Chapter XI: Part TWO: I. Four-Stress Verse (4)

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] One may easily find other instances of the sporadic appearance of the same measure in the midst of irregular "long lines" or rough alexandrines and septenaries. Compare, for example, the following, from early plays in Manly's _Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama_:

"To be alone, nor very convenyent." "Ye shall not touche yt, for that I forbede." "But ye shuld be as godes resydent." "And many a chaumbyr thou xalt have therinne." "In this flood spylt is many a mannys blood." "Therfore be we now cast in ryght grett care."

The context of many of these lines shows that they were intended to be read as four-stress rather than five-stress; but such examples serve to make clear how easily English rhythm would fall into the decasyllabic line.

[20] See also an account of Zarncke's monograph (1865) _Ueber den fünffussiger Iambus_, in Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, Postscript.

[21] See the entire Preface in Chalmers's _English Poets_, vol. viii. p. 32, and in the Appendix to Gosse's _From Shakespeare to Pope_. For an analysis of Waller's verse with reference to this Preface, see "A Note upon Waller's Distich," by H. C. Beeching, in the Furnivall _Miscellany_ (1901), p. 4.

[22] Beaumont's own verse is of no little interest, and Mr. Gosse, in a recent letter to the present editor, observes that he finds in Beaumont, "far more definitely than in George Sandys, the principal precursor of Waller."

[23] See also the verses of Oliver Wendell Holmes on _The Strong Heroic Line_ (in Stedman's _American Anthology_, p. 161), where he says:

"Nor let the rhymester of the hour deride The straight-backed measure with its stately stride: It gave the mighty voice of Dryden scope; It sheathed the steel-bright epigrams of Pope; In Goldsmith's verse it learned a sweeter strain; Byron and Campbell wore its clanking chain; I smile to listen while the critic's scorn Flouts the proud purple kings have nobly worn."

[24] On the verse of Keats in general, see the remarks of Mr. Robert Bridges in his Introduction to the Muses' Library edition of Keats.

[25] On Shelley's metres, see Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, 2d ed., chap. xiv.

[26] On the verse of Surrey in general, see W. J. Courthope, in his _History of English Poetry_, vol. ii. pp. 92-96. Mr. Courthope speaks highly of Surrey as a metrist, in particular attributing to him certain reforms in the handling of English verse: the attempt to use five perfect iambic feet to the line, the harmonious placing of the cesura, the avoidance of rime on weak syllables, the preservation of the accent on the even-numbered syllables. (To some of these reforms, as has been indicated, there are not a few exceptions.) In like manner ten Brink observes that Surrey "is more successful than Wyatt in adapting foreign rules to the rhythmical accent of the English language, and thus he is in reality the founder of the New-English metrical system." (_English Literature_, Kennedy trans., vol. iii. p. 243.)

On the blank verse of Surrey, see also an article by Prof. O. J. Emerson, in _Modern Language Notes_, vol. iv. col. 466, and Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, 2d ed., chap. x.

[27] The edition of 1616 has:

"One drop of blood will save me: O my Christ! Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!"

and omits the preceding line.

(See Bullen ed., vol. i. pp. 279, 280.)

[28] On Marlowe's verse see also Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, 2d ed., chap. x.

[29] On the technical problems of Shakspere's verse, see Fleay's _Shakspere Manual_; Abbott's _Shakespearean Grammar_; G. Browne's _Notes on Shakspere's Versification_; and Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_.

[30] "In a play of 2500 lines Massinger might possibly have as many as 1200 double or triple endings, Shakspere in his last period might have as many as 850, while Fletcher would normally have at least 1700, and might not improbably give as many as 2000." (G. C. Macaulay, in _Francis Beaumont_, pp. 43, 44. See the entire passage on Fletcher's metre as a test of authorship. Mr. Macaulay also remarks interestingly that Fletcher's metrical style is an outgrowth of his general use of the loose or disjointed, as opposed to the periodic or rounded, style of speech. To this "Shakspere worked his way slowly," while Fletcher "seems to have at once and naturally adopted" it.) See also Fleay's _Shakespeare Manual_, p. 153.

[31] On Massinger's verse see also Fleay's _Shakespeare Manual_, p. 154.

[32] On Milton's verse, see, besides the entire third essay in Mr. Symonds's book, Masson's edition of Milton, vol. iii. pp. 107-133; Robert Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_; Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, 2d ed., pp. 71-77 and 96-105; chapter xii. of Corson's _Primer of English Verse_; and a passage in De Quincey's essay on "Milton v. Southey and Landor," in his works, ed. Masson, vol. xi. pp. 463 ff. Says De Quincey: "You might as well tax Mozart with harshness in the divinest passages of _Don Giovanni_ as Milton with any such offence against metrical science. Be assured it is yourself that do not read with understanding, not Milton that by possibility can be found deaf to the demands of perfect harmony."

[33] Aaron Hill (1685-1750), an admirer of Thomson, wrote a "Poem in Praise of Blank Verse," opening:

"Up from Rhyme's poppied vale! and ride the storm That thunders in blank verse!"

On the other hand, there were not wanting protestants against the form, like Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith (see above, p. 205). Robert Lloyd (1733-1764) wrote:

"Some Milton-mad (an affectation Glean'd up from college-education) Approve no verse, but that which flows In epithetic measur'd prose;... the metre which they call Blank, classic blank, their all in all."

(Quoted in Perry's _English Literature in the Eighteenth Century_, p. 385.)

