In this group of refrain stanzas there is no attempt to make the range
of illustrations complete, but only to suggest how the refrain idea has
been variously used in forming the structure of the stanza. In some
cases, for example, it will be seen that the refrain is a mere appendage
or _coda_ to the stanza; in others it is made by rime a part of the
organized structure.
Blow, northerne wynd,
Sent þou my suetyng!
Blow, norþern wynd,
Blou! blou! blou!
(Song from Harleian Ms. 2253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p.
168.)
I that in heill wes and glaidness,
Am trublit now with gret seikness,
And feblit with infirmitie;
_Timor Mortis conturbat me._
(WILLIAM DUNBAR: _Lament for the Makaris._ ab. 1500.)
Now Simmer blinks on flowery braes,
And o'er the crystal streamlets plays;
Come, let us spend the lightsome days
In the birks of Aberfeldy.
(BURNS: _The Birks of Aberfeldy._ 1787.)
I wish I were where Helen lies;
Night and day on me she cries;
O that I were where Helen lies
On fair Kirconnell lea!
(_Fair Helen_; old ballad.)
O sing unto my roundelay,
O drop the briny tear with me,
Dance no more at holy-day,
Like a running river be.
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed,
All under the willow tree.
(CHATTERTON: Minstrel's Roundelay from _Ælla_. ab. 1770.)
The twentieth year is well-nigh past,
Since first our sky was overcast;
Ah, would that this might be the last!
My Mary!
(COWPER: _My Mary._ 1793.)
Duncan Gray cam' here to woo--
Ha, ha, the wooing o't!
On blithe Yule night, when we were fou--
Ha, ha, the wooing o't!
Maggie coost her head fu' heigh,
Looked asklent and unco skeigh,
Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh;
Ha, ha, the wooing o't!
(BURNS: _Duncan Gray._ ab. 1790.)
My heart is wasted with my woe,
Oriana.
There is no rest for me below,
Oriana.
When the long dun wolds are ribb'd with snow,
And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow,
Oriana,
Alone I wander to and fro,
Oriana.
(TENNYSON: _Ballad of Oriana._ ab. 1830.)
Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west,
(Toll slowly)
And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness--
Round our restlessness His rest.
(ELIZABETH B. BROWNING: _Rhyme of the Duchess May._ ab. 1845.)
"Ah! what white thing at the door has cross'd,
Sister Helen?
Ah! what is this that sighs in the frost?"
"A soul that's lost as mine is lost,
Little brother!"
(O Mother, Mary Mother,
Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven!)
(ROSSETTI: _Sister Helen._ 1870.)
Laetabundus
Exultet fidelis chorus,
Alleluia!
Egidio psallat coetus
Iste laetus,
Alleluia!
(ST. BERNARD: _De Nativitate Domini._)
Sermone Marcus Tullius,
Fortuna Cesar Julius
Tibi non equantur.
Tibi summa prudentia,
Prefulgens et potentia
Celesti dono dantur.
(From a 12th c. MS.: _Regulae de Rhythmis._ In Schipper's _Englische
Metrik_, vol. i. p. 354.)
Quant li solleiz conviset en leon
En icel tens qu'est ortus pliadon
Perunt matin,
Une pulcellet odit molt gent plorer
Et son ami dolcement regreter,
Ex si lli dis.
(Early French version of the _Song of Songs_, quoted in LEWIS's _Foreign
Sources of Modern English Versification_, p. 89.)
The special form of refrain stanza appearing in the first of these
foreign specimens (the Alleluia hymn form) is generally thought to have
been the source of the "tail-rime stanza" illustrated in the other two
specimens, and in the several pages which follow. The characteristic
feature of this stanza is the presence of two short lines riming
together and serving as "tails" to the first and second parts of the
body of the stanza. The same name appears in all the languages: "versus
caudati" in the mediæval Latin, "rime couée" in the French, and
"Schweifreim" in modern German. It is easy to see, what the following
specimens illustrate, how stanzas constructed on this fundamental
principle might be varied greatly in particular forms, according to the
number, length, and rime-arrangement of the longer lines.
Men may merci have, traytour not to save, for luf ne for awe,
Atteynt of traytorie, suld haf no mercie, wiþ no maner lawe.
(ROBERT MANNING of Brunne: _Chronicle._ ab. 1330.)
For Edward gode dede
Þe Baliol did him mede
a wikked bounte.
Turne we ageyn to rede
and on our geste to spede
a Maddok þer left we. (_Ibid._)
Manning's chronicle was a translation of the French chronicle of Pierre
de Langtoft. Although the translator designed to avoid the various
complicated measures used in the original, and kept pretty closely to
alexandrines (see p. 254, below), in the passages here represented he
followed the tail-rime of the original. In the first case the stanza
form is not represented in the manuscript, though of course implicit in
the rimes. The name of the stanza, "rime couée," appears very early in
Manning's Prologue, in the famous passage in which he expressed his
preference for metrical simplicity:
Als þai haf wrytenn and sayd
Haf I alle in myn Inglis layd,
In symple speche as I couthe,
That is lightest in mannes mouthe.
