Unrimed five-stress verse early became the accepted form for English
dramatic poetry, and in the modern English period has become the
favorite form for long continuous poems, narrative and reflective as
well. In general, as will appear from the specimens, it is marked not
only by the absence of rime but by a prevalent freedom of structure
rarely found in the couplet.
The impetus toward the writing of blank verse seems to have been given
by the influence of classical humanism, the representatives of which
grew sceptical as to the use of rime, on the ground that it was not
found in classical poetry. In Italy Giovanni Trissino wrote his
_Sophonisbe_ and _Italia Liberata_ (1515-1548) in rimeless verses, and
was looked upon as the inventor of _versi sciolti_, _i.e._ verses
"freed" from rime. (See Schipper, vol. ii. p. 4.) See also below, in the
notes on Surrey, and later under Imitations of Classical Verse, for
notes on the same movement.
On the nature of English blank verse, see J. A. Symonds's _Blank Verse_
(1895), a reprint of essays in the Appendix to his _Sketches and Studies
in Southern Europe_. In his _Chapters on English Metre_ (chap. iv.), Mr.
J. B. Mayor criticises what he calls Mr. Symonds's "æsthetic
intuitivism."
On the early history of English blank verse, see the article by Schröer,
_Anfänge des Blankverses in England, Anglia_, vol. iv. p. 1, and Mr. G.
C. Macaulay's _Francis Beaumont_, pp. 39-49.
Of Mr. Symonds's remarks on the general nature of blank verse the
following are especially interesting: "English blank verse is perhaps
more various and plastic than any other national metre. It is capable of
being used for the most commonplace and the most sublime utterances....
Originally instituted for the drama, it received in Milton's hands an
epical treatment, and has by authors of our own day been used for
idyllic and even for lyrical compositions. Plato mentions a Greek
musical instrument called _panharmonion_, which was adapted to express
the different modes and systems of melodious utterance. This name might
be applied to our blank verse; there is no harmony of sound, no dignity
of movement, no swiftness, no subtlety of languid sweetness, no brevity,
no force of emphasis, beyond its scope." (_Blank Verse_, pp. 16, 17.)
"It seems adapted specially for thought in evolution; it requires
progression and sustained effort. As a consequence of this, its melody
is determined by the sense which it contains, and depends more upon
proportion and harmony of sounds than upon recurrences and regularities
of structure.... Another point about blank verse is that it admits of no
mediocrity; it must be either clay or gold.... Hence, we find that blank
verse has been the metre of genius, that it is only used successfully
by indubitable poets, and that it is no favorite in a mean, contracted,
and unimaginative age. The freedom of the renaissance created it in
England. The freedom of our century has reproduced it. Blank verse is a
type and symbol of our national literary spirit--uncontrolled by
precedent or rule, inclined to extravagance, yet reaching perfection at
intervals by an inner force and _vivida vis_ of native inspiration."
(_Ibid._ pp. 70-72.)
The earliest use of the term "blank verse," noted in the _New English
Dictionary_, is in Nash's Preface to Greene's _Menaphon_, 1589: "the
swelling bumbast of bragging blanke verse." Some ten years later
Shakspere used it in _Much Ado about Nothing_, V. ii., where Benedick
speaks of those heroes "whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of
blank verse," but will not rime easily. In Chapman's _All Fools_ (1605)
the young gallant, in describing his manifold accomplishments, says he
could write
"Sonnets in Dozens, or your Quatorzains
In any rhyme, Masculine, Feminine,
Or Sdruciolla, or couplets, or Blank Verse."
_Sdruciolla_ is the Italian term for triple-rimed endings.
Forthwith Fame flieth through the great Libyan towns:
A mischief Fame, there is none else so swift;
That moving grows, and flitting gathers force:
First small for dread, soon after climbs the skies,
Stayeth on earth, and hides her head in clouds.
Whom our mother the Earth, tempted by wrath
Of gods, begat: the last sister, they write,
To C[oe]us, and to Enceladus eke:
Speedy of foot, of wing likewise as swift,
A monster huge, and dreadful to descrive.
In every plume that on her body sticks,--
A thing in deed much marvelous to hear,--
As many waker eyes lurk underneath,
So many mouths to speak, and listening ears.
By night she flies amid the cloudy sky,
Shrieking, by the dark shadow of the earth,
Ne doth decline to the sweet sleep her eyes:
By day she sits to mark on the house top,
Or turrets high, and the great towns affrays;
As mindful of ill and lies as blazing truth.
(EARL OF SURREY: _Æneid_, book IV. 223-242. ab. 1540. pub. 1557.)
Surrey's translation of two books of the _Æneid_ may have been suggested
by the translation (1541) made by Francesco Maria Molza, attributed at
the time to Cardinal Ippolito de Medici. This was in Italian unrimed
verse. (See Henry Morley's _First Sketch of English Literature_, p. 294,
and his _English Writers_, vol. viii. p. 61.) The verse of Surrey, like
Wyatt's, shows a somewhat mechanical adherence to the syllable-counting
principle, in contrast to regard for accents.[26] Thus we find such
lines as:
"Each palace, and sacred porch of the gods."
"By the divine science of Minerva."
There is a fairly free use of run-on lines; according to Schipper, 35 in
the first 250 of the translation. Nevertheless, the general effect is
monotonous and lacking in flexibility.
O Jove, how are these people's hearts abused!
What blind fury thus headlong carries them,
That, though so many books, so many rolls
Of ancient time record what grievous plagues
Light on these rebels aye, and though so oft
Their ears have heard their aged fathers tell
What just reward these traitors still receive,--
Yea, though themselves have seen deep death and blood
By strangling cord and slaughter of the sword
To such assigned, yet can they not beware,
Yet cannot stay their lewd rebellious hands,
But, suff'ring too foul reason to distain
Their wretched minds, forget their loyal heart,
Reject all truth, and rise against their prince?