[34] On its analysis, see Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, 2d ed., chap. xiii.

III. SIX-STRESS AND SEVEN-STRESS VERSE

A.--THE ALEXANDRINE (IAMBIC HEXAMETER)

The alexandrine was introduced into English from French verse, as early (according to Schipper) as the early part of the thirteenth century. Early poems in this metre alone, however, are almost wholly wanting, if they ever existed. The early alexandrines usually appear in conjunction with the septenary (seven-stress verse). The French alexandrine has almost always been characterized by a regular and strongly marked medial cesura, and this very commonly appears in the English form, but by no means universally.

The French alexandrine is of uncertain origin. Kawczynski would trace it to the classical Asclepiadean verse, as in

"Mæcenas atavis edite regibus,"

which at least has the requisite number of syllables. It appeared in France as early as the first part of the twelfth century, and in four-line stanzas was the favorite for didactic poetry as late as the beginning of the fifteenth century; otherwise, in the close of the fourteenth century, it was supplanted by the decasyllabic. In the middle of the sixteenth century it again won precedence over the decasyllabic--in part through the influence of Ronsard--and is of course the standard measure of modern French poetry. The name "alexandrine" seems to have been applied in the fifteenth century, from the familiar use of the measure in the Alexander romance. The earliest known mention of the term is in Herenc's _Doctrinal de la secunde Retorique_. (See Stengel's article in Gröber's _Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie_, from which these statements are taken.)

The French alexandrine is in a sense a quite different measure from the English form. Accent is an element of so comparatively slight importance in the French language and French rhythm, that its place seems partly to be filled by regularity of cesural pause and regularity in the counting of syllables. The French alexandrine, therefore, may often be described as a verse of twelve syllables, divided into two equal parts by a pause, with marked accents on the sixth and twelfth syllables, but with the other accents irregularly disposed. Often it seems to an English reader to have an anapestic effect, and to be best described as anapestic tetrameter. In English, however, while the regularity in the number of syllables is followed, and very commonly the medial pause, there is also observed the regularity of alternate accents which gives the verse the characteristic form indicated by the term "six-stress."

'Ye nuten hwat ye biddeþ, þat of gode nabbeþ imone;
for al eure bileve is on stokke oþer on stone:
ac þeo, þat god iknoweþ, heo wyten myd iwisse,
þat hele is icume to monne of folke judaysse.'
'Loverd,' heo seyde, 'nu quiddeþ men, þat cumen is Messyas,
þe king, þat wurþ and nuþen is and ever yete was.
hwenne he cumeþ, he wyle us alle ryhtleche;
for he nule ne he ne con nenne mon bipeche.'

(_De Muliere Samaritana_, ll. 51-58. In Morris's _Old English Miscellany_, p. 84; and Zupitza's _Alt- und Mittelenglisches Übungsbuch_, p. 83. ab. 1250.)

This early poem illustrates the irregular use of alexandrines near the time of their introduction into English. The poem opens with a septenary--

"Tho Iesu Crist an eorthe was, mylde weren his dede;"

and septenaries and alexandrines are used interchangeably. Dr. Triggs says, in his notes on the poem in McLean's edition of Zupitza's _Übungsbuch_, that lines 5, 6, 9-18, 25-28, 39, 40, 43, 44, 49-54, 57, 58, 63, 64, 66, 67, 70-72, 74, 75 are alexandrines. (Introduction, p. lxii.) The English tendency toward indifference to regularity in the counting of syllables is also noticeable. In the same way the early poem called "The Passion of our Lord" (ed. Morris, E.E.T.S. xlix. 37), which is thought from the heading--"_Ici cumence la passyun ihesu crist en engleys_"--to be a translation from the French, shows a preponderance of alexandrines, although it opens in septenary. See also such poems as the "Death," "Doomsday," etc., in the _Old English Miscellany_. The alexandrine was easily confused by the Middle English writers, not only with the septenary, but with the native "long line," and it is often difficult to say just what rhythm was in the writer's mind. Thus a line like

"Be stille, leve soster, thin herte the to-breke,"

from the _Judas_, may be regarded either as an alexandrine or a long four-stress line.

In Westsex was þan a kyng, his [name] was Sir Ine.
Whan he wist of the Bretons, of werre ne wild he fine.
Messengers he sent thorghout Inglond
Unto þe Inglis kynges, þat had it in þer hond,
And teld how þe Bretons, men of mykelle myght,
Þe lond wild wynne ageyn þorh force and fyght.
Hastisly ilkone þe kynges com fulle suythe,
Bolde men and stoute, þer hardinesse to kiþe.
In a grete Daneis felde þer þei samned alle,
Þat ever siþen hiderward Kampedene men kalle.

(ROBERT MANNING of Brunne: _Chronicle of Peter de Langtoft_. Hearne ed., vol. i. p. 2. ab. 1325.)

This poem is one of the very few representatives of distinctly alexandrine verse in Middle English. The original poem being in alexandrines, Manning followed it closely. In the first part, however, he put rimes only at the ends of the verses, whereas later he introduced internal rime, thus resolving the verse into short lines of three stresses. Schipper observes that the four following lines are each representative of a familiar type of the French alexandrine:

"Messengers he sent þorghout Inglond
Unto the Inglis kynges, þat had it in þer hond."

"After Ethelbert com Elfrith his broþer,
Þat was Egbrihtes sonne and [gh]it þer was an oþer."

