Transcriber's Notes: Some typographical and punctuation errors have been
corrected. A complete list follows the text. Words italicized in the
original are surrounded by _underscores_. Words in bold in the original
are surrounded by =equal signs=. Characters superscripted in the original
are inclosed in {} brackets. More Transcriber's Notes follow the text.
Select English Classics
SIX CENTURIES OF ENGLISH
POETRY
TENNYSON TO CHAUCER
_TYPICAL SELECTIONS FROM THE GREAT
POETS_
BY
JAMES BALDWIN, PH.D.
AUTHOR OF "THE BOOK LOVER"
ETC., ETC.
SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY
NEW YORK . . . BOSTON . . . CHICAGO
COPYRIGHT 1892,
BY SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY.
PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
This is the first volume of a series of SELECT ENGLISH CLASSICS which
the publishers have in course of preparation. The series will include an
extensive variety of selections chosen from the different departments of
English literature, and arranged and annotated for the use of classes in
schools. It will embrace, among other things, representative specimens
from all the best English writers, whether of poetry or of prose;
selections from English dramatic literature, especially of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; choice extracts from the writings
of the great essayists; selections from famous English allegories; a
volume of elegies and elegiacal poetry; studies of English prose
fiction, with illustrative specimens, etc. Each volume will contain
copious notes, critical, explanatory, and biographical, besides the
necessary vocabularies, glossaries, and indexes; and the series when
complete will present a varied and comprehensive view of all that is
best in English literature. For supplementary reading, as well as for
systematic class instruction, the books will possess many peculiarly
valuable as well as novel features; while their attractive appearance,
combined with the sterling quality of their contents, will commend them
for general reading and make them desirable acquisitions for every
library.
TO TEACHERS AND STUDENTS.
There is but one study more interesting than the history of literature,
and that is the study of literature itself. That the former should often
be mistaken for the latter is scarcely to be wondered at when we
consider the intimate and almost indivisible relationship existing
between them. Yet, in truth, they are as capable of separate
consideration as are music and the history of music.
[Sidenote: Anglo-Saxon Poetry.]
[Sidenote: The Transition Period.]
Any careful investigation of the history of English poetry would
naturally begin at a point of time some six or seven hundred years
earlier than that of Chaucer. From such investigation we should learn
that even as early as the ninth century--perhaps, indeed, the
eighth--there were in England some composers of verse in the Anglo-Saxon
tongue; that the songs of these poets were chiefly of religion or of
war, and that being written in a language very different from our modern
English they can scarcely be considered as belonging properly to our
literature; that among them, however, is a noble poem, "Beowulf," the
oldest epic of any modern people, which was probably sung or recited by
pagan minstrels long before it was written down in permanent form; that,
after the conquest of England by the Normans, the early language of the
English people underwent a long and tedious process of transition,--a
blending, in a certain sense, with the Latinized and more polished
tongue of their conquerors,--and that the result was the language which
we now call English and are proud to claim as our own; that it was about
three hundred years after the Norman Conquest, namely, in 1362, that
this new tongue was officially recognized and authorized to be used in
the courts at law throughout the land; and that about the same time
Geoffrey Chaucer composed and wrote his first poems. We should learn,
moreover, that, during the transition period mentioned above, there were
many attempts at writing poetry, resulting in the production of tedious
metrical romances (chiefly translated from the French) and interminable
rhyming chronicles, pleasing, of course, to the people of that time, but
wholly devoid of poetic excellence and unspeakably dull to modern
readers; that these poems, so called, were little better than rhymed
doggerels, written in couplets of eight-syllabled lines and having for
their subjects the miraculous deeds of saints and heroes and the
occurrence of supernatural or impossible phenomena; that the composers
of these metrical romances and chronicles, although giving free rein to
the imagination, were utterly destitute of poetic fancy and hence
produced no true poetry; that, nevertheless, some writer was now and
then inspired by a flash of real poetic fire, producing a few lines of
remarkable freshness and beauty,--little lyrics shining forth like gems
in the great mass of verbiage and rubbish and foretelling the glorious
possibilities which were to be realized in the future.
[Sidenote: Piers Ploughman.]