(SACKVILLE and NORTON: _Gorboduc, or Ferrex and Porrex_, V. ii. 1-14.
1565.)
This tragedy, although Dryden curiously instanced it in defence of the
use of rime on the stage, was the earliest English drama in blank verse.
The metre is decidedly more monotonous than Surrey's, and gives little
hint of the possibilities of the measure for dramatic expression. In
general, the early experiments in blank verse suggest--what they must
often have seemed to their writers--the mere use of the decasyllabic
couplet deprived of its rime. Nevertheless, as Mr. Symonds remarks of a
passage in _Gorboduc_, "we yet may trace variety and emphasis in the
pauses of these lines beyond what would at that epoch have been possible
in sequences of rhymed couplets." (_Blank Verse_, p. 20.)
For a specimen of the blank verse of Gascoigne's _Steel Glass_ (1576,
the earliest didactic poem in English blank verse), see p. 18, above.
Paris, King Priam's son, thou art arraigned of partiality,
Of sentence partial and unjust, for that without indifferency,
Beyond desert or merit far, as thine accusers say,
From them, to Lady Venus here, thou gavest the prize away:
What is thine answer?
_Paris's oration to the Council of the Gods:_
Sacred and just, thou great and dreadful Jove,
And you thrice-reverend powers, whom love nor hate
May wrest awry; if this, to me a man,
This fortune fatal be, that I must plead
For safe excusal of my guiltless thought,
The honor more makes my mishap the less,
That I a man must plead before the gods,
Gracious forbearers of the world's amiss,
For her, whose beauty how it hath enticed,
This heavenly senate may with me aver.
(GEORGE PEELE: _The Arraignment of Paris_, IV. i. 61-75. 1584.)
This specimen shows the new measure introduced into the drama in
connection with the earlier rimed septenary. Peele's verse in general is
characterized by sweetness and fluency, but there is still no hint of
the possibilities of the unrimed decasyllabics.
Schröer, in the article cited from _Anglia_, enumerates the following
additional specimens of blank verse before the appearance of Marlowe's
_Tamburlaine_; Grimald's _Death of Zoroas_ and _Death of Cicero_, in
Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets_, 1557; _Jocasta_, by Gascoigne and
Kinwelmarshe, 1566; Turberville's translation of Ovid's _Heroical
Epistles_, 1567; Spenser's unrimed sonnets, in Van der Noodt's _Theatre
for Worldlings_, 1569; Barnaby Rich's _Don Simonides_, 1584; parts of
Lyly's _Woman in the Moon_, 1584; Greene's "Description of Silvestro's
Lady," in _Morando_, 1587; _The Misfortunes of Arthur_, 1587;--the last
two appearing probably in the same year with _Tamburlaine_, whether
earlier or later is uncertain. Most of these specimens are short, and
all are comparatively unimportant.
Now clear the triple region of the air,
And let the Majesty of Heaven behold
Their scourge and terror tread on emperors.
Smile stars, that reigned at my nativity,
And dim the brightness of your neighbor lamps!
Disdain to borrow light of Cynthia!
For I, the chiefest lamp of all the earth,
First rising in the East with mild aspect,
But fixed now in the Meridian line,
Will send up fire to your turning spheres,
And cause the sun to borrow light of you.
My sword struck fire from his coat of steel
Even in Bithynia, when I took this Turk;
As when a fiery exhalation,
Wrapt in the bowels of a freezing cloud
Fighting for passage, makes the welkin crack,
And casts a flash of lightning to the earth.
(MARLOWE: _Tamburlaine_, Part I, IV. ii. 30-46. pub. 1590.)
Ah, Faustus,
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damned perpetually!
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of Heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come;
Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make
Perpetual day; or let this hour be but
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
_O lente, lente, currite noctis equi!_
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The Devil will come, and Faustus must be damned.
O, I'll leap up to my God! Who pulls me down?
See, see where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul--half a drop: ah, my Christ!
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ![27]
Yet will I call on him: O spare me, Lucifer!
(MARLOWE: _Doctor Faustus_, sc. xvi. ll. 65-81. Printed 1604; written
before 1593.)
Marlowe is universally and rightly regarded as the first English poet
who used blank verse with the hand of a master, and showed its
possibilities. With him it became practically a new measure. Mr. Symonds
says: "He found the ten-syllabled heroic line monotonous, monosyllabic,
and divided into five feet of tolerably regular alternate short and
long. He left it various in form and structure, sometimes redundant by a
syllable, sometimes deficient, enriched with unexpected emphases and
changes in the beat. He found no sequence or attempt at periods; one
line succeeded another with insipid regularity, and all were made after
the same model. He grouped his verse according to the sense, obeying an
internal law of melody, and allowing the thought contained in his words
to dominate their form.... Used in this fashion, blank verse became a
Proteus. It resembled music, which requires regular time and rhythm;
but, by the employment of phrase, induces a higher kind of melody to
rise above the common and despotic beat of time.... It is true that,
like all great poets, he left his own peculiar imprint on it, and that
his metre is marked by an almost extravagant exuberance, impetuosity,
and height of coloring." (_Blank Verse_, pp. 22-27.) In the earlier
verse of _Tamburlaine_, while showing these new qualities of a metrical
master, Marlowe yet kept pretty closely to the individual, end-stopped
line; in his later verse, as illustrated in the fragmentary text of
_Faustus_, he seems to have attained much more freedom, resembling that
of the later plays of Shakspere.[28]
Is it mine eye, or Valentinus' praise,
Her true perfection, or my false transgression,
That makes me, reasonless, to reason thus?
She's fair, and so is Julia that I love,--
That I did love, for now my love is thawed,
Which, like a waxen image 'gainst a fire,
Bears no impression of the thing it was.
Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,
And that I love him not, as I was wont:
O! but I love his lady too too much;
And that's the reason I love him so little.
How shall I dote on her with more advice,
That thus without advice begin to love her?...