I mad noght for no disours,
Ne for no seggers no harpours,
Bot for þe luf of symple menn
That strange Inglis cann not kenn.
For many it ere that strange Inglis
In ryme wate never what it is,
And bot þai wist what it mente
Ellis me thoght it were alle shente.
I made it not for to be praysed,
Bot at þe lewed menn were aysed.
If it were made in ryme couwee,
Or in strangere or entrelace,
Þat rede Inglis it ere inowe
Þat couthe not haf coppled a kowe,
Þat outhere in couwee or in baston
Som suld haf ben fordon,
So þat fele men þat it herde
Suld not witte howe þat it ferde.
... And forsoth I couth noght
So strange Inglis as þai wroght,
And menn besoght me many a tyme
To turne it bot in light ryme.
þai sayd, if I in strange it turne,
To here it manyon suld skurne.
For it ere names fulle selcouthe,
þat ere not used now in mouthe.
And therfore for the comonalte,
þat blythely wild listen to me,
On light lange I it begann,
For luf of the lewed mann.
(Hearne ed., vol. i. pp. xcix, c.)
Lines 15-22 may be paraphrased thus: "If it were made in _rime couée_,
in _rime strangere_, or _rime entrelacée_, there are plenty of those who
read English who could not have put the tail-verses together; so that
either in the tail-verse or the _baston_ some would have been confused,
and many men that heard it would not know how it went." The "interlaced"
(alternate) rime was a familiar form. _Baston_ seems usually to be an
equivalent for "stanza" or "stave." It seems uncertain whether by _rime
strangere_ Manning had in mind any particular form of stanza or
rime-arrangement.
Stand wel, moder, under rode,
Byholt þy sone wiþ glade mode;
Blyþe, moder, myht þou be!
Sone, hou shulde y blyþe stonde?
Y se þin fet, y se þin honde
Nayled to þe harde tre.
(Song from Harleian MS. 3253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p.
206.)
Listeth, lordes, in good entent,
And I wol telle verrayment
Of mirthe and of solas;
Al of a knyght was fair and gent
In bataille and in tourneyment,
His name was sir Thopas ...
An elf-queen wol I love, y-wis,
For in this world no womman is
Worthy to be my make
In toune;
Alle othere wommen I forsake,
And to an elf-queen I me take
By dale and eek by doune!
(CHAUCER: _Sir Thopas_, from _Canterbury Tales_. ab. 1385.)
The tail-rime stanza had become a favorite for the metrical romances of
the fourteenth century; but Chaucer evidently saw its inappropriateness
for long narrative poems, and ridiculed it--with certain other elements
of the romances--in this _Rime of Sir Thopas_. The Host is made to
interrupt the story:
"'Myn eres aken of thy drasty speche;
Now swiche a rym the devel I beteche!
This may wel be rym dogerel', quod he."
My patent pardouns, ye may se,
Cum fra the Cane of Tartarei,
Weill seald with oster schellis;
Thocht ye have na contritioun,
Ye sall have full remissioun,
With help of buiks and bellis.
(SIR DAVID LINDSAY: _Ane Satyre of the Three Estates._ ab. 1540.)
Seinte Marie! levedi briht,
Moder thou art of muchel miht,
Quene in hevene of feire ble;
Gabriel to the he lihte,
Tho he brouhte al wid rihte
Then holi gost to lihten in the.
Godes word ful wel thou cnewe;
Ful mildeliche thereto thou bewe,
And saidest, "So it mote be!"
Thi thone was studevast ant trewe;
For the joye that to was newe,
Levedi, thou have merci of me!
(_Quinque Gaudia._ In Mätzner's _Altenglische Sprachproben_, vol. i. p.
51.)
Here the principle of the tail-rime is extended to four tail-verses. See
also the specimen on p. 111, below.
All, dear Nature's children sweet,
Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet,
Blessing their sense!
Not an angel of the air,
Bird melodious or bird fair,
Be absent hence.
(Song from _The Two Noble Kinsmen_, by Shakspere and Fletcher. pub.
1634.)
Fair stood the wind for France,
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance
Longer not tarry;
But put unto to the main,
At Caux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train,
Landed King Harry.
(DRAYTON: _Agincourt._ ab. 1600.)
I am a man of war and might,
And know thus much, that I can fight,
Whether I am i' th' wrong or right,
Devoutly.
No woman under heaven I fear,
New oaths I can exactly swear,
And forty healths my brains will bear
Most stoutly.
(SIR JOHN SUCKLING: _A Soldier._ ab. 1635.)
The stanzas that follow show various combinations and applications of
the same principle--the use of shorter verses in connection with longer.
A wayle whyte ase whalles bon,
A grein in golde þat goldly shon,
A tortle þat min herte is on,
In toune trewe;
Hire gladshipe nes never gon,
Whil y may glewe.