Continuing this most interesting study, we should learn that just at the
time that Chaucer was beginning the composition of his immortal works,
there appeared an allegorical poem of considerable length, so earnest in
tone, so richly imaginative, so full of picturesque descriptions, that
it seemed rather a fulfilment than a prophecy; that this poem--called
"The Vision of William concerning Piers Ploughman," and written by an
obscure monk whose name was probably William Langland--was the greatest
poem and the most popular that had ever been written in England, and yet
that it failed in many ways of being true English poetry: its metre was
irregular, and its rhythm was imperfect; its verses instead of rhyming
were constructed in accordance with certain rules of alliteration; its
subjects, while interesting, no doubt, to those for whom it was written,
were not such as bring into play the highest powers of the imagination
or incite the poetic fancy to its noblest flights. Then we should learn
that while the ink from good Langland's pen was yet scarcely dry after
his third revision of "Piers Ploughman," Geoffrey Chaucer came forward
with his sweet imaginings bodied in immortal verse, his tuneful numbers,
his "well of English undefiled,"--and English poetry, which now for more
than five centuries has been the chief glory of our literature, had its
true beginning.
[Sidenote: Three Schools of Poetry.]
Pursuing the study on lines which would now be more distinctly marked,
we should observe that Chaucer's best poetry, as well as that of the
poets who followed him in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was
distinguished by its truthfulness to nature, by its expression in hearty
and harmonious words of the finer emotions of the soul, and by the
freedom and elasticity of its versification. We should learn that in the
seventeenth century this style of poetry--sometimes called the
romantic--was succeeded by another and very different fashion in poetic
composition, introduced into England in imitation of continental and
classical models: that this new style of versification--ignoring nature
and making everything subservient to art--was purely artificial,
characterized by "an oratorical pomp, a classical correctness, a
theatrical dressing, abundance of moralizing"; and that, with Waller for
its sponsor and Dryden and Pope for its high priests, it remained for a
century and a half the favorite of the literary world, the model of
poetic diction, the standard of poetic taste. We should learn that,
towards the end of the eighteenth century, certain writers began to
perceive that although attention to artistic rules in composition may be
necessary to the best poetry, yet natural feeling, a cultivated
imagination, and a fancy unrestrained by merely arbitrary limitations
are even more indispensable; that these writers, rebelling against the
established order of things, taught that there are elements of true
poetry in the popular ballads of earlier times, that even the wearisome
metrical romances of the Middle Ages are rich in suggestiveness and in
materials for a nobler poetry, and that, instead of going to the
classics and to society for subjects and models, the poet may find them
in nature, in the life which is about him, and in a thousand sources
never before suspected. Finally, we should learn that, at the very time
when great revolutions in politics and philosophy were being
inaugurated, a new spirit thus began to manifest itself in our
literature,--a spirit of revolt against artificial restrictions and
traditional methods,--which produced a glorious revival in English
poetic composition and ushered in a third great school of poetry,
distinguished for its breadth and freedom, as that which it superseded
had been known for its elegance and precision.[6:1]
[Sidenote: The History of English Poetry.]
A study of the development of English poetry such as we have outlined
above would involve a knowledge of the history of the English people and
of the various circumstances and events which from time to time
influenced our language and literature. It would also embrace many other
topics, biographical, philological, rhetorical, and speculative, which
have only a secondary relationship to the central idea of poetry. In
fact, it would be a study not of poetry, but about poetry,--of the
circumstances which suggested it, of the men who produced it, and of the
origin of the word-forms and methods of versification which distinguish
it. Such a study, altogether interesting and eminently profitable though
it be, should not be undertaken by any student until he has acquired an
extensive personal acquaintance with poetry itself. We may enjoy the
beautiful creations of Tennyson, of Shelley, of Burns, even of Chaucer,
without knowing one word of the history of poetry, without so much as
knowing the names of the writers or the circumstances under which they
wrote. But, on the other hand, to him who knows nothing of the
masterpieces of our literature, save at second hand, the history of
English letters must of necessity be dull, uninteresting, and often
unintelligible. While to him who has prepared himself for its study by
fitting himself for an appreciation of these noble creations and
becoming thoroughly imbued with their spirit, what a field of delightful
study does it offer!
[Sidenote: Object of this Book.]
[Sidenote: Methods of Study.]
The object of the present compilation is to aid in this preparatory
work,--that is, to offer a plan for promoting the study OF poetry before
the broader but less important study ABOUT poetry is undertaken. To this
end we present for the student's consideration a few representative
poems written at different times and by men of widely different tastes
and talents during the six centuries which may be said to have elapsed
since the formation of the modern English tongue. Our chief aim is to
lead to such a study of these selections as shall help the reader to
perceive and appreciate their true poetic qualities and enter into full
sympathy with the thoughts and feelings which their writers intended to
express. The first object to be sought in the study of these poems is
the perception of those characteristic excellences which have made them
universally admired and placed them among the classics of our language.
