English Verse Part 17

_ababb_

Survival of the fittest, adaptation, And all their other evolution terms, Seem to omit one small consideration, To wit, that tumblebugs and angleworms Have souls: there's soul in everything that squirms.

(WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY: _The Menagerie._ 1901.)

_aabbb_

Mary mine that art Mary's Rose, Come in to me from the garden-close.

The sun sinks fast with the rising dew, And we marked not how the faint moon grew; But the hidden stars are calling you.

(ROSSETTI: _Rose Mary._ 1881.)

_aabcdd_

Hail seint michel, with the lange sper!

Fair beth thi winges: up thi scholder Thou hast a rede kirtil a non to thi fote.

Thou ert best angle that ever G.o.d makid.

This vers is ful wel i-wrog?t; Hit is of wel furre y-brog?t.

(_Satire on the People of Kildare_, from Harleian Ms. 913, in Guest's _English Rhythms_, Skeat ed., p. 616.)

_aaaabb_

What beauty would have lovely styled, What manners pretty, nature mild, What wonder perfect, all were filed Upon record in this blest child.

And till the coming of the soul To fetch the flesh, we keep the roll.

(BEN JONSON: _Epitaph; Underwoods, liii._ 1616.)

_ababab_

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies: And all that's best of dark or bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

(BYRON: _She Walks in Beauty._ 1815.)

_ababcc_

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

(WORDSWORTH: _I wandered lonely as a cloud._ 1804.)

O, how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow!

Her eyes seen in her tears, tears in her eye; Both crystals, where they view'd each other's sorrow,-- Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry; But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain, Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.

(SHAKSPERE: _Venus and Adonis_, st. 161. 1593.)

_ababbcc_ ("_Rime royal_")

Humblest of herte, hyest of reverence, Benigne flour, coroune of vertues alle, Sheweth unto your rial excellence Your servaunt, if I durste me so calle, His mortal harm, in which he is y-falle, And noght al only for his evel fare, But for your renoun, as he shal declare.

(CHAUCER: _Compleynte unto Pite._ ab. 1370.)

And on the smale grene twistis sat The lytil suete nyghtingale, and song So loud and clere, the ympnis consecrat Of luvis use, now soft now lowd among, That all the gardynis and the wallis rong Ryght of thaire song, and on the copill next Of thaire suete armony, and lo the text.

(JAMES I. of Scotland: _The King's Quhair_, st. 33. ab. 1425.)

For men have marble, women waxen, minds, And therefore are they form'd as marble will; The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill: Then call them not the authors of their ill, No more than wax shall be accounted evil, Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil.

(SHAKSPERE: _The Rape of Lucrece_, st. 178. 1594.)

In a far country that I cannot name, And on a year long ages past away, A King there dwelt in rest and ease and fame, And richer than the Emperor is to-day: The very thought of what this man might say From dusk to dawn kept many a lord awake, For fear of him did many a great man quake.

(WILLIAM MORRIS: _The Earthly Paradise; The Proud King._ 1868.)

The "rime royal" stanza is one of Chaucer's contributions to English verse, and about 14,000 lines of his poetry are in this form. Its use by King James in the _King's Quhair_ was formerly thought to be the source of the name; but it seems more likely that the name, like the form, was of French origin, and is to be connected with such terms as _chant royal_ and _ballat royal_, familiar in the nomenclature of courtly poetry (see Schipper, vol. i. p. 426). The stanza was used by Chaucer with marvellous skill for purposes of continuous narrative, and was a general favorite among his imitators in the fifteenth century, being used by Lydgate, Occleve, Hawes, Dunbar, then by Skelton, and by Barclay in the _s.h.i.+p of Fooles_. It appears popular as late as the time of Sackville's part of the _Mirror for Magistrates_ (1563).[9] Later than Shakspere's _Rape of Lucrece_ it is rarely found. (But see Milton's unfinished poem on _The Pa.s.sion_, where he used a form of the rime royal with concluding alexandrine.)

Strictly speaking, the "rime royal" is always in five-stress verse, but in the following specimen the same rime-scheme appears in the irregular six-or-seven-stress verse of one of the Mysteries.

The story sheweth further, that, after man was blyste, The Lord did create woman owte of a ribbe of man, Which woman was deceyvyd with the Serpentes darkned myste; By whose synn ower nature is so weake no good we can; Wherfor they were dejectyd and caste from thence than Unto dolloure and myseri and to traveyle and payne, Untyll G.o.des spryght renuid; and so we ende certayne.

(Prologue to Norwich Whitsun Play of the Creation and Fall. In Manly's _Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama_, vol. i p. 5.)

_ababcca_

Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!

Let me sit all the day here, that when eve Shall find performed thy special ministry, And time come for departure, thou, suspending Thy flight, may'st see another child for tending, Another still, to quiet and retrieve.

(BROWNING: _The Guardian Angel._ 1855.)

_ababccb_

The City is of Night; perchance of Death, But certainly of Night; for never there Can come the lucid morning's fragrant breath After the dewy dawning's cold grey air; The moon and stars may s.h.i.+ne with scorn or pity; The sun has never visited that city, For it dissolveth in the daylight fair.

(JAMES THOMSON: _The City of Dreadful Night._ 1874.)

_abababab_

Trew king, that sittes in trone, Unto the I tell my tale, And unto the I bid a bone, For thou ert bute of all my bale: Als thou made midelerd and the mone, And bestes and fowles grete and smale.

Unto me send thi socore sone, And dresce my dedes in this dale.

(LAURENCE MINOT: _Battle of Halidon Hill._ 1352.)