(Song from Harleian MS. 2253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p.
161.)
Of on that is so fayr and bri[gh]t,
_velut maris stella_,
Bri[gh]ter than the day is li[gh]t,
_parens et puella_;
Ic crie to the, thou se to me,
Levedy, preye thi sone for me,
_tam pia_,
That ic mote come to the
_Maria_.
(_Hymn to the Virgin_, from Egerton MS. 613. In Mätzner's _Altenglische
Sprachproben_, vol. i. p. 53.)
Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' e'en devotion!
(BURNS: _To a Louse on a Lady's Bonnet._ 1786.)
O goodly hand,
Wherein doth stand
My heart distract in pain;
Dear hand, alas!
In little space
My life thou dost restrain.
(SIR THOMAS WYATT: In Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets._ pub. 1557.)
Old Ocean's praise
Demands my lays;
A truly British theme I sing;
A theme so great,
I dare compete,
And join with Ocean, Ocean's king.
(EDWARD YOUNG: _Ocean, an Ode._ 1728.)
No more, no more
This worldly shore
Upbraids me with its loud uproar!
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Under the walls of Paradise!
(THOMAS BUCHANAN READ: _Drifting._ ab. 1850.)
In these stanzas a pair of long lines bind together the first and second
parts of the composition, just as the short lines do in the original
_rime couée_.
Young was and is universally condemned for choosing this form of stanza
for his odes. He was led to do so by his admiration for the passage in
Dryden's _Ode for St. Cecilia's Day_, running:
"Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres."
Here, said Young, Dryden was expressing "majesty"; hence, since he
wished his odes to be majestic, he used the short, choppy measure
throughout. (See his Introductory Essay to his Odes, in Chalmers's
_English Poets_, vol. xiii.) On the other hand, the stanza as used by
Read has been almost universally admired.
Hail, old Patrician Trees, so great and good!
Hail, ye Plebeian Underwood!
Where the poetic birds rejoice,
And for their quiet nests and plenteous food
Pay with their grateful voice.
(COWLEY: _Of Solitude._ ab. 1650.)
To-night this sunset spreads two golden wings
Cleaving the western sky;
Winged too with wind it is, and winnowings
Of birds; as if the day's last hour in rings
Of strenuous flight must die.
(ROSSETTI: _Sunset Wings._ 1881.)
Ye dainty Nymphs, that in this blessed brook
Do bathe your breast,
Forsake your watery bowers, and hither look
At my request:
And eke you Virgins that on Parnasse dwell,
Whence floweth Helicon, the learned well,
Help me to blaze
Her worthy praise,
Which in her sex doth all excel.
(SPENSER: _The Shepherd's Calendar, April._ 1579.)
You, that will a wonder know,
Go with me,
Two suns in a heaven of snow
Both burning be;
All they fire, that do but eye them,
But the snow's unmelted by them.
(CAREW: _In Praise of his Mistress._ ab. 1635.)
Go, lovely Rose!
Tell her, that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
(WALLER: _Go, lovely Rose._ ab. 1650.)
The use of short lines somewhat intricately introduced among longer
ones, is characteristic of the stanzas of the lyrical poets of the
first part of the seventeenth century. It may perhaps be traced in part
to the influence of Donne.
Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop.
(BROWNING: _Love among the Ruins._ 1855.)
Compare with this (although it is not divided into stanzas) Herrick's
_Thanksgiving to God_:
Lord, thou hast given me a cell
Wherein to dwell;
A little house, whose humble roof
Is weatherproof;
Under the spars of which I lie
Both soft and dry.
When God at first made Man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
Let us (said He) pour on him all we can:
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.
(GEORGE HERBERT: _The Gifts of God._ 1631.)
The following specimens illustrate various forms of stanzas
distinguished by arrangement of rime, without reference to the length of
lines:
_abccb_
In vain, through every changeful year
Did Nature lead him as before;
A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.
(WORDSWORTH: _Peter Bell._ 1798.)
_ababb_
Survival of the fittest, adaptation,
And all their other evolution terms,
Seem to omit one small consideration,
To wit, that tumblebugs and angleworms
Have souls: there's soul in everything that squirms.
(WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY: _The Menagerie._ 1901.)
_aabbb_
Mary mine that art Mary's Rose,
Come in to me from the garden-close.
The sun sinks fast with the rising dew,
And we marked not how the faint moon grew;
But the hidden stars are calling you.
(ROSSETTI: _Rose Mary._ 1881.)
_aabcdd_
Hail seint michel, with the lange sper!
Fair beth thi winges: up thi scholder
Thou hast a rede kirtil a non to thi fote.
Thou ert best angle that ever god makid.
This vers is ful wel i-wrog[gh]t;
Hit is of wel furre y-brog[gh]t.
(_Satire on the People of Kildare_, from Harleian Ms. 913, in Guest's
_English Rhythms_, Skeat ed., p. 616.)