To accomplish this object rationally and successfully, it is best to
begin with those productions which are nearest to us in point of time
and which are more in harmony with our own thoughts, and therefore
easiest to understand and enjoy. An attempt to pursue these studies in
chronological order, beginning with the works of Chaucer and the older
poets, would oblige the student to encounter at the outset so many
purely mechanical difficulties that he would fail to discern the
spiritual qualities of truth, beauty, and goodness, which are the very
essence of all genuine poetry. He would very naturally acquire a
distaste for poetry long before he was able to understand it, and while
he might attain to some considerable knowledge of the history of
poetical literature, that literature itself would remain to him
practically a sealed book. Hence, in the study of this subject, as in
that of other branches, the true method is to present first that which
is the least difficult, to "proceed from the known to the unknown," to
begin with that which is near at hand and from it to proceed to the
consideration of things more remote. Not only are the most of Tennyson's
poems easily understood, but their beauty is readily apparent even to
the most superficial readers. By the time we have read and extracted all
the sweets from three or four of these, we shall be prepared to go a
step farther and undertake the study of Wordsworth's immortal
productions,--productions but little more difficult and but little less
poetic. Thus, step by step, we may review the six centuries of English
poetry which lie behind, and when at last we reach the time of Chaucer
we shall be able to take hold of his works with understanding and with
the zest which is begotten of true sympathy and appreciation. After the
book has been thus completed, it may be well to run through it again,
reversing the order of the lessons and this time considering the
subjects in strict chronological order. Our first study of the book will
have introduced us to English poetry, our second study of it will have
given us some insight into the history of its development.
It is well to remember, while pursuing this course, that a taste for
poetry is not acquired or fostered by an analysis of grammatical forms
or by any study of words merely as such. To analyze a puzzling sentence
or to trace the derivation of an interesting word to its roots sometimes
helps one to understand a difficult expression or to perceive in it a
meaning hitherto unsuspected; but to make the study of any selection
consist largely of exercises of this kind is to substitute grammar or
philology for literature. So, also, should it be borne in mind that
while it is often interesting and sometimes necessary to become
acquainted with certain details relative to the life of an author--the
date of his birth, the character of his education, the influences which
shaped his life and his work--yet such knowledge belongs to biography
and is in no sense literature. The study of authors should never be
substituted for the study of their works, and is usually profitable only
so far as it helps the student to understand the peculiarities which
distinguish those works and which are the result of certain personal
characteristics. And yet it is no uncommon thing to find students
acquainted with the minutest particulars in the lives of the great
writers, while of the masterpieces of thought and expression, which are
the glory of our literature, they betray a deplorable ignorance. Nor is
this the case with pupils at school alone. "For once that we take down a
Milton, and read a book of that 'voice,' as Wordsworth says, 'whose
sound is like the sea,' we take up fifty times a magazine with something
about Milton, or about Milton's grandmother, or a book stuffed with
curious facts about the houses in which he lived, and the juvenile
ailments of his first wife."[9:1]
[Sidenote: Practical Suggestions.]
In the study of the selections contained in this volume, the following
method is recommended:--
1. The piece should be thoroughly committed to memory.
2. It should be recited or read by each member of the class in such
manner as to bring out, if possible, his understanding of the meaning of
every passage.
3. Study the poem as a whole, and let each pupil point out the beauties
of thought or expression which distinguish it as a poetical composition.
4. Now study each stanza, or each independent thought, in its order, and
endeavor to understand each word or expression just as the poet intended
that it should be understood. The Notes appended to most of the
selections are intended rather to suggest the line of study in this
regard than to serve as exhaustive aids. The pupil should, so far as
possible, investigate for himself and make his own discoveries.
Questions concerning the derivation of words and the syntax of sentences
are to be discussed only so far as they will aid in the understanding of
some passage or of the piece as a whole.
5. Learn some of the most important facts connected with the author's
life. What were the conditions under which he wrote this piece? What was
the character of his education and of the other influences which shaped
his life and distinguished his works? Learn what some of the leading
critics have said concerning his works as a poet.