If I can check my erring love, I will;
If not, to compass her I'll use my skill.
(SHAKSPERE: _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, II. iv. 196-208; 213, 214. ab.
1590.)
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence about
The pendant world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thoughts
Imagine howling,--'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
(SHAKSPERE: _Measure for Measure_, III. i. 118-132. ab. 1603.)
This Mr. Symonds cites as "a single instance of the elasticity,
self-restraint, and freshness of the Shaksperian blank verse; of its
freedom from Marlowe's turgidity, or Fletcher's languor, or Milton's
involution; of its ringing sound and lucid vigor.... It illustrates the
freedom from adventitious ornament and the organic continuity of
Shakspere's versification, while it also exhibits his power of varying
his cadences and suiting them to the dramatic utterance of his
characters." (_Blank Verse_, p. 31.)
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves;
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets, that
By moonshine do the green-sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites; and you, whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms; that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid
(Weak masters though ye be) I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt: the strong-bas'd promontory
Have I made shake; and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves, at my command,
Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let them forth
By my so potent art.
(SHAKSPERE: _The Tempest_, V. i. 33-50. ab. 1610.)
No attempt can be made to represent adequately the blank verse of
Shakspere. The specimens, chosen respectively from his earlier, middle,
and later periods, illustrate the trend of development of his verse. In
the earlier period it was characterized by the slight use of feminine
endings and _enjambement_; in the later by marked preference for both,
and by general freedom and flexibility. In other words, Shakspere's own
development represents, in a sort of miniature, that of the history of
dramatic blank verse. According to Furnivall's tables, the proportion of
run-on lines to end-stopped lines in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_ is
one in ten, while in _The Tempest_ it is one in three. The increased use
of "light" and "weak" endings is closely analogous. Professor Wendell
says of the verse of _Cymbeline_: "End-stopped lines are so deliberately
avoided that one feels a sense of relief when a speech and a line end
together. Such a phrase as
'How slow his soul sail'd on, how swift his ship'
is deliberately made, not a single line, but two half-lines. Several
times, in the broken dialogue, one has literally to count the syllables
before the metrical regularity of the verse appears.... Clearly this
puzzling style is decadent; the distinction between verse and prose is
breaking down." (_William Shakspere_, p. 357.)[29]
I, that did help
To fell the lofty cedar of the world
Germanicus; that at one stroke cut down
Drusus, that upright elm; withered his vine;
Laid Silius and Sabinus, two strong oaks,
Flat on the earth; besides those other shrubs,
Cordus and Sosia, Claudia Pulchra,
Furnius and Gallus, which I have grubbed up;
And since, have set my axe so strong and deep
Into the root of spreading Agrippine;
Lopt off and scattered her proud branches, Nero,
Drusus; and Caius too, although replanted.
If you will, Destinies, that after all,
I faint now ere I touch my period,
You are but cruel; and I already have done
Things great enough. All Rome hath been my slave;
The senate sate an idle looker-on,
And witness of my power; when I have blushed
More to command than it to suffer: all
The fathers have sat ready and prepared,
To give me empire, temples, or their throats,
When I would ask 'em; and, what crowns the top,
Rome, senate, people, all the world have seen
Jove but my equal; Cæsar but my second.
'Tis then your malice, Fates, who, but your own,
Envy and fear to have any power long known.
(BEN JONSON: _Sejanus_, V. iv. 1603.)
Jonson's blank verse, says Mr. Symonds, is that "of a scholar--pointed,
polished, and free from the lyricisms of his age. It lacks harmony and
is often labored; but vigorous and solid it never fails to be." He also
instances the opening lines of the _Sad Shepherd_ as exceptional in
their "delicate music." Beaumont's verse is in many ways similar in
structure to Jonson's, yet commonly more melodious.
"He is all
(As he stands now) but the mere name of Cæsar,
And should the Emperor enforce him lesser,
Not coming from himself, it were more dangerous:
He is honest, and will hear you. Doubts are scattered,
And almost come to growth in every household;
Yet, in my foolish judgment, were this mastered,
The people, that are now but rage, and his,
Might be again obedience. You shall know me
When Rome is fair again; till when, I love you."
No name! This may be cunning; yet it seems not,
For there is nothing in it but is certain,
Besides my safety. Had not good Germanicus,
That was as loyal and as straight as he is,
If not prevented by Tiberius,
Been by the soldiers forced their emperor?
He had, and 'tis my wisdom to remember it:
And was not Corbulo (even that Corbulo,
That ever fortunate and living Roman,
That broke the heart-strings of the Parthians,
And brought Arsaces' line upon their knees,
Chained to the awe of Rome), because he was thought
(And but in wine once) fit to make a Cæsar,
Cut off by Nero? I must seek my safety;
For 'tis the same again, if not beyond it.
(FLETCHER: _Valentinian_, IV. i. ab. 1615.)
I can but grieve my ignorance:
Repentance, some say too, is the best sacrifice;
For sure, sir, if my chance had been so happy
(As I confess I was mine own destroyer)
As to have arrived at you, I will not prophesy,
But certain, as I think, I should have pleased you;
Have made you as much wonder at my courtesy,
My love and duty, as I have disheartened you.
Some hours we have of youth, and some of folly;
And being free-born maids, we take a liberty,
And, to maintain that, sometimes we strain highly....
A sullen woman fear, that talks not to you;
She has a sad and darkened soul, loves dully;
A merry and a free wench, give her liberty,
Believe her, in the lightest form she appears to you,
Believe her excellent, though she despise you;
Let but these fits and flashes pass, she will show to you
As jewels rubbed from dust, or gold new burnished.
(FLETCHER: _The Wild-Goose Chase_, IV. i. 1621.)
The verse of Fletcher is highly individual among the Jacobean
dramatists, though in a sense typical of the breaking down of blank
verse, in the direction of prose, which was going on at this period. The
distinguishing feature of Fletcher's verse is the constant use of
feminine endings, and the extension of these to triple and even
quadruple endings, by the addition of one or more syllables.