_aaaabb_
What beauty would have lovely styled,
What manners pretty, nature mild,
What wonder perfect, all were filed
Upon record in this blest child.
And till the coming of the soul
To fetch the flesh, we keep the roll.
(BEN JONSON: _Epitaph; Underwoods, liii._ 1616.)
_ababab_
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies:
And all that's best of dark or bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
(BYRON: _She Walks in Beauty._ 1815.)
_ababcc_
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
(WORDSWORTH: _I wandered lonely as a cloud._ 1804.)
O, how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow!
Her eyes seen in her tears, tears in her eye;
Both crystals, where they view'd each other's sorrow,--
Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry;
But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,
Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.
(SHAKSPERE: _Venus and Adonis_, st. 161. 1593.)
_ababbcc_ ("_Rime royal_")
Humblest of herte, hyest of reverence,
Benigne flour, coroune of vertues alle,
Sheweth unto your rial excellence
Your servaunt, if I durste me so calle,
His mortal harm, in which he is y-falle,
And noght al only for his evel fare,
But for your renoun, as he shal declare.
(CHAUCER: _Compleynte unto Pite._ ab. 1370.)
And on the smale grene twistis sat
The lytil suete nyghtingale, and song
So loud and clere, the ympnis consecrat
Of luvis use, now soft now lowd among,
That all the gardynis and the wallis rong
Ryght of thaire song, and on the copill next
Of thaire suete armony, and lo the text.
(JAMES I. of Scotland: _The King's Quhair_, st. 33. ab. 1425.)
For men have marble, women waxen, minds,
And therefore are they form'd as marble will;
The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds
Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill:
Then call them not the authors of their ill,
No more than wax shall be accounted evil,
Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil.
(SHAKSPERE: _The Rape of Lucrece_, st. 178. 1594.)
In a far country that I cannot name,
And on a year long ages past away,
A King there dwelt in rest and ease and fame,
And richer than the Emperor is to-day:
The very thought of what this man might say
From dusk to dawn kept many a lord awake,
For fear of him did many a great man quake.
(WILLIAM MORRIS: _The Earthly Paradise; The Proud King._ 1868.)
The "rime royal" stanza is one of Chaucer's contributions to English
verse, and about 14,000 lines of his poetry are in this form. Its use by
King James in the _King's Quhair_ was formerly thought to be the source
of the name; but it seems more likely that the name, like the form, was
of French origin, and is to be connected with such terms as _chant
royal_ and _ballat royal_, familiar in the nomenclature of courtly
poetry (see Schipper, vol. i. p. 426). The stanza was used by Chaucer
with marvellous skill for purposes of continuous narrative, and was a
general favorite among his imitators in the fifteenth century, being
used by Lydgate, Occleve, Hawes, Dunbar, then by Skelton, and by Barclay
in the _Ship of Fooles_. It appears popular as late as the time of
Sackville's part of the _Mirror for Magistrates_ (1563).[9] Later than
Shakspere's _Rape of Lucrece_ it is rarely found. (But see Milton's
unfinished poem on _The Passion_, where he used a form of the rime royal
with concluding alexandrine.)
Strictly speaking, the "rime royal" is always in five-stress verse, but
in the following specimen the same rime-scheme appears in the irregular
six-or-seven-stress verse of one of the Mysteries.
The story sheweth further, that, after man was blyste,
The Lord did create woman owte of a ribbe of man,
Which woman was deceyvyd with the Serpentes darkned myste;
By whose synn ower nature is so weake no good we can;
Wherfor they were dejectyd and caste from thence than
Unto dolloure and myseri and to traveyle and payne,
Untyll Godes spryght renuid; and so we ende certayne.
(Prologue to Norwich Whitsun Play of the Creation and Fall. In Manly's
_Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama_, vol. i p. 5.)
_ababcca_
Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave
That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!
Let me sit all the day here, that when eve
Shall find performed thy special ministry,
And time come for departure, thou, suspending
Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending,
Another still, to quiet and retrieve.
(BROWNING: _The Guardian Angel._ 1855.)
_ababccb_
The City is of Night; perchance of Death,
But certainly of Night; for never there
Can come the lucid morning's fragrant breath
After the dewy dawning's cold grey air;
The moon and stars may shine with scorn or pity;
The sun has never visited that city,
For it dissolveth in the daylight fair.
(JAMES THOMSON: _The City of Dreadful Night._ 1874.)
_abababab_
Trew king, that sittes in trone,
Unto the I tell my tale,
And unto the I bid a bone,
For thou ert bute of all my bale:
Als thou made midelerd and the mone,
And bestes and fowles grete and smale.
Unto me send thi socore sone,
And dresce my dedes in this dale.
(LAURENCE MINOT: _Battle of Halidon Hill._ 1352.)
On Minot's lyrics see ten Brink's _History of English Literature_,
Kennedy translation, vol. i. p. 323.