6. Finally, read the poem again, as a whole, and discuss its qualities
as a work of literary art, and again point out its distinctive beauties
and characteristic excellences.
The extracts given at the beginning of each Century will serve to keep
in mind the leading peculiarities which distinguished the poetry of each
period; and the lists of poets and their works will be found valuable
for purposes of reference. Before beginning the study of the selections
both teacher and pupils should read this Introduction carefully.
FOOTNOTES:
[6:1] See the quotation from Taine, page 15.
[9:1] Frederic Harrison: _On the Choice of Books_.
CONTENTS.
PRINCIPAL DIVISIONS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 5
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 15
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 95
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 157
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 215
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 267
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 285
INDEX 303
POEMS.
BY ALFRED TENNYSON:--
The Lady of Shalott 17
The Brook 25
The Lotus Eaters 28
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH:--
Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of
Early Childhood 37
The Two April Mornings 49
The Solitary Reaper 51
BY S. T. COLERIDGE:--
Christabel. Part I 55
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY:--
To a Skylark 67
Hymn of Pan 71
From Epipsychidion 74
BY JOHN KEATS:--
Ode to a Nightingale 83
From The Eve of St. Agnes 87
BY ROBERT BURNS:--
The Cotter's Saturday Night 97
To a Mountain Daisy 107
For a' that and a' that 109
BY WILLIAM COWPER:--
Boadicea 113
On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture 115
Epitaph on a Hare 120
BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH:--
The Village Parson 124
The Village Schoolmaster 125
BY THOMAS GRAY:--
The Bard 129
BY ALEXANDER POPE:--
From the Essay on Criticism 141
Ode on St. Cecilia's Day 147
BY JOHN DRYDEN:--
Alexander's Feast 159
The Fire of London 169
Reason and Religion 174
BY JOHN MILTON:--
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity 177
Wordsworth's Sonnet to Milton 196
BY ROBERT HERRICK:--
To Phillis 197
The Mad Maid's Song 199
A Thanksgiving to God 200
BY EDMUND WALLER:--
Song: Go, lovely Rose 203
Of English Verse 204
On a Girdle 205
BY BEN JONSON:--
An Ode to Himself 207
To Cynthia 209
To the Memory of William Shakespeare 210
Herrick's Ode for Ben Jonson 214
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE:--
Venus's Advice to Adonis on Hunting 217
A Morning Song for Imogen 219
Sigh no more, Ladies 220
Sunshine and Cloud (Sonnet xxxiii.) 220
The World's Way (Sonnet lxvi.) 221
BY EDMUND SPENSER:--
The Cave of Mammon 223
Prothalamion; or, a Spousall Verse 235
BY THOMAS WYATT:--
A Love Song 247
The Courtier's Life 248
BY THE EARL OF SURREY:--
From Virgil's Æneid 249
Sonnet: Geraldine 250
On the Death of Sir Thomas Wyatt 251
BALLADS:--
Waly, waly 253
Sir Patrick Spens 255
The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington 259
Robin Hood and the Widow's three Sons 261
BY JOHN SKELTON:--
To Maystress Margaret Hussey 269
Cardinal Wolsey 270
BY JOHN LYDGATE:--
A Visit to London 273
The Golden Age 275
BY ROBERT HENRYSON:--
The Garmond of Fair Ladies 277
BY WILLIAM DUNBAR:--
A May Morning 279
BY GAWAIN DOUGLAS:--
In Praise of Honour 281
BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER:--
From the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales 287
SIX CENTURIES OF ENGLISH POETRY.
The Nineteenth Century.
"_Now appeared the English romantic school, a sect of 'dissenters in
poetry,' who spoke out aloud, kept themselves close together, and
repelled settled minds by the audacity and novelty of their theories.
They had violently broken with tradition, and leaped over all classical
culture, to take their models from the Renaissance and the middle-age.
They sought, in the old national ballads and ancient poetry of foreign
lands, the fresh and primitive accent which had been wanting in
classical literature, and whose presence seemed to them to be a sign of
truth and beauty. They proposed to adapt to poetry the ordinary language
of conversation, such as is spoken in the middle and lower classes, and
to replace studied phrases and a lofty vocabulary by natural tones and
plebeian words. In place of the classic mould, they tried stanzas,
sonnets, ballads, blank verse, with the roughness and subdivisions of
the primitive poets. . . . Some had culled gigantic legends, piled up
dreams, ransacked the East, Greece, Arabia, the Middle Ages, and
overloaded the human imagination with hues and fancies from every clime.