Twelve-syllable lines (not alexandrines, but ordinary lines with triple
endings) are not at all uncommon; and the additional syllable or
syllables may even be emphatic. In general the tendency was in the
direction of the freedom of conversational prose. Such a line as
"Methinks you are infinitely bound to her for her journey"
would not be recognized, standing by itself, as a five-stress iambic
verse; properly read, however, it takes its place without difficulty in
the scheme of the metre.[30]
Whatever ails me, now a-late especially,
I can as well be hanged as refrain seeing her;
Some twenty times a day, nay, not so little,
Do I force errands, frame ways and excuses,
To come into her sight; and I've small reason for't,
And less encouragement, for she baits me still
Every time worse than other; does profess herself
The cruellest enemy to my face in town;
At no hand can abide the sight of me,
As if danger or ill luck hung in my looks.
I must confess my face is bad enough,
But I know far worse has better fortune,
And not endur'd alone, but doted on;
And yet such pick-hair'd faces, chins like witches',
Here and there five hairs whispering in a corner,
As if they grew in fear of one another,
Wrinkles like troughs, where swine-deformity swills
The tears of perjury, that lie there like wash
Fallen from the slimy and dishonest eye;
Yet such a one plucks sweets without restraint.
(THOMAS MIDDLETON: _The Changeling_, II. i. ab. 1623.)
Middleton carried on the work of fitting blank verse for plausibly
conversational, as distinguished from poetic, effects. Often his lines
are more difficult to scan than Fletcher's, and still less seek
melodiousness for its own sake. Characteristic specimens are verses like
these:
"I doubt I'm too quick of apprehension now."
"With which one gentleman, far in debt, has courted her."
"To call for, 'fore me, and thou look'st half ill indeed."
What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut
With diamonds? or to be smothered
With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls?
I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits; and 'tis found
They go on such strange geometrical hinges,
You may open them both ways; any way, for Heaven sake,
So I were out of your whispering. Tell my brothers
That I perceive death, now I am well awake,
Best gift is they can give or I can take....
--Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength
Must pull down Heaven upon me:--
Yet stay; Heaven-gates are not so highly arched
As princes' palaces; they that enter there
Must go upon their knees.--Come, violent death,
Serve for mandragora to make me sleep!--
Go tell my brothers, when I am laid out,
They then may feed in quiet.
(JOHN WEBSTER: _The Duchess of Malfi_, IV. ii. 1623.)
"Webster," says Mr. Symonds, "used his metre as the most delicate and
responsive instrument for all varieties of dramatic expression....
Scansion in the verse of Webster is subordinate to the purpose of the
speaker." (_Blank Verse_, pp. 45-47.) He also calls attention to such
remarkable lines as--
"Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young."
"Other sins only speak; murder shrieks out."
Are you not frightened with the imprecations
And curses of whole families, made wretched
By your sinister practices?--
--Yes, as rocks are,
When foamy billows split themselves against
Their flinty ribs; or as the moon is moved,
When wolves, with hunger pined, howl at her brightness.
I am of a solid temper, and, like these,
Steer on, a constant course: with mine own sword,
If called into the field, I can make that right
Which fearful enemies murmured at as wrong.
Now, for these other piddling complaints
Breathed out in bitterness; as when they call me
Extortioner, tyrant, cormorant, or intruder
On my poor neighbor's right, or grand incloser
Of what was common, to my private use;
Nay, when my ears are pierced with widows' cries,
And undone orphans wash with tears my threshold,
I only think what 'tis to have my daughter
Right honorable; and 'tis a powerful charm
Makes me insensible of remorse, or pity,
Or the least sting of conscience.
(PHILIP MASSINGER: _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, IV. i. 1633.)
Massinger's verse is more regular than that of Fletcher and others, in
the matter of extra final syllables and the like, but free and flexible
in the use of run-on lines and generally progressive movement.[31] It is
an error to assume that there was no good blank verse written in this
period when the drama in general is said to have been in a state of
"decadence." The verse of Ford, for example, is noticeably strong and
restrained (compare the remark of Mr. Symonds, on its "glittering
regularity"). On the other hand, one may see the dramas of Richard Brome
for specimens of the decadent metre at its worst. Brome wrote comedies
both in prose and verse, and there is little difference between the two
forms in his hands. See also the crude and lax verse of some of the
early plays of Dryden, illustrated on p. 234 below. It was verse of this
kind which, as Mr. Gosse observes, justified the introduction of the
heroic couplet in all its strictness.
All in a moment through the gloom were seen
Ten thousand banners rise into the air
With orient colors waving: with them rose
A forest huge of spears: and thronging helms
Appear'd, and serried shields in thick array
Of depth immeasurable: anon they move
In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood
Of flutes and soft recorders; such as rais'd
To height of noblest temper heroes old
Arming to battle, and in stead of rage
Deliberate valor breath'd, firm and unmov'd
With dread of death to flight or foul retreat,
Nor wanting power to mitigate and swage
With solemn touches, troubl'd thoughts, and chase
Anguish and doubt and fear and sorrow and pain
From mortal or immortal minds....
... And now his heart
Distends with pride, and hardening in his strength
Glories: for never since created man
Met such embodied force, as nam'd with these
Could merit more than that small infantry
Warr'd on by cranes: though all the giant brood
Of Phlegra with th' heroic race were joined
That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side
Mixed with auxiliar gods; and what resounds
In fable or romance of Uther's son
Begirt with British and Armoric knights;
And all who since, baptiz'd or infidel,
Jousted in Aspramont or Montalban,
Damasco, or Morocco, or Trebizond,
Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore
When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell
By Fontarabbia.
(MILTON: _Paradise Lost_, Book I. ll. 544-559; 571-587. 1667.)