_ababbaba_
Since love is such that as ye wot
Cannot always be wisely used,
I say, therefore, then blame me not,
Though I therein have been abused.
For as with cause I am accused,
Guilty I grant such was my lot;
And though it cannot be excused,
Yet let such folly be forgot.
(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _That the power of love excuseth the folly of
loving_, ab. 1550.)
_ababbcbc_
In a chirche þer i con knel
Þis ender day in on morwenynge,
Me lyked þe servise wonder wel,
For þi þe lengore con i lynge.
I sei[gh] a clerk a book forþ bringe,
Þat prikked was in mony a plas;
Faste he sou[gh]te what he schulde synge,
And al was _Deo gracias_!
(From the Vernon and Simeon MSS.; in _Anglia_, vii. 287.)
This Julius to the Capitolie wente
Upon a day, as he was wont to goon,
And in the Capitolie anon him hente
This false Brutus, and his othere foon,
And stikede him with boydekins anoon
With many a wounde, and thus they lete him lye;
But never gronte he at no strook but oon,
Or elles at two, but if his storie lye.
(CHAUCER: _The Monk's Tale_, ll. 713-720. ab. 1375.)
This stanza is sometimes called the "_Monk's Tale_ stanza," from its use
by Chaucer in that single tale of the Canterbury group. Although it has
been little used by later poets, it may have given Spenser a suggestion
for his characteristic stanza (see below, p. 102).
Farewell! if ever fondest prayer
For other's weal availed on high,
Mine will not all be lost in air,
But waft thy name beyond the sky.
'Twere vain to speak, to weep, to sigh:
Oh! more than tears of blood can tell,
When rung from guilt's expiring eye,
Are in that word--Farewell!--Farewell!
(BYRON: _Farewell, if ever fondest prayer._ 1808.)
_ababccdd_
Will no one tell me what she sings?
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again!
(WORDSWORTH: _The Solitary Reaper._ 1803.)
_abababcc_ (_ottava rima_)
She sat, and sewed, that hath done me the wrong
Whereof I plain, and have done many a day;
And, whilst she heard my plaint in piteous song,
She wished my heart the sampler, that it lay.
The blind master, whom I have served so long,
Grudging to hear that he did hear her say,
Made her own weapon do her finger bleed,
To feel if pricking were so good in deed.
(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _Of his love that pricked her finger with a needle_,
in Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets_. pub. 1557.)
This _ottava rima_ is a familiar Italian stanza made classic by Ariosto
and Tasso, and introduced into England by Wyatt, together with the
sonnet and other Italian forms. Professor Corson says, "Such a
rhyme-scheme, especially in the Italian, with its great similarity of
endings, is too 'monotonously iterative'; and the rhyming couplet at the
close seems, as James Russell Lowell expresses it, 'to put on the brakes
with a jar.'" (_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 89 f.)
O! who can lead, then, a more happie life
Than he that with cleane minde, and heart sincere,
No greedy riches knowes nor bloudie strife,
No deadly fight of warlick fleete doth feare;
Ne runs in perill of foes cruell knife,
That in the sacred temples he may reare
A trophee of his glittering spoyles and treasure,
Or may abound in riches above measure.
(SPENSER: _Virgil's Gnat_, ll. 121-128. 1591.)
For as with equal rage, and equal might,
Two adverse winds combat, with billows proud,
And neither yield (seas, skies maintain like fight,
Wave against wave oppos'd, and cloud to cloud);
So war both sides with obstinate despite,
With like revenge; and neither party bow'd:
Fronting each other with confounding blows,
No wound one sword unto the other owes.
(DANIEL: _History of the Civil War_, bk. vi. ab. 1600.)
Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals gray;
He touch'd the tender stops of various quills,
With eager thought warbling his Doric lay:
And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the western bay:
At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue:
To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.
(MILTON: _Lycidas_; Epilogue. 1638.)
This is a single stave of the _ottava rima_, at the close of the varying
metrical forms of _Lycidas_. Professor Corson says: "The Elegy having
come to an end, the _ottava rima_ is employed, with an admirable
artistic effect, to mark off the Epilogue in which Milton ... speaks in
his own person."
They looked a manly, generous generation;
Beards, shoulders, eyebrows, broad, and square, and thick,
Their accents firm and loud in conversation,
Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp, and quick,
Showed them prepared, on proper provocation,
To give the lie, pull noses, stab and kick;
And for that very reason, it is said,
They were so very courteous and well-bred.
(JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE: _The Monks and the Giants._ 1817.)
With every morn their love grew tenderer,
With every eve deeper and tenderer still;
He might not in house, field, or garden stir,
But her full shape would all his seeing fill;
And his continual voice was pleasanter
To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill;
Her lute-string gave an echo of his name,
She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.
(KEATS: _Isabella._ 1820.)
As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow,
And wished that others held the same opinion;
They took it up when my days grew more mellow,
And other minds acknowledged my dominion:
Now my sere fancy "falls into the yellow
Leaf," and Imagination droops her pinion,
And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk
Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.