(_Englische Metrik_, vol. i. p. 252.)

The so-called _Legend-Cycle_ is also marked by a sort of alexandrine couplet. (See ten Brink's _English Literature_, Kennedy trans., vol. i. p. 274.)

O! think I, had I wings like to the simple dove,
This peril might I fly, and seek some place of rest
In wilder woods, where I might dwell far from these cares.
What speedy way of wing my plaints should they lay on,
To 'scape the stormy blast that threatened is to me?
Rein those unbridled tongues! break that conjured league!
For I decipher'd have amid our town the strife.

(EARL OF SURREY: _Psalm. LV_. ab. 1540.)

This is a not very successful experiment in unrimed alexandrines. Others of Surrey's Psalms are in rimed "Poulter's Measure" (alexandrines alternating with septenary).

O, let me breathe a while, and hold thy heavy hand,
My grievous faults with Shame enough I understand.
Take ruth and pity on my plaint, or else I am forlorn;
Let not the world continue thus in laughing me to scorn.
Madam, if I be he, to whom you once were bent,
With whom to spend your time sometime you were content:
If any hope be left, if any recompense
Be able to recover this forepassed negligence,
O, help me now, poor wretch, in this most heavy plight,
And furnish me yet once again with Tediousness to fight.

(_The Marriage of Wit and Science_, V. ii., in Dodsley's _Old English Plays_, ed. Hazlitt, vol. ii. p. 386. ab. 1570.)

In this play the alexandrine is the dominant measure, though mingled with occasional septenaries still. (See Schipper, vol. i. p. 256.)

While favor fed my hope, delight with hope was brought,
Thought waited on delight, and speech did follow thought;
Then grew my tongue and pen records unto thy glory,
I thought all words were lost that were not spent of thee,
I thought each place was dark but where thy lights would be,
And all ears worse than deaf that heard not out thy story.

(SIDNEY: _Astrophel and Stella_, Fifth Song. [In stanzas _aabccb_.] ab. 1580.)

See also Sidney's sonnet in alexandrines, p. 272, below.

Of Albion's glorious isle the wonders whilst I write,
The sundry varying soils, the pleasures infinite,
(Where heat kills not the cold, nor cold expels the heat,
The calms too mildly small, nor winds too roughly great,
Nor night doth hinder day, nor day the night doth wrong,
The summer not too short, the winter not too long)
What help shall I invoke to aid my Muse the while?
Thou Genius of the place (this most renowned isle)
Which livedst long before the all-earth-drowning flood,
Whilst yet the world did swarm with her gigantic brood,
Go thou before me still thy circling shores about,
And in this wand'ring maze help to conduct me out.

(DRAYTON: _Polyolbion_, ll. 1-12. 1613.)

This is by all odds the longest Modern English poem in alexandrines, and while the verse is often agreeable, it illustrates the unfitness of the measure--to English ears--for long, continuous poems.

The dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink;
I heard a voice; it said, "Drink, pretty creature, drink!"
And looking o'er the hedge, before me I espied
A snow-white mountain-lamb with a Maiden at its side.

(WORDSWORTH: _The Pet Lamb_. 1800.)

If hunger, proverbs say, allures the wolf from wood,
Much more the bird must dare a dash at something good:
Must snatch up, bear away in beak, the trifle-treasure
To wood and wild, and then--O how enjoy at leisure!
Was never tree-built nest, you climbed and took, of bird,
(Rare city-visitant, talked of, scarce seen or heard,)
But, when you would dissect the structure, piece by piece,
You found, enwreathed amid the country-product--fleece
And feather, thistle-fluffs and bearded windlestraws--
Some shred of foreign silk, unravelling of gauze,
Bit, maybe, of brocade, mid fur and blow-bell-down:
Filched plainly from mankind, dear tribute paid by town,
Which proved how oft the bird had plucked up heart of grace,
Swooped down at waif and stray, made furtively our place
Pay tax and toll, then borne the booty to enrich
Her paradise i' the waste; the how and why of which,
That is the secret, there the mystery that stings!

(BROWNING: _Fifine at the Fair_, ix. 1872.)

Browning has made of the alexandrine in this poem an almost new measure, hardly more like the alexandrine couplet of earlier days than the measure of _Sordello_ is like the "heroic couplet" proper. In general, the modern use of the alexandrine is characterized by increased freedom in the placing of the cesura. It is also distinguished from the early French and Middle English forms by the fact that the cesura and the ending are commonly masculine.

By far the most frequent use of the alexandrine in English poetry is as a variant from the five-stress line. For instances of this, see the section on the Spenserian stanza, pp. 102-108, above, and Corson's chapters on the Spenserian stanza and its influence, in his _Primer of English Verse_. In connection with Dryden's use of the alexandrine as a variant from the heroic couplet, Mr. Saintsbury makes some interesting observations on the measure: "The metre, though a well-known English critic has maltreated it of late, is a very fine one; and some of Dryden's own lines are unmatched examples of that 'energy divine' which has been attributed to him. In an essay on the alexandrine in English poetry, which yet remains to be written, and which would be not the least valuable of contributions to poetical criticism, this use of the verse would have to be considered, as well as its regular recurrent employment at the close of the Spenserian stanza, and its continuous use.... An examination of the _Polyolbion_ and of _Fifine at the Fair_, side by side, would, I think, reveal capacities, somewhat unexpected even in this form of arrangement. But so far as the occasional alexandrine is concerned, it is not a hyperbole to say that a number, out of all proportion, of the best lines in English poetry may be found in the closing verses of the Spenserian stave as used by Spenser himself, by Shelley, and by the present Laureate, and in the occasional alexandrines of Dryden. The only thing to be said against this latter use is, that it demands a very skilful ear and hand to adjust the cadence." (_Life of Dryden_, in Men of Letters Series, pp. 172, 173.)