With head a while inclined,
And eyes fast fixed, he stood, as one who prayed,
Or some great matter in his mind revolved:
At last, with head erect, thus cried aloud:--
"Hitherto, Lords, what your commands imposed
I have performed, as reason was, obeying,
Not without wonder or delight beheld;
Now, of my own accord, such other trial
I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater,
As with amaze shall strike all who behold."
This uttered, straining all his nerves he bowed;
As with the force of winds and waters pent
When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars,
With horrible convulsion to and fro
He tugged, he shook, till down they came, and drew
The whole roof after them with burst of thunder
Upon the heads of all who sat beneath.
(MILTON: _Samson Agonistes_, ll. 1636-1652. 1671.)
The blank verse of Milton is characterized by greater freedom and
flexibility than that of any earlier poet. The single line practically
ceases to be the unit of the verse, which is divided rather into
metrical paragraphs, or, as some would even call them, stanzas.
Professor Corson quotes an interesting passage from a letter of
Coleridge, giving an account of a conversation in which Wordsworth
expressed his view of this sort of blank verse. "My friend gave his
definition and notion of harmonious verse, that it consisted (the
English iambic blank verse above all) in the apt arrangement of pauses
and cadences, and the sweep of whole paragraphs,
with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
and not in the even flow, much less in the prominence or antithetic
vigor of single lines, which were indeed injurious to the total effect,
except where they were introduced for some specific purpose." (Corson's
_Primer of English Verse_, p. 218.) In like manner Mr. Symonds says:
"The most sonorous passages begin and end with interrupted lines,
including in one organic structure, periods, parentheses, and paragraphs
of fluent melody.... In these structures there are many pauses which
enable the ear and voice to rest themselves, but none are perfect, none
satisfy the want created by the opening hemistich, until the final and
deliberate close is reached." (_Blank Verse_ pp. 56, 57.)
In Milton's own prefatory note to _Paradise Lost_, he called his blank
verse "English heroic verse without rime." Rime he spoke of as "the
invention of a barbarous age, ... graced indeed since by the use of some
famous modern poets,"--not least among them, he might have said, being
John Milton himself. He described also the special character of his
verse in saying that "true musical delight ... consists only in apt
numbers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out
from one verse into another,"--that is, by _enjambement_. "This neglect
then of rime so little is to be taken for a defect, ... that it rather
is to be esteemed an example set, the first in English, of ancient
liberty recovered to heroic poem from the troublesome and modern bondage
of riming."[32]
It appears from this note that Milton regarded his heroic blank verse as
a different measure from the familiar dramatic blank verse. The latter
he used in _Samson Agonistes_, the verse-structure of which will be seen
to differ from that of _Paradise Lost_; the most salient distinction is
the more frequent use of feminine endings. Mr. Symonds remarks
interestingly on the "difference between Shaksperian and Miltonic,
between dramatic and epical blank verse. The one is simple in
construction and progressive, the other is complex and stationary....
The one exhibits a thought, in the process of formation, developing
itself from the excited fancy of the speaker. The other presents to us
an image crystallized and perfect in the poet's mind; the one is in
time, the other in space--the one is a growing and the other a complete
organism.... The one, if we may play upon a fancy, resembles Music, and
the other Architecture." (_Blank Verse_, p. 58.)
Methinks I do not want
That huge long train of fawning followers,
That swept a furlong after me.
'Tis true I am alone;
So was the godhead, ere he made the world,
And better served himself than served by nature.
And yet I have a soul
Above this humble fate. I could command,
Love to do good, give largely to true merit,
All that a king should do; but though these are not
My province, I have scene enough within
To exercise my virtue.
All that a heart, so fixed as mine, can move,
Is, that my niggard fortune starves my love.
(DRYDEN: _Marriage à la Mode_, III. i. 1672.)
She lay, and leaned her cheek upon her hand,
And cast a look so languishingly sweet,
As if, secure of all beholders' hearts,
Neglecting, she could take them: boys, like Cupids,
Stood fanning, with their painted wings, the winds
That played about her face: but if she smiled,
A darting glory seemed to blaze abroad,
That men's desiring eyes were never wearied,
But hung upon the object. To soft flutes
The silver oars kept time; and while they played,
The hearing gave new pleasure to the sight,
And both to thought. 'Twas heaven, or somewhat more;
(DRYDEN: _All for Love_, III. i. 1678.)
The first of these specimens of Dryden's blank verse illustrates the
loose form of it found in many of the comedies, ill distinguished from
prose and used interchangeably with prose, as in the case of the late
Jacobean dramatists. It was with _All for Love_ that Dryden dropped the
use of the rimed couplet in tragedy, and turned his hand toward the
construction of really noble blank verse. This play was professedly an
imitation of Shakspere, and the passage here quoted is a paraphrase of
one in _Antony and Cleopatra_, II. ii. Shakspere's blank verse doubtless
exerted a good influence on the quality of Dryden's. "From this time
on," says Mr. Gosse, "Dryden's blank verse was more severe than any
which had been used, except by Milton, since Ben Jonson." (_Eighteenth
Century Literature_, p. 14.)
Then hear me, bounteous Heaven!
Pour down your blessings on this beauteous head,
Where everlasting sweets are always springing:
With a continual-giving hand, let peace,
Honor, and safety always hover round her;
Feed her with plenty; let her eyes ne'er see
A sight of sorrow, nor her heart know mourning:
Crown all her days with joy, her nights with rest
Harmless as her own thoughts, and prop her virtue
To bear the loss of one that too much loved;
And comfort her with patience in our parting....
--Then hear me too, just Heaven!
Pour down your curses on this wretched head,
With never-ceasing vengeance; let despair,
Danger, or infamy, nay, all surround me.
Starve me with wantings; let my eyes ne'er see
A sight of comfort, nor my heart know peace;
But dash my days with sorrow, nights with horrors
Wild as my own thoughts now, and let loose fury
To make me mad enough for what I lose,
If I must lose him--if I must! I will not.