(BYRON: _Don Juan_, canto iv. st. 3. 1821.)
Of the _ottava rima_, as used by Frere and Byron, Austin Dobson says:
"It had already been used by Harrington, Drayton, Fairfax, and (as we
have seen) in later times by Gay; it had even been used by Frere's
contemporary, William Tennant; but to Frere belongs the honor of giving
it the special characteristics which Byron afterward popularised in
_Beppo_ and _Don Juan_. Structurally the _ottava rima_ of Frere
singularly resembles that of Byron, who admitted that _Whistlecraft_ was
his 'immediate model.' ... Byron, taking up the stanza with equal skill
and greater genius, filled it with the vigor of his personality, and
made it a measure of his own, which it has ever since been hazardous for
inferior poets to attempt." (Ward's _English Poets_, vol. iv. p. 240.)
Byron may indeed be said--in the words of the present specimen--to have
turned what was commonly a romantic stanza "to burlesque."
_aabaabbab_
O hie honour, sweit hevinlie flour degest,
Gem verteous, maist precious, gudliest.
For hie renoun thow art guerdoun conding,
Of worschip kend the glorious end and rest,
But quhome in richt na worthie wicht may lest.
Thy greit puissance may maist avance all thing,
And poverall to mekill availl sone bring.
I the require sen thow but peir art best,
That efter this in thy hie blis we ring.
(GAWAIN DOUGLAS: _The Palace of Honour._ ab. 1500.)
_ababcccdd_
My love is like unto th' eternal fire,
And I as those which therein do remain;
Whose grievous pains is but their great desire
To see the sight which they may not attain:
So in hell's heat myself I feel to be,
That am restrained by great extremity,
The sight of her which is so dear to me.
O! puissant love! and power of great avail!
By whom hell may be felt e'er death assail!
(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _Of the extreme torment endured by the unhappy
lover._ ab. 1550.)
_ababbcbcc_ ("_Spenserian stanza_")
By this the Northerne wagoner had set
His sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre
That was in Ocean waves yet never wet,
But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre
To all that in the wide deepe wandring arre;
And chearefull Chaunticlere with his note shrill
Had warned once, that Ph[oe]bus fiery carre
In hast was climbing up the Easterne hill,
Full envious that night so long his roome did fill.
(SPENSER: _The Faerie Queene_, bk. i. canto 2, st. 1. 1590.)
And more to lulle him in his slumber soft,
A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe,
And ever-drizling raine upon the loft,
Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne
Of swarming Bees, did cast him in a swowne.
No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes,
As still are wont t'annoy the walled towne,
Might there be heard; but carelesse Quiet lyes
Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes.
(SPENSER: _ib._ bk. i. canto 1, st. 41.)
This stanza, which Spenser invented for his own use and to which his
name is always given, was apparently formed by adding an alexandrine to
the _ababbcbc_ stanza of Chaucer. In it Spenser wrote the greater part
of his poetry, and its use marks the Spenserian influence wherever
found, especially among the poets of the eighteenth century,--Thomson,
Shenstone, Beattie, and the like.
James Russell Lowell, in his Essay on Spenser, comments as follows: "He
found the _ottava rima_ ... not roomy enough, so first ran it over into
another line, and then ran that added line over into an alexandrine, in
which the melody of one stanza seems forever longing and feeling forward
after that which is to follow.... Wave follows wave with equable
gainings and recessions, the one sliding back in fluent music to be
mingled with and carried forward by the next. In all this there is
soothingness, indeed, but no slumberous monotony; for Spenser was no
mere metrist, but a great composer. By the variety of his pauses--now at
the close of the first or second foot, now of the third, and again of
the fourth--he gives spirit and energy to a measure whose tendency it
certainly is to become languorous." (_Works_, vol. iv. pp. 328, 329.)
See also the chapters on the Spenserian stanza in Corson's _Primer of
English Verse_, where its use for pictorial effects is interestingly
discussed.
A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was,
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye,
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,
Forever flushing round a summer sky:
There eke the soft delights, that witchingly
Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast,
And the calm pleasures always hovered nigh;
But whate'er smacked of noyaunce, or unrest,
Was far far off expelled from this delicious nest.
(THOMSON: _The Castle of Indolence_, canto i. 1748.)
Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow,
Emblem right meet of decency does yield:
Her apron dyed in grain, as blue, I trowe,
As is the hare-bell that adorns the field:
And in her hand, for sceptre, she does wield
Tway birchen sprays, with anxious fear entwined,
With dark distrust and sad repentance filled,
And stedfast hate, and sharp affliction joined,
And fury uncontrolled and chastisement unkind.
(SHENSTONE: _The Schoolmistress._ 1742.)
Thomson's _Castle of Indolence_, although not published till 1748, seems
to have been written and circulated before Shenstone's _Schoolmistress_.