B.--THE SEPTENARY

The septenary, or seven-stress verse (sometimes called the _septenarius_, from the Latin form of the word) was a familiar measure of mediæval Latin poetry. There it was more commonly trochaic than iambic, as in the famous drinking song of the Goliards:

"Meum est propositum in taberna mori:
Vinum sit appositum morientis ori,
Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori,
'Deus sit propitius huic potatori!'"

(See the "Confessio Goliae," in _Latin Poems attributed to Walter Mapes_, ed. Wright, p. 71.)

Another form of the measure is illustrated by some verses quoted by Schipper:

"Fortunae rota volvitur, descendo minoratus,
Alter in altum tollitur, nimis exaltatus."

In English, naturally enough, the measure always tended to be iambic. In both Latin and English there was considerable freedom as to the number of light syllables. It will be noticed that in the specimens just quoted from the Latin there is rime not only between the ends of the verses but between the syllables just preceding the cesura. Where this was the case there was a tendency toward the breaking up of the verse into a quatrain of verses in four and three stresses, riming _abab_; such septenaries, indeed, were written at pleasure either in couplets or quatrains. We shall see the same phenomena in the English forms of the measure. But the seven-stress rhythm is not easily lost or mistaken, in whatever form it appears, and has a certain charm which at one time appealed very widely to metrical taste.

The earliest appearance of the septenary in English is in the _Poema Morale_, dated about 1170 by Zupitza, by others somewhat later. For a specimen of this, see p. 127, above. Here there is only end-rime, and the individuality of the long line is well preserved. There is some freedom, however, as to the number of light syllables, and some variation between the iambic and trochaic rhythm.

Blessed beo thu, lavedi, ful of hovene blisse,
Swete flur of parais, moder of miltenisse;
Thu praye Jhesu Crist thi sone that he me i-wisse,
Thare a londe al swo ihc beo, that he me ne i-misse.

(_Hymn to the Virgin_, in Mätzner's _Altenglische Sprachproben_, vol. i. p. 54.)

Mätzner prints this poem in short lines of four and three stresses, the cesura making such a division natural enough. The next specimen is also frequently printed with the same division.

Þiss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum, forr þi þatt Orrm itt wrohhte,
annd itt iss wrohht off quaþþrigan, off goddspellbokess fowwre,
off quaþþrigan Amminadab, off Cristess goddspellbokess;
forr Crist ma[gh][gh] þurh Amminadab rihht full wel ben bitacnedd;
forr Crist toc dæþ o rodetre all wiþþ hiss fulle wille;
annd forrþi þatt Amminadab o latin spæche iss nemmnedd
o latin boc spontaneus annd onn ennglisshe spæche
þatt weppmann, þatt summ dede doþ wiþþ all hiss fulle wille,
forþi ma[gh][gh] Crist full wel ben þurrh Amminadab bitacnedd.

(_The Ormulum_, ll. 1-9. ab. 1200.)

In this specimen we have the septenary without rime, a rare form. Orm's septenaries are also the most regular of the Middle English period, preserving an almost painful accuracy throughout the 20,000 extant lines of the poem. In general the measure appears in this period in combination with alexandrines and other measures, and with much irregularity. Like the alexandrine, it was sometimes confused with the long four-stress line. In the well-known poem called "A Little Soth Sermun" the first line is an unquestionable septenary ("Herkneth alle gode men and stylle sitteth a-dun"), but presently we find verse of six stresses, and even short four-stress couplets.

Torne we a[gh]en in tour sawes, and speke we atte frome
of erld Olyver and his felawes, þat Sarazyns habbeþ ynome.
þe Sarazyns prykaþ faste away, as harde as þay may hye,
and ledeþ wiþ hymen þat riche pray, þe flour of chyvalrye.

(_Sir Fyrumbras_, ll. 1104-1107. In Zupitza'S _Alt- und Mittelenglisches Übungsbuch_, p. 107. ab. 1380.)

In this specimen--from a popular romance--we have the use of cesural rime as well as end-rime, just as in the Latin specimens cited above.

I tell of things done long ago,
Of many things in few:
And chiefly of this clime of ours
The accidents pursue.
Thou high director of the same,
Assist mine artless pen,
To write the gests of Britons stout,
And acts of English men.

(WILLIAM WARNER: _Albion's England_, ll. 1-8. 1586.)

Here we have the measure in its "resolved" or divided form, printed as short four-stress and three-stress lines, although with rime only at the seventh stress. Compare the "common metre" of modern hymns:

"Must I be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize
And sailed through bloody seas?"

As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind,
And stars shine clear, to whose sweet beams, high prospects, and the
brows
Of all steep hills and pinnacles, thrust up themselves for shows,
And even the lowly valleys joy to glitter in their sight,
When the unmeasured firmament bursts to disclose her light,
And all the signs in heaven are seen, that glad the shepherd's heart;
So many fires disclosed their beams, made by the Trojan part,
Before the face of Ilion, and her bright turrets show'd.
A thousand courts of guard kept fires, and every guard allow'd
Fifty stout men, by whom their horse eat oats and hard white corn,
And all did wishfully expect the silver-throned morn.