(THOMAS OTWAY: _Venice Preserved_, V. ii. 1682.)
This play was one of those marking the return of the serious drama to
blank verse, after the brief domination of the couplet on the stage.
While Otway's verse is not as good as Dryden's best, it is of fairly
even merit, and shows that something had been learned from the practice
of the couplet.
Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a power above us
(And that there is all nature cries aloud
Through all her works), he must delight in virtue;
And that which he delights in must be happy....
... The soul, secured in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years,
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the wars of elements,
The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
(ADDISON: _Cato_, V. i. ll. 10-18; 25-31. 1713.)
Tell us, ye dead! will none of you, in pity
To those you left behind, disclose the secret?
Oh! that some courteous ghost would blab it out,--
What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be.
I've heard that souls departed have sometimes
Forewarn'd men of their death. 'Twas kindly done
To knock, and give the alarum. But what means
This stinted charity? 'Tis but lame kindness
That does its work by halves. Why might you not
Tell us what 'tis to die? Do the strict laws
Of your society forbid your speaking
Upon a point so nice? I'll ask no more:
Sullen, like lamps in sepulchres, your shine
Enlightens but yourselves. Well, 'tis no matter;
A very little time will clear up all
And make us learn'd as you are, and as close.
(ROBERT BLAIR: _The Grave_. 1743.)
This poem was one of those connected with the revival of blank verse,
for didactic poetry, near the middle of the eighteenth century. Of
Blair's verse Mr. Saintsbury says that it "is by no means to be
despised. Technically its only fault is the use and abuse of the
redundant syllable. The quality ... is in every respect rather moulded
upon dramatic than upon purely poetical models, and he shows little
trace of imitation either of Milton, or of his contemporary, Thomson."
(Ward's _English Poets_, vol. iii. p. 217.)
Through the hushed air the whitening shower descends,
At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes
Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day
With a continual flow. The cherished fields
Put on their winter-robe of purest white.
'Tis brightness all; save where the new snow melts
Along the mazy current. Low the woods
Bow their hoar head; and, ere the languid sun
Faint from the west emits his evening ray,
Earth's universal face, deep-hid and chill,
Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the laborer-ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them. One alone,
The redbreast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first
Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family askance,
And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is--
Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his slender feet.
(THOMSON: _The Seasons; Winter_. 1726.)
Thomson's _Seasons_ was undoubtedly the most influential of the poems of
the blank-verse revival of this period. Saintsbury says: "His blank
verse in especial cannot receive too much commendation. With that of
Milton, and that of the present Poet Laureate [Tennyson], it must rank
as one of the chief original models of the metre to be found in English
poetry." (Ward's _English Poets_, vol. iii. p. 169.)
Other influential poems of the same period, written in blank verse, were
Glover's _Leonidas_ (1737), Young's _Night Thoughts_ (1742-1744), and
Akenside's _Pleasures of the Imagination_ (1744). Much earlier than
these had come the curious poem of John Philips on _Cider_ (1708).
Philips is praised by Thomson as the successor of Milton in some lines
of _Autumn_:
"Philips, Pomona's bard, the second thou
Who nobly durst, in rhyme-unfetter'd verse
With British freedom sing the British song."
In general, the blank verse of all these poets shows the influence of
the couplet and lacks flexibility. Thus Mr. Symonds says: "The use of
the couplet had unfitted poets for its composition. Their acquired
canons of regularity, when applied to loose and flowing metre, led them
astray.... Hence it followed, that when blank verse began again to be
written, it found itself very much at the point where it had stood
before the appearance of Marlowe. Even Thomson ... wrote stiff and
languid blank verse with monosyllabic terminations and monotonous
cadences--a pedestrian style." (_Blank Verse_, pp. 61, 62.)[33]
Here unmolested, through whatever sign
The sun proceeds, I wander; neither mist,
Nor freezing sky nor sultry, checking me,
Nor stranger intermeddling with my joy.
Even in the spring and playtime of the year,
That calls the unwonted villager abroad
With all her little ones, a sportive train,
To gather kingcups in the yellow mead,
And prink their hair with daisies, or to pick
A cheap but wholesome salad from the brook,
These shades are all my own. The timorous hare,
Grown so familiar with her frequent guest,
Scarce shuns me; and the stockdove unalarmed
Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends
His long love-ditty for my near approach.
Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm
That age or injury has hollowed deep,
Where on his bed of wool and matted leaves
He has outslept the winter, ventures forth
To frisk awhile, and bask in the warm sun,
The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play.
He sees me, and at once, swift as a bird,
Ascends the neighboring beech; there whisks his brush,
And perks his ears, and stamps and scolds aloud,
With all the prettiness of feigned alarm,
And anger insignificantly fierce.
(COWPER: _The Task_, book VI. ll. 295-320. 1785.)
"The blank verse of Cowper's _Task_ is admirably adapted to the theme,"
says Professor Corson. "Cowper saw farther than any one before him had
seen, into the secrets of the elaborate music of Milton's blank verse,
and availed himself of those secrets to some extent--to as far an extent
as the simplicity of his themes demanded." (_Primer of English Verse_,
p. 221.) Professor Ward speaks, however, of the "lumbering movement" of
Cowper's blank verse as being in contrast to "the neatness and ease of
his rhymed couplets." (_English Poets_, vol. iii. p. 432.) Cowper prided
himself, not without reason, on the individuality of his blank verse. In
a letter to the Rev. John Newton (Dec. 11, 1784) he said: "Milton's
manner was peculiar. So is Thomson's. He that should write like either
of them, would, in my judgment, deserve the name of a copyist, but not
of a poet.... Blank verse is susceptible of a much greater
diversification of manner than verse in rhyme: and why the modern
writers of it have all thought proper to cast their numbers alike, I
know not." In another letter (to Lady Hesketh, March 20, 1786) Cowper
reveals his careful study of Milton's verse: "When the sense requires
it, or when for the sake of avoiding a monotonous cadence of the lines,
of which there is always danger in so long a work, it shall appear to be
prudent, I still leave a verse behind me that has some uneasiness in its
formation. It is not possible to read _Paradise Lost_, with an ear for
harmony, without being sensible of the great advantage which Milton drew
from such a management.... Uncritical readers find that they perform a
long journey through several hundred pages perhaps without weariness;
they find the numbers harmonious, but are not aware of the art by which
that harmony is brought to pass, much less suspect that a violation of
all harmony on some occasions is the very thing to which they are not a
little indebted for their gratification."
Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast--
Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me--Rise, O ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
(COLERIDGE: _Hymn before Sunrise, in the Vale of Chamouni_, ll. 70-85.
1802.)
It was a den where no insulting light
Could glimmer on their tears; where their own groans
They felt, but heard not, for the solid roar
Of thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse,
Pouring a constant bulk, uncertain where.
Crag jutting forth to crag, and rocks that seem'd
Ever as if just rising from a sleep,
Forehead to forehead held their monstrous horns;
And thus in thousand hugest phantasies
Made a fit roofing to this nest of woe.
Instead of thrones, hard flint they sat upon,
Couches of rugged stone, and slaty ridge
Stubborn'd with iron. All were not assembled:
Some chain'd in torture, and some wandering.
C[oe]us, and Gyges, and Briareus,
Typhon, and Dolor, and Porphyrion,
With many more, the brawniest in assault,
Were pent in regions of laborious breath;
Dungeon'd in opaque element, to keep
Their clenched teeth still clench'd, and all their limbs
Lock'd up like veins of metal, crampt and screw'd;
Without a motion, save of their big hearts
Heaving in pain, and horribly convuls'd
With sanguine feverous boiling gurge of pulse.
(KEATS: _Hyperion_, book II. 1820.)
"In Keats at last," says Mr. Symonds, "we find again that inner music
which is the soul of true blank verse.... His _Hyperion_ is sung, not
written.... Its music is fluid, bound by no external measurement of
feet, but determined by the sense and intonation of the poet's thought,
while like the crotalos of the Athenian flute-player, the decasyllabic
beat maintains an uninterrupted undercurrent of regular pulsations."
(_Blank Verse_, p. 64.)
I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
(WORDSWORTH: _Lines Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey_. 1798.)
Let not high verse, mourning the memory
Of that which is no more, or painting's woe
Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery
Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence,
And all the shows o' the world, are frail and vain
To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.
It is a woe 'too deep for tears,' when all
Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,
Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves
Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans,
The passionate tumult of a clinging hope;
But pale despair and cold tranquillity,
Nature's vast frame, the web of human things,
Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.
(SHELLEY: _Alastor_, ll. 707-720. 1815.)
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within himself make pure! but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seest--if indeed I go
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)--
To the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.
(TENNYSON: _Idylls of the King; The Passing of Arthur_. 1869.)
But that large-moulded man,
His visage all agrin as at a wake,
Made at me thro' the press, and, staggering back
With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came
As comes a pillar of electric cloud,
Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains,
And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes
On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits,
And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth
Reels, and the herdsmen cry; for everything
Gave way before him: only Florian, he
That loved me closer than his own right eye,
Thrust in between; but Arac rode him down:
And Cyril seeing it, push'd against the Prince,
With Psyche's color round his helmet, tough,
Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms;
But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote
And threw him: last I spurr'd; I felt my veins
Stretch with fierce heat; a moment hand to hand,
And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung,
Till I struck out and shouted; the blade glanc'd;
I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth
Flow'd from me; darkness closed me; and I fell.
(TENNYSON: _The Princess_, v. 1847.)
She knew me, and acknowledg'd me her heir,
Pray'd me to keep her debts, and keep the Faith;
Then claspt the cross, and pass'd away in peace.
I left her lying still and beautiful,
More beautiful than in life. Why would you vex yourself,
Poor sister? Sir, I swear I have no heart
To be your queen. To reign is restless fence,
Tierce, quart, and trickery. Peace is with the dead.
Her life was winter, for her spring was nipt;
And she loved much: pray God she be forgiven.
(TENNYSON: _Queen Mary_, V. v. 1875.)
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
(TENNYSON: _The Princess_, iv.; "Tears, Idle Tears." 1847.)
The blank verse of Tennyson is probably to be regarded as the most
masterly found among modern poets.[34] Its flexibility is almost
infinite, yet never unmelodious. The last of the specimens just quoted
illustrates his use of blank verse for short lyrical poems,--an unusual
and notable achievement. Perhaps only Collins's _Ode to Evening_ can be
compared with his success in this direction, and Collins used a more
elaborate strophe to fill, in part, the place of rime. Of the unrimed
lyrics in _The Princess_, Mr. Symonds says that they "are perfect
specimens of most melodious and complete minstrelsy in words." In the
"Tears, Idle Tears," he goes on to say, the verse "is divided into
periods of five lines, each of which terminates with the words 'days
that are no more.' This recurrence of sound and meaning is a substitute
for rhyme, and suggests rhyme so persuasively that it is impossible to
call the poem mere blank verse." See also the specimens on p. 144 above.
In the case of both Tennyson and Browning the student should compare the
form of the narrative blank verse on the one hand with that of the
dramatic on the other. Yet in a sense all Browning's blank verse is
dramatic. It is no less flexible than Tennyson's, but (as in most of
Browning's poetry) sacrifices more of melody in adapting itself to the
thought.
To live, and see her learn, and learn by her,
Out of the low obscure and petty world--
Or only see one purpose and one will
Evolve themselves i' the world, change wrong to right:
To have to do with nothing but the true,
The good, the eternal--and these, not alone,
In the main current of the general life,
But small experiences of every day,
Concerns of the particular hearth and home:
To learn not only by a comet's rush
But a rose's birth,--not by the grandeur, God,
But the comfort, Christ. All this, how far away!