Thomson caught the spirit of Spenser and his stanza better than any
other imitator until the days of Keats. On the revival of the stanza at
this period, see Beers's _English Romanticism in the Eighteenth
Century_, chap. iii., on "the Spenserians." Earliest of the group,
according to Mr. Gosse, was Akenside's _Virtuoso_ (1737. See _Eighteenth
Century Literature_, p. 311).
O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent,
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
And oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury's contagion, weak and vile!
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle.
(BURNS: _The Cotter's Saturday Night._ 1785.)
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.
(BYRON: _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, canto iv, st. i. 1818.)
A casement high and triple-arch'd there was,
All garlanded with carven imag'ries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings;
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.
(KEATS: _Eve of St. Agnes._ 1820.)
Professor Corson remarks: "Probably no English poet who has used the
Spenserian stanza, first assimilated so fully the spirit of Spenser, ...
as did Keats; and to this fact may be partly attributed his effective
use of it as an organ for his imagination in its 'lingering, loving,
particularizing mood.'" (_Primer of English Verse_, p. 124.)
The splendors of the firmament of time
May be eclips'd, but are extinguish'd not;
Like stars to their appointed height they climb,
And death is a low mist which cannot blot
The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought
Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair,
And love and life contend in it for what
Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there
And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.
(SHELLEY: _Adonais_, st. 44. 1821.)
With reference to his use of this stanza Shelley remarked, in the
Preface to _The Revolt of Islam_: "I have adopted the stanza of Spenser
(a measure inexpressibly beautiful), not because I consider it a finer
model of poetical harmony than the blank verse of Shakespeare and
Milton, but because in the latter there is no shelter for mediocrity:
you must either succeed or fail.... But I was enticed also by the
brilliancy and magnificence of sound which a mind that has been
nourished upon musical thoughts can produce by a just and harmonious
arrangement of the pauses of this measure." Professor Corson (_Primer of
English Verse_, p. 112) quotes Mr. Todhunter as saying: "Compare the
impetuous rapidity and pale intensity of Shelley's verse with the
lulling harmony, the lingering cadence, the voluptuous color of
Spenser's, or with the grandiose majesty of Byron's.... In _Adonais_,
indeed, a poem on which he bestowed much labor, he handles the stanza in
a masterly manner, and endows it with an individual music beautiful and
new."
"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.
(TENNYSON: _The Lotos-Eaters._ 1833.)
_abababccc_
A fisher boy, that never knew his peer
In dainty songs, the gentle Thomalin,
With folded arms, deep sighs, and heavy cheer,
Where hundred nymphs, and hundred muses in,
Sunk down by Chamus' brinks; with him his dear
Dear Thyrsil lay; oft times would he begin
To cure his grief, and better way advise;
But still his words, when his sad friend he spies,
Forsook his silent tongue, to speak in watry eyes.
(PHINEAS FLETCHER: _Piscatory Eclogues._ ab. 1630.)
Fletcher was an imitator of Spenser, and here devises a stanza differing
little from his master's. The final alexandrine is used with the same
effect. For other instances of final alexandrines, doubtless used under
the general influence of the Spenserian stanza, see the following
specimens.
_aabaabcc_
Ring out, ye crystal spheres!
Once bless our human ears,
If ye have power to touch our senses so;
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;
And let the bass of heaven's deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony,
Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.
(MILTON: _On the Morning of Christ's Nativity._ 1629.)
_ababbcbcdd_
What? Ælla dead? and Bertha dying too?
So fall the fairest flowrets of the plain.
Who can unfold the works that heaven can do,
Or who untwist the roll of fate in twain?
Ælla, thy glory was thy only gain;
For that, thy pleasure and thy joy was lost.
Thy countrymen shall rear thee on the plain
A pile of stones, as any grave can boast.
Further, a just reward to thee to be,
In heaven thou sing of God, on earth we'll sing of thee.
(CHATTERTON: _Ælla,_ st. 147. 1768.)
This is the ten-line "Chatterton stanza," a variant of the Spenserian
stanza, devised by Chatterton, which he claimed ante-dated Spenser by
one or two centuries. His claim for it was of course purely fictitious.
_aabbbcc_
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
(OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES: _The Chambered Nautilus._ 1858.)
See also the notable use of the alexandrine in Shelley's _Skylark_, p.
34, above.
_ababababbcbc_
The dubbement dere of doun and dalez,
Of wod and water and wlonke playnez,
Bylde in me blys, abated my balez,
Fordidde my stresse, dystryed my paynez.
Doun after a strem that dryghly halez,
I bowed in blys, bred-ful my braynez;
The fyrre I folghed those floty valez,
The more strenghthe of joye myn herte straynez,
As fortune fares theras ho fraynez,
Whether solace ho sende other ellez sore,
The wygh, to wham her wylle ho waynez,
Hyttez to have ay more and more.
(_The Pearl_, st. xi. Fourteenth century.)