(CHAPMAN: _Iliad_, book VIII. 1610.)

Chapman's translation of _Iliad_ is the longest modern English poem in septenaries. Professor Newman, however (whose translation gave rise to Matthew Arnold's lectures _On Translating Homer_), used the same measure unrimed and with feminine endings; thus,--

"He spake, and yelling, held afront the single-hoofed horses."

Arnold objected to Chapman's measure that "it has a jogging rapidity rather than a flowing rapidity, and a movement familiar rather than nobly easy."

Rejoice, oh, English hearts, rejoice! rejoice, oh, lovers dear!
Rejoice, oh, city, town and country! rejoice, eke every shire!
For now the fragrant flowers do spring and sprout in seemly sort,
The little birds do sit and sing, the lambs do make fine sport;
And now the birchen-tree doth bud, that makes the schoolboy cry;
The morris rings, while hobby-horse doth foot it feateously;
The lords and ladies now abroad, for their disport and play,
Do kiss sometimes upon the grass, and sometimes in the hay.

(BEAUMONT: _The Knight of the Burning Pestle_, IV. v. ab. 1610.)

Here the septenary is introduced in the May-day song of Ralph, the London apprentice, doubtless because of its popularity for such unliterary verse.

In somer, when the shawes be sheyne,
And leves be large and long,
Hit is full mery in feyre foreste
To here the foulys song.

(_Ballad of Robin Hood and the Monk_, in Gummere's _English Ballads_, p. 77.)

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?" ...

... He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

(COLERIDGE: _The Ancient Mariner_, ll. 1-4, 614-617. 1798.)

These specimens show the ballad stanza, which is made of a sort of septenary resolved into short lines of four and three accents. It is often assumed that the measure was derived from the Latin septenary; but owing to the difficulty of supposing that a foreign metre should have been adopted for the most popular of all forms of poetry, some scholars prefer to think that the ballad stanza of this form is the same as that in which all lines have four accents (see specimen on p. 157, above), the last accent of the second and fourth lines having dropped off by natural processes. On the ballad stanzas in general, see Gummere's _English Ballads_, Appendix II. p. 303. Compare with the present specimens the metre of Cowper's _John Gilpin_.

That cross he now was fastening there, as the surest power and best
For supplying all deficiencies, all wants of the rude nest
In which, from burning heat, or tempest driving far and wide,
The innocent boy, else shelterless, his lonely head must hide.

(WORDSWORTH: _The Norman Boy_. 1842.)

This is a rare instance of the use of the long septenary in nineteenth-century poetry. Certainly in Wordsworth's verses the metrical effect cannot be called happy; the measure is made especially clumsy by the introduction of hypermetrical light syllables. In the succeeding specimen the same measure is used with feminine ending.

O poets, from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless singing!
O Christians, at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was clinging!
O men, this man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling,
Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while ye were smiling!

(ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING: _Cowper's Grave_. 1833.)

C.--THE "POULTER'S MEASURE."

In the Elizabethan age the alexandrine and the septenary were each used chiefly in conjunction with the other, in alternation of six-stress and seven-stress verses. The name commonly applied to the combination is taken from Gascoigne's _Notes of Instruction_ (1575), where he says: "The commonest sort of verse which we use now adayes (viz. the long verse of twelve and fourtene sillables) I know not certainly howe to name it, unlesse I should say that it doth consist of Poulters measure, which giveth xii. for one dozen and xiiii. for another." (Arber's Reprint, p. 39.) It strikes the reader with surprise to find the measure thus spoken of as "the commonest sort of verse," but a glance at any of the early Elizabethan anthologies will show the justness of Gascoigne's words. Yet the measure, while exceedingly popular, seems to have been instinctively avoided by the best poets (after the days of Surrey and Sidney); hence it is unfamiliar to modern readers.

The use of alexandrines and septenaries together, we have seen, was common even in the Middle English period, but not in regular alternation. The Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester (about 1300) mingles both measures, but with alexandrines predominating. In some of the early Mystery Plays they are found in alternation; for example, where Jacob, in one of the Towneley plays, is relating his hunger to Esau:

"Meat or drink, save my life, or bread, I reck not what:
If there be nothing else, some man give me a cat."

See also the specimen from _The Marriage of Wit and Science_, p. 256, above.

Schipper says that he does not know who first brought the two measures together in alternate use for lyrical poetry. Guest says that the Poulter's Measure came into fashion soon after 1500 (_History of English Rhythms_), but gives no examples so early. The history of the measure should be further investigated.

After the Elizabethan period the Poulter's Measure practically disappears from English poetry. A curious suggestion of it may be found in a little poem of Leigh Hunt's (_Wealth and Womanhood_), cited by Schipper, who calls the verse "Poulter's Measure in trochaics":

"Have you seen an heiress in her jewels mounted,
Till her wealth and she seemed one, and she might be counted?"

Laid in my quiet bed, in study as I were,
I saw within my troubled head a heap of thoughts appear:
And every thought did show so lively in mine eyes,
That now I sighed, and then I smiled, as cause of thought doth rise.

(EARL OF SURREY: _How no Age is Content with his Own Estate_, in Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets_. Arber's Reprint, p. 30. Pub. 1557.)