Mere delectation, meet for a minute's dream!--
Just as a drudging student trims his lamp,
Opens his Plutarch, puts him in the place
Of Roman, Grecian; draws the patch'd gown close,
Dreams, "Thus should I fight, save or rule the world!"
Then smilingly, contentedly, awakes
To the old solitary nothingness.
So I, from such communion, pass content.--
O great, just, good God! Miserable me!
(BROWNING: _The Ring and the Book; Caponsacchi_. 1868.)
_The Ring and the Book_ Professor Corson calls "the greatest achievement
of the century ... in the effective use of blank verse in the treatment
of a great subject.... Its blank verse, while having a most complex
variety of character, is the most dramatic blank verse since the
Elizabethan era.... One reads it without a sense almost of there being
anything artificial in the construction of the language; ... one gets
the impression that the poet thought and felt spontaneously in blank
verse." (_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 224, 225.)
This eve's the time,
This eve intense with yon first trembling star
We seem to pant and reach; scarce aught between
The earth that rises and the heaven that bends;
All nature self-abandoned, every tree
Flung as it will, pursuing its own thoughts
And fixed so, every flower and every weed,
No pride, no shame, no victory, no defeat;
All under God, each measured by itself.
These statues round us stand abrupt, distinct,
The strong in strength, the weak in weakness fixed,
The Muse forever wedded to her lyre,
Nymph to her fawn, and Silence to her rose:
See God's approval on his universe!
Let us do so--aspire to live as these
In harmony with truth, ourselves being true!
Take the first way, and let the second come!
(BROWNING: _In a Balcony_. 1855.)
The very God! think, Abib; dost thou think?
So, the All-Great were the All-Loving too--
So, through the thunder comes a human voice
Saying, "O heart I made, a heart beats here!
Face, my hands fashioned, see it in myself!
Thou hast no power nor may'st conceive of mine,
But love I gave thee, with myself to love,
And thou must love me who have died for thee."
The madman saith He said so: it is strange.
(BROWNING: _Epistle of Karshish_. 1855.)
God's works--paint any one, and count it crime
To let a truth slip. Don't object, "His works
Are here already; nature is complete:
Suppose you reproduce her--(which you can't)
There's no advantage! you must beat her, then."
For, don't you mark? we're made so that we love
First when we see them painted, things we have passed
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;
And so they are better, painted--better to us,
Which is the same thing. Art was given for that;
God uses us to help each other so,
Lending our minds out.
(BROWNING: _Fra Lippo Lippi_. 1855.)
Of some of Browning's blank verse Mr. Mayor observes: "The extreme
harshness of many of these lines is almost a match for anything in
Surrey, only what in Surrey is helplessness seems the perversity of
strength in Browning.... The Aristophanic vein in Browning is
continually leading him to trample under foot the dignity of verse and
to shock the uninitiated reader by colloquial familiarities, 'thumps
upon the back,' such as the poet Cowper resented; yet no one can be more
impressive than he is when he surrenders himself to the pure spirit of
poetry, and flows onward in a stream of glorious music, such as that in
which Balaustion pictures Athens overwhelmed by an advance of the sea
(_Aristophanes' Apology_, p. 2)." (_Chapters on English Metre_, 2d ed.,
pp. 216, 217.)
But the majestic river floated on,
Out of the mist and hum of that low land,
Into the frosty starlight, and there mov'd,
Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian waste,
Under the solitary moon: he flow'd
Right for the Polar Star, past Orgunje,
Brimming, and bright, and large: then sands begin
To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,
And split his currents; that for many a league
The shorn and parcell'd Oxus strains along
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles--
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain cradle in Pamere,
A foil'd, circuitous wanderer:--till at last
The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide
His luminous home of waters opens, bright
And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bath'd stars
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.
(MATTHEW ARNOLD: _Sohrab and Rustum_. 1853.)
Here is the place: but read it low and sweet.
Put out the lamp!
--The glimmering page is clear.
"Now on that day it chanced that Launcelot,
Thinking to find the King, found Guenevere
Alone; and when he saw her whom he loved,
Whom he had met too late, yet loved the more;
Such was the tumult at his heart that he
Could speak not, for her husband was his friend,
His dear familiar friend: and they two held
No secret from each other until now;
But were like brothers born"--my voice breaks off.
Read you a little on.
--"And Guenevere,
Turning, beheld him suddenly whom she
Loved in her thought, and even from that hour
When first she saw him; for by day, by night,
Though lying by her husband's side, did she
Weary for Launcelot, and knew full well
How ill that love, and yet that love how deep!"
I cannot see--the page is dim: read you.
--"Now they two were alone, yet could not speak;
But heard the beating of each other's hearts.
He knew himself a traitor but to stay,
Yet could not stir: she pale and yet more pale
Grew till she could no more, but smiled on him.
Then when he saw that wished smile, he came
Near to her and still near, and trembled; then
Her lips all trembling kissed."
--Ah, Launcelot!
(STEPHEN PHILLIPS: _Paolo and Francesca_, III. iii. 1901.)
The blank verse of Stephen Phillips is the most important--one may say
perhaps the only important--that has been written since Tennyson's; and
it is of especial interest as forming an actual revival of the form on
the English stage. Aside from the dramas, it is seen at its best in
_Marpessa_. Imitating Milton, and at the same time handling the measure
with original force, Mr. Phillips introduces unusual cadences, for which
he has been severely reproached by the critics. Such lines as the
following are typical of these variations from the normal rhythm:
"O all fresh out of beautiful sunlight."
"Agamemnon bowed over, and from his wheel."
"And to dispel shadows and shadowy fear."
"My bloom faded, and waning light of eyes."
For a criticism of Mr. Phillips's verse, see Mr. William Archer's _Poets
of the Younger Generation_, pp. 313-327.