ~ b e ~ e ~ B₃_ we have in Moore, _Go where glory
waits thee_.
As to stanzas of fifteen and eighteen lines see _Metrik_, ii, § 387.
II. _Anisometrical stanzas._
§ =273.= As mentioned before (§ 267) the anisometrical stanzas of the
tripartite class, being older, might have been dealt with before the
isometrical stanzas. This chronological order of treatment, however,
would have been somewhat inconvenient in practice, as it would have
involved the necessity of discussing many of the more complicated
stanzas before the shorter and simpler ones, most of which do not occur
in Middle English, but in Modern poetry only. Moreover, the absence of
certain simple and short forms of stanza constructed in accordance with
the principles which were generally adopted in the Middle English period
is a purely accidental circumstance, which is liable at any moment to be
altered by the discovery of new texts.
In the following paragraphs, therefore, the stanzas belonging to this
chapter are discussed according to their arrangement of rhymes and to
the length of the lines of which they are composed.