Her forehead jacinth like, her cheeks of opal hue,
Her twinkling eyes bedeck'd with pearl, her lips as sapphire blue;
Her hair like crapal stone, her mouth O heavenly wide;
Her skin like burnish'd gold, her hands like silver ore untried.

(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Mopsa_, in the _Arcadia_. ab. 1580.)

IV. THE SONNET

The sonnet is an Italian verse-form, in fourteen five-stress lines, introduced into England at the time of the Italian literary influences of the sixteenth century. Almost from the first, the English sonnet has been divided into two classes: one based on more or less strict imitation of the structure of the Italian form, and variously called the Italian, the regular, or the legitimate sonnet; the other taking the Italian sonnet as the point of departure, but constructed according to more familiar English rime-schemes, and commonly called the Shaksperian or the English sonnet.

The origin of the sonnet in southern Europe is a matter of some disagreement. Some scholars trace it to the _canzone_ strophe (_e.g._ Gaspary, in his _Geschichte der Italienischen Literatur_), others to the combination of the _ottava rima_ with a six-line stanza (Welti, in his _Geschichte des Sonettes in der deutschen Dichtung_), others to Provençal and even German influence. (See Schipper, vol. ii. pp. 835 ff., and Lentzner's _Das Sonett und seine Gestaltung in der englischen Dichtung_, p. 1.) It seems first to have been a recognized form in Italy in the latter part of the thirteenth century (see Tomlinson's _The Sonnet: its Origin, Structure, and Place in Poetry_); and was made glorious by Dante, Michael Angelo, Tasso, Ariosto, and--above all--Petrarch. On the different forms of the Italian sonnet, see Tomlinson's essay, just cited.

"The object of the regular or legitimate Italian sonnet," says Mr. Tomlinson, "is to express one, and only one, idea, mood, sentiment, or proposition, and this must be introduced ... in the first quatrain, and so far explained in the second, that this may end in a full point; while the office of the first tercet is to prepare the leading idea of the quatrains for the conclusion, which conclusion is to be perfectly carried out in the second tercet, so that it may contain the fundamental idea of the poem." (pp. 27, 28.)

The Italian form is always marked by the division into octave and sestet, although English usage has been very irregular in marking this division by a full pause. The octave is based on only two rimes (_abbaabba_); the sestet on either two or three, the most common arrangements being _cdecde, cdcdcd, cdedce_, and _cddcee_.

With regard to the pause at the point of division Lentzner says: "It should not be a full pause, because this would produce the effect of a gap or breaking-off, ...--not like the speaker who has reached the end of what he has to say, but like one who reflects on what has already been said, and then takes fresh breath to complete his theme."[35]

Most critics prefer those forms of sestet which avoid a final riming couplet. This Mr. Courthope explains as follows: "The reason for the avoidance of the couplet in the second portion of the sonnet is, I think, plain. In the first eight lines the thought ascends to a climax; this part of the sonnet may be said to contain the premises of the poetical syllogism. In the last six lines the idea descends to a conclusion, and as the two divisions are of unequal length it is necessary that the lesser should be the more individualised. Hence while, in the first part, the expression of the thought is massed and condensed by reduplications of sound, and the general movement is limited by quatrains; in the second part the clauses are separated by the alternation of the rhymes, the movement is measured by tercets, and the whole weight of the rhetorical emphasis is thrown into the last line." (_History of English Poetry_, vol. ii. p. 91.)

The sonnet has remained, since its introduction into English poetry, a favorite form among poets and critics, but has never become genuinely popular. It is suited, of course, only for the expression of dignified and careful thinking; and the difficulty of giving it unity and confining the content to the precise limit of fourteen lines has made perfect success in the form a rare attainment. Furthermore, the complexity of the rime-scheme--the distance at which one rime responds to another--makes the appreciation of the form a matter of some delicacy, less suited to the prevailingly simple taste of the English ear than to the more complex taste of the Italian.

The following specimens are classified only in the two principal groups of the Italian and the English form. The common test of the Italian form is that the rime-scheme shall separate the first eight lines from the rest, these eight lines ordinarily showing "inclusive rime" of the _abba_ type; the test of the English form is that the rime-scheme shall separate the first twelve lines from the last two, the twelve lines ordinarily showing alternate rime.

Schipper groups English sonnets in five classes: (1) the strict Italian form, with pause between octave and sestet; (2) the Surrey-Shakspere or English form; (3) the Spenserian form; (4) the Miltonic form, with correct rime-arrangement but general neglect of the bipartite structure; (5) the modern Italian or Wordsworthian form, following the regular rime-scheme in general, but often with a third or even a fourth rime in the octave, and treated as a single strophe. (_Englische Metrik_, vol. ii. p. 878.)[36]

A.--THE REGULAR (ITALIAN) SONNET

In this group the student of the subject should note the detailed variations of the rime-scheme of the sestet, and the varying practice of the poets as to the division between octave and sestet.

In view of the connection of Petrarch's sonnets with Wyatt's introduction of the form into England, the first of them is reproduced as a typical specimen of the strict Italian form.

Voi ch' ascoltate in rime sparse il suono
Di quei sospiri ond' io nudriva 'l core
In su 'l mio primo giovenile errore,
Quand' era in parte altr' uom da quel ch' i' sono,
Del vario stile, in ch' io piango e ragiono
Fra le vane speranze e 'l van dolore,
Ove sia chi per prova intenda amore
Spero trovar pietà, non che perdono.
Ma ben veggi' or sí come al popol tutto
Favola fui gran tempo, onde sovente
Di me medesmo meco mi vergogno;
E del mio vaneggiar vergogna è 'l frutto,
E 'l pentirsi, e 'l conoscer chiaramente
Che quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno.