Others had buried themselves in metaphysics and moral philosophy, had
mused indefatigably on the condition of man, and spent their lives on
the sublime and the monotonous. Others, making a medley of crime and
heroism, had conducted, through darkness and flashes of lightning, a
train of contorted and terrible figures, desperate with remorse,
relieved by their grandeur. Men wanted to rest after so many efforts and
so much success. On the going out of the imaginative, sentimental, and
Satanic school, Tennyson appeared exquisite. All the forms and ideas
which had pleased them were found in him, but purified, modulated, set
in a splendid style. He completed an age._"--TAINE.
_Poets of the Nineteenth Century._
=William Wordsworth= (1770-1850). See biographical note, page 52.
=Sir Walter Scott= (1771-1832). "The Lay of the Last Minstrel"; "The Lady
of the Lake"; "Marmion"; "The Lord of the Isles"; short poems.
=Samuel Taylor Coleridge= (1772-1834). See biographical note, page 65.
=Robert Southey= (1774-1843). "Thalaba"; "Roderick, the last of the
Goths"; "Joan of Arc"; "Madoc"; "The Curse of Kehama"; numerous short
poems.
=Charles Lamb= (1775-1834). Chiefly short poems.
=Walter Savage Landor= (1775-1864). "Gebir"; and other poems.
=Thomas Campbell= (1777-1844). "Gertrude of Wyoming"; "The Pleasures of
Hope"; short poems.
=Thomas Moore= (1779-1852). "Irish Melodies"; "Lalla Rookh"; "Rhymes on
the Road"; "The Loves of the Angels," etc.
=Leigh Hunt= (1784-1859). "Francesca Rimini"; "A Legend of Florence";
"Stories in Verse," etc.
=Bryan Waller Procter= ("Barry Cornwall") (1787-1874). "A Sicilian Story";
"English Songs," etc.
=Lord Byron= (George Gordon Noel) (1788-1824). "Childe Harold"; "The
Giaour"; "Bride of Abydos"; "The Corsair"; "Lara"; "Hebrew Melodies";
"Siege of Corinth"; "Parisina"; "Manfred"; "Don Juan," etc.
=Percy Bysshe Shelley= (1792-1822). See biographical note, page 81.
=John Keats= (1795-1821). See biographical note, page 93.
=Thomas Hood= (1799-1845). Numerous short poems, chiefly humorous.
=Lord Macaulay= (1800-1859). "Lays of Ancient Rome."
=Elizabeth Barrett Browning= (1809-1861). "Prometheus Bound"; "Casa Guidi
Windows"; "Sonnets from the Portuguese"; "Aurora Leigh"; "Poems before
Congress"; "Last Poems."
=Alfred Tennyson= (Lord Tennyson) (1809-). See biographical note, page 35.
=Richard Monckton Milnes= (Lord Houghton) (1809-1885). "Historical Poems";
"Poetry for the People"; "Poems of Many Years."
=Robert Browning= (1812-1889). "Christmas Eve and Easter Day"; "Men and
Women"; "The Ring and the Book"; "Balaustion's Adventure"; "Fifine at
the Fair"; "Aristophanes' Apology," etc.
=William Edmondstoune Aytoun= (1813-1865). "Lays of the Scottish
Cavaliers"; "Ballads of Scotland," etc.
=Arthur Hugh Clough= (1819-1861). "The Bothie"; "Ambarvalia," etc.
=Charles Kingsley= (1819-1875). "Andromeda"; many short poems.
=Matthew Arnold= (1822-1889). "The Strayed Reveller and other Poems";
"Balder."
=Adelaide Anne Procter= (1825-1864). "Legends and Lyrics"; "A Chaplet of
Verses."
=Robert Bulwer-Lytton= ("Owen Meredith") (1831-1892). "Lucile"; "Marah,"
etc.
Alfred Tennyson.
THE LADY OF SHALOTT.
PART I.
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold{1} and meet the sky:
And through the fields the road runs by
To many-towered Camelot{2};
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk{3} and shiver
Through the wave that runs forever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot;
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.
By the margin, willow-veiled,
Slide the heavy barges, trailed{4}
By slow horses; and unhailed
The shallop flitteth silken-sailed,
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The lady of Shalott?
Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to towered Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers, "'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."