English Verse Part 14

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

Let the bird of loudest lay, On the sole Arabian tree, Herald sad and trumpet be, To whose sound chaste wings obey.

(SHAKSPERE: _The Phnix and the Turtle_, 1601.)

Though beauty be the mark of praise, And yours of whom I sing, be such As not the world can praise too much, Yet is't your virtue now I raise.

(BEN JONSON: _Elegy_, in _Underwoods_. 1616.)

Lord, in thine anger do not reprehend me, Nor in thy hot displeasure me correct; Pity me, Lord, for I am much deject, And very weak and faint; heal and amend me.

(MILTON: _Psalm vi._ 1653.)

Away, those cloudy looks, that lab'ring sigh, The peevish offspring of a sickly hour!

Nor meanly thus complain of fortune's power, When the blind gamester throws a luckless die.

(COLERIDGE: _To a Friend._ ab. 1795.)

Twelve struck. That sound, by dwindling years Heard in each hour, crept off; and then The ruffled silence spread again, Like water that a pebble stirs.

(ROSSETTI: _My Sister's Sleep._ 1850.)

I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

(TENNYSON: _In Memoriam_, xxvii. 1850.)

Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, That rollest from the gorgeous gloom Of evening over brake and bloom And meadow, slowly breathing bare

The round of s.p.a.ce, and rapt below Thro' all the dewy-ta.s.selled wood, And shadowing down the horned flood In ripples, fan my brows and blow

The fever from my cheek, and sigh The full new life that feeds thy breath Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, Ill brethren, let the fancy fly

From belt to belt of crimson seas On leagues of odor streaming far, To where in yonder orient star A hundred spirits whisper "Peace."

(TENNYSON: _ibid._, lx.x.xiv.)

This stanza (_abba_ in four-stress iambics) is commonly known as the "_In Memoriam_ stanza," from its familiar use by Tennyson. Tennyson is indeed said to have invented it for his own use, not knowing of its earlier appearance in the works of Jonson and Rossetti. Professor Corson has an interesting pa.s.sage on the poetic quality of the stanza: "By the rhyme-scheme of the quatrain, the terminal rhyme-emphasis of the stanza is reduced, the second and third verses being most closely braced by the rhyme. The stanza is thus admirably adapted to that sweet continuity of flow, free from abrupt checks, demanded by the spiritualized sorrow which it bears along. Alternate rhyme would have wrought an entire change in the tone of the poem. To be a.s.sured of this, one should read, aloud of course, all the stanzas whose first and second, or third and fourth, verses admit of being transposed without affecting the sense. By such transposition, the rhymes are made alternate, and the concluding rhymes more emphatic." Compare the stanza quoted above from section xxvii. with the transposed form:

"I feel it when I sorrow most; I hold it true, whate'er befall; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all."

On the pa.s.sage quoted from section lx.x.xiv. Professor Corson also observes: "The four stanzas of which it is composed const.i.tute but one period, the sense being suspended till the close. The rhyme-emphasis is so distributed that any one, hearing the poem read, would hardly be sensible of any of the slightest checks in the continuous and even movement of the verse.... There is no other section of _In Memoriam_ in which the artistic motive of the stanza is so evident." (_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 70-77.)

_aaba_

Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes entendeth, Which now my breast, surcharg'd, to music lendeth!

To you, to you, all song of praise is due, Only in you my song begins and endeth.

(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Astrophel and Stella._ Song i, ab. 1580.)

Here the third line (the same in all the stanzas) has an additional internal rime.

Oh, make the most of what we yet may spend, Before we too into the dust descend; Dust into dust, and under dust, to lie, Sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and--sans end!

(EDW. FITZGERALD: _Paraphrase of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam._ 1859.)

For groves of pine on either hand, To break the blast of winter, stand; And further on, the h.o.a.ry Channel Tumbles a billow on chalk and sand.

(Tennyson: _To the Rev. F. D. Maurice._ 1854.)

This delightful stanza (used also by Tennyson in _The Daisy_) seems to be an imitation of the well-known Alcaic stanza of Horace:

"Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte, nec jam sustineant onus Silvae laborantes, geluque Flumina const.i.terint acuto."

Ah, yet would G.o.d this flesh of mine might be Where air would wash and long leaves cover me, Where tides of gra.s.s break into foam of flowers, Or where the wind's feet s.h.i.+ne along the sea.

(SWINBURNE: _Laus Veneris._)

REFRAIN STANZAS

In this group of refrain stanzas there is no attempt to make the range of ill.u.s.trations complete, but only to suggest how the refrain idea has been variously used in forming the structure of the stanza. In some cases, for example, it will be seen that the refrain is a mere appendage or _coda_ to the stanza; in others it is made by rime a part of the organized structure.

Blow, northerne wynd, Sent ou my suetyng!

Blow, norern wynd, Blou! blou! blou!

(Song from Harleian Ms. 2253; Boddeker's _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p.

168.)

I that in heill wes and glaidness, Am trublit now with gret seikness, And feblit with infirmitie; _Timor Mortis conturbat me._

(WILLIAM DUNBAR: _Lament for the Makaris._ ab. 1500.)

Now Simmer blinks on flowery braes, And o'er the crystal streamlets plays; Come, let us spend the lightsome days In the birks of Aberfeldy.

(BURNS: _The Birks of Aberfeldy._ 1787.)

I wish I were where Helen lies; Night and day on me she cries; O that I were where Helen lies On fair Kirconnell lea!

(_Fair Helen_; old ballad.)

O sing unto my roundelay, O drop the briny tear with me, Dance no more at holy-day, Like a running river be.

My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow tree.

(CHATTERTON: Minstrel's Roundelay from _aella_. ab. 1770.)

The twentieth year is well-nigh past, Since first our sky was overcast; Ah, would that this might be the last!

My Mary!