(PETRARCA: _Sonetto_ i.)

The longe love that in my thought I harber,
And in my heart doth kepe his residence,
Into my face preaseth with bold pretence,
And there campeth, displaying his banner.
She that me learns to love, and to suffer,
And willes that my trust, and lustes negligence
Be reined by reason, shame, and reverence,
With his hardinesse takes displeasure.
Wherwith love to the hartes forest he fleeth,
Leavyng his enterprise with paine and crye,
And there him hideth and not appeareth.
What may I do? when my maister feareth,
But in the field with him to live and dye,
For good is the life, endyng faithfully.

(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _The lover hideth his desire_, etc., in Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets_, p. 33. pub. 1557.)

It was Wyatt who introduced the sonnet into England. Thirty-one of his sonnets were published in Tottel's Miscellany, of which about a third are said to be translations or paraphrases of Petrarch's. Wyatt followed, of course, the regular Italian structure, but used unhesitatingly the form of sestet with the concluding couplet (_cddcee_). On this point Mr. Courthope says: "Wyatt was evidently unaware of the secret principle underlying the extremely complex structure of the Italian sonnet; ... and being unfortunately misled by his admiration for the _Strambotti_ of Serafino, which sum up the conclusion in a couplet, he endeavored to construct his sonnets on the same principle, thereby leading all sonnet writers before Milton on a wrong path." (_History of English Poetry_, vol. ii. p. 91.)

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,--
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,--
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe;
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burn'd brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay;
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows,
And others' feet still seem'd but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,--
'Fool,' said my Muse to me, 'Look in thy heart, and write.'

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

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What, may it be that e'en in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries!
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case,
I read it in thy looks; thy languish'd grace,
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, e'en of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue, there, ungratefulness?

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

Sidney's favorite form for the sonnet sestet was that shown in these specimens (_cdcdee_), a form that suggests the influence of the Surrey or English sonnet rather than the Italian. The first of the sonnets is of course exceptional in being written in alexandrines, but is among the finest in the sequence. See also Sidney's sonnet of the English type, p. 291, below.

The _Astrophel and Stella_ (containing 110 sonnets) is the earliest of the great sonnet-sequences or sonnet-cycles of English poetry, those of Spenser, Shakspere, Rossetti, and Mrs. Browning being later representatives. In the Elizabethan age the fashion of writing sonnets, and sonnet-sequences in particular, was at its height, especially in the last decade of the century (1590-1600). On this subject, see the Introduction to Professor Schelling's _Elizabethan Lyrics_, in the Athenæum Press Series, and Mr. Sidney Lee's _Life of Shakspere_. Other noteworthy sonnet-sequences besides those of Sidney, Spenser, and Shakspere were Constable's _Diana_, Daniel's _Delia_, Lodge's _Phyllis_, Watson's _Tears of Fancy_, Barnes's _Parthenophil_, Giles Fletcher's _Lycia_, and Drayton's _Idea_,--all published in the years 1592-1594. A now forgotten poet by the name of Lok produced more than four hundred sonnets, proving himself an Elizabethan rival to Wordsworth.

I know that all beneath the moon decays,
And what by mortals in this world is brought
In time's great periods shall return to naught;
That fairest states have fatal nights and days.
I know how all the Muse's heavenly lays,
With toil of spirit which are so dearly bought,
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought;
And that naught lighter is than airy praise.
I know frail beauty like the purple flower,
To which one morn oft birth and death affords;
That love a jarring is of minds' accords,
Where sense and will invassall reason's power.
Know what I list, this all can not me move,
But that, O me! I both must write and love.

(WILLIAM DRUMMOND of Hawthornden: _Sense of the Fragility of All Things_, etc. 1616.)

Drummond was a sonneteer of great skill, and used many original combinations of rime-schemes,--some forty in all,--yet usually approximating to the Italian type. Leigh Hunt says: "Drummond's sonnets, for the most part, are not only of the legitimate order, but they are the earliest in the language that breathe what may be called the habit of mind observable in the best Italian writers of sonnets; that is to say, a mixture of tenderness, elegance, love of country, seclusion, and conscious sweetness of verse." (Essay on the Sonnet, in _The Book of the Sonnet_, vol. i. pp. 78, 79.)

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure: then from thee much more must flow;
And soonest our best men do with thee go--
Rest of their bones, and souls' delivery.
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die.

(JOHN DONNE: _Holy Sonnets_, X. 1635.)

Donne's series of "Holy Sonnets" was one of the few Elizabethan sequences, or cycles, which dealt with other than amatory subjects. The seven sonnets of the series called _La Corona_ are bound together into a "crown of sonnets,"--an Italian fashion, according to which the first line of each sonnet is the same as the last of the sonnet preceding, and the last line of the last sonnet the same as the first line of the first.

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,--
Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?
I fondly ask:--But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: God doth not need
Either man's work, or His own gifts; who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:--
They also serve who only stand and wait.

(MILTON: _On his Blindness_. ab. 1655.)