Mr. Israel Gollancz says, in his Introduction to this poem: "I can point
to no direct source to which the poet of _Pearl_ was indebted for his
measure; that it ultimately belongs to Romance poetry I have little
doubt. These twelve-line verses seem to me to resemble the earliest form
of the sonnet more than anything else I have as yet discovered.... Be
this as it may, all will, I hope, recognize that there is a distinct
gain in giving to the 101 stanzas of the poem the appearance of a sonnet
sequence, marking clearly the break between the initial octave and the
closing quatrain.... The refrain, the repetition of the catch-word of
each verse, the trammels of alliteration, all seem to have offered no
difficulty to our poet; and if power over technical difficulties
constitutes in any way a poet's greatness, the author of _Pearl_, from
this point of view alone, must take high rank among English poets."
(Introduction, pp. xxiv, xxv.)
Other examples of intricate stanza structure are found in _Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight_, supposed to be by the author of _Pearl_. See in
Part Two, p. 156.
_aabccbddbeebffgggf_
Ne mai no lewed lued libben in londe,
be he never in hyrt so haver of honde,
So lerede us biledes.
[gh]ef ich on molde mote wiþ a mai,
y shal falle hem byfore & lurnen huere lay,
ant rewen alle huere redes.
ah bote y be þe furme day on folde hem byfore,
ne shaly nout so skere scapen of huere score;
so grimly he on me gredes,
þat y ne mot me lede þer wiþ mi lawe;
on alle maner oþes [þat] heo me wulleþ awe,
heore boc ase on bredes.
heo wendeþ bokes on brad,
ant makeþ men a moneþ a mad;
of scaþe y wol me skere,
ant fleo from my fere;
ne rohte hem whet yt were,
boten heo hit had.[10]
(Song from Harleian MS. 2253. Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p.
109.)
This and the two following specimens, together with some included
earlier under the head of Tail-Rime, illustrate the interest in complex
lyrical measures characteristic of the period of French influence in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In 1152 Henry of Normandy (who
ascended the throne in 1154) married Eleanor of Poitou, and in her train
there came to England the great troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn. On the
poems of this troubadour and others of the same school, see ten Brink's
_English Literature_, Kennedy translation, vol. i. pp. 159-164. Other
troubadours followed, and found a home in the court of Richard the
Lion-Hearted, who himself entered the ranks of the poets. The result was
a great mass of Norman French lyrical poetry, often in intricate forms,
and a smaller mass of imitative lyrics in Middle English. As Schipper
observes, the elaborate lyrical forms were inconsistent with English
taste, and it was only the simpler ones which were widely adopted. On
the general character of the Romance stanza-forms, and their influence
in England, see Schipper, vol. i. pp. 309 ff.
_ababccdeed_
Iesu, for þi muchele miht
þou [gh]ef us of þi grace,
þat we mowe dai & nyht
þenken o þi face.
in myn herte hit doþ me god,
when y þenke on iesu blod,
þat ran doun bi ys syde,
from is herte doun to is fot;
for ous he spradde is herte blod,
his wondes were so wyde.
(Song from Harleian MS. 2253; in Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_,
p. 208.)
_aabccbddbeeb_
Lenten ys come wiþ love to toune,
wiþ blosmen & wiþ briddes roune,
þat al þis blisse bryngeþ;
dayes e[gh]es in þis dales,
notes suete of nyhtegales,
uch foul song singeþ.
þe þrestelcoc him þreteþ oo;
away is huere wynter woo,
when woderove springeþ.
þis foules singeþ ferly fele,
ant wlyteþ on huere wynter wele,
þat al þe wode ryngeþ.
(Song from Harleian MS. 2253; Böddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p.
164.)
_abcbdcdceccce_
Trowe [gh]e, sores, and God sent an angell
And commawndyd [gh]ow [gh]owr chyld to slayn,
Be [gh]owr trowthe ys ther ony of [gh]ow
That eyther wold groche or stryve ther-ageyn?
How thyngke [gh]e now, sorys, ther-by?
I trow ther be iii or iiii or moo.
And thys women that wepe so sorowfully
Whan that hyr chyldryn dey them froo,
As nater woll and kynd,--
Yt ys but folly, I may well awooe,
To groche a-[gh]ens God or to greve [gh]ow,
For [gh]e schall never se hym myschevyd, wyll I know,
Be lond nor watyr, have thys in mynd.
(Epilogue of Brome Play of Abraham and Isaac. In Manly's _Specimens of
the Pre-Shaksperean Drama_, vol. i. p. 56.)
This verse of the early Mystery Plays and connected forms of the drama
shows an extraordinary variety of measures. In general, the effort of
the writers seems to have been to show some artistic ingenuity of
structure, and at the same time keep to the free popular dialogue verse
which was associated with the plays. We find, therefore, tumbling verse,
alexandrines, septenaries, and intricate strophic forms, all commonly
written with slight regard for syllable-counting principles.