Milton learned the sonnet direct from the Italian, and wrote five in that language. While following the Italian rime-schemes, however, he was not careful to observe any division between octave and sestet. Like Donne, he turned the sonnet to other subjects than that of love, or--in Landor's words--

"He caught the sonnet from the dainty hand
Of Love, who cried to lose it, and he gave
The notes to Glory."

(_To Lamartine._)

Compare, also, Wordsworth's saying that in Milton's hand

"The Thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains--alas, too few!"

Besides the eighteen English sonnets in regular form, Milton wrote a "tailed," or "caudated," sonnet, following an Italian fashion,--"On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament." "He intended it," says Masson, "to be what may be called an Anti-Presbyterian and Pro-Toleration Sonnet; but by going beyond fourteen lines, converted it into what the Italians called a 'sonnet with a tail.'" (Globe ed., p. 440.) The "tail" rimes _cfffgg_.

Deem not devoid of elegance the sage,
By Fancy's genuine feelings unbeguiled,
Of painful pedantry the poring child,
Who turns, of these proud domes, th' historic page,
Now sunk by Time, and Henry's fiercer rage.
Think'st thou the warbling Muses never smiled
On his lone hours? Ingenuous views engage
His thoughts, on themes, unclassic falsely styled,
Intent. While cloistered Piety displays
Her mouldering roll, the piercing eye explores
New manners, and the pomp of elder days,
Whence culls the pensive bard his pictured stores.
Nor rough nor barren are the winding ways
Of hoar Antiquity, but strown with flowers.

(THOMAS WARTON: _In a Blank Leaf of Dugdale's 'Monasticon.'_ ab. 1775.)

After Milton, the sonnet fell into disuse for a century. "Walsh," says Mr. Gosse, "is the author of the only sonnet written in English between Milton's, in 1658, and Warton's, about 1750." (Ward's _English Poets_, vol. iii. p. 7.) See, however, that of Gray on West, written in 1742, quoted p. 295, below. To the Warton brothers, pioneers in so many ways of the romantic revival, chief credit is given for the revival of the sonnet in the eighteenth century. Other sonneteers of the period were William Mason, Thomas Edwards, Benjamin Stillingfleet, and Thomas Russell (see Seccombe's _Age of Johnson_, pp. 254, 255, and Beers's _English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century_, pp. 160, 161).

O Time! who know'st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence
(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)
The faint pang stealest, unperceived, away;
On thee I rest my only hope at last,
And think when thou hast dried the bitter tear
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear,
I may look back on every sorrow past,
And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile.
As some lone bird, at day's departing hour,
Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower
Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while:
Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure
Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!

(WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES: _To Time_. 1789.)

Bowles (1762-1850) wrote numerous sonnets, and was influential in carrying on the movement begun by the Wartons. His sonnets were admired, in particular, by Coleridge and Wordsworth, the former poet dedicating to him a sonnet beginning:

"My heart has thanked thee, Bowles! for those soft strains
Whose sadness soothes me."

His sonnets were, however, neglectful of the regular Italian structure, so that under his influence, as Leigh Hunt observed, "the illegitimate order ... became such a favorite with lovers of easy writing who could string fourteen lines together, that ... it continued to fill the press with heaps of bad verses, till the genius of Wordsworth succeeded in restoring the right system." (_Essay on the Sonnet_, p. 85.) But see the notes on Wordsworth's sonnets, p. 280, below.

Mary! I want a lyre with other strings,
Such aid from Heaven as some have feigned they drew,
An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new
And undebased by praise of meaner things,
That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings,
I may record thy worth with honor due,
In verse as musical as thou art true,
And that immortalizes whom it sings.
But thou hast little need. There is a book
By Seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
On which the eyes of God not rarely look,
A chronicle of actions just and bright:
There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine,
And, since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.

(COWPER: _To Mrs. Unwin_. 1793.)

Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;
And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest peak of Furness Fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells.
In truth the prison unto which we doom
Ourselves no prison is; and hence to me,
In sundry moods, 'twas pastime to be bound
Within the sonnet's scanty plot of ground,
Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

(WORDSWORTH: _The Sonnet_. 1806.)

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honors; with this key
Shakspere unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet, whence he blew
Soul-animating strains--alas, too few!

(WORDSWORTH: _Scorn not the Sonnet_. 1827.)

The World is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,--
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

(WORDSWORTH: _The World is too much with us_. 1806.)

Wordsworth's complaint as to the number of Milton's sonnets ("alas, too few!") certainly cannot be applied to his own. They number about five hundred, ranking him as the most prolific English sonneteer. These include some of the finest sonnets in the language, and very many of admittedly indifferent quality. Mr. Swinburne regards his sonnets as on the whole "the best out of sight" in our poetry. In general he followed the Italian model, but with very great liberty. He not only practised great variety of rime-arrangement in the sestet, but frequently altered the scheme of the octave to such forms as _abbaacca_; see, for example, the specimen beginning "Scorn not the Sonnet." Wordsworth also showed no regard for the careful division of thought between octave and sestet. Indeed in a letter to Dyce, in 1833, he said that he regarded the sonnet not as a piece of architecture, but as "an orbicular body,--a sphere or a dew-drop." (_Works_, ed. Knight, vol. xi. p. 232.) Its excellence seemed to him to consist mainly in a "pervading sense of intense unity." Nevertheless, he admitted that "a sonnet will often be found excellent, where the beginning, the middle, and the end are distinctly marked, and also where it is distinctly separated into _two_ parts, to which, as I before observed, the strict Italian model, as they write it, is favorable."