English Verse Part 42

Rossetti called this sonnet "perhaps the best in the language."

Drayton's sonnet-sequence, the _Idea_, follows the Shaksperian form; and the present specimen ill.u.s.trates how the important division of this type of sonnet is between the quatrains and the final couplet.

One day I wrote her name upon the strand; But came the waves and washed it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide and made my pains his prey.

Vain man! said she, that dost in vain essay A mortal thing so to immortalize; For I myself shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wiped out likewise.

Not so (quoth I); let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame; My verse your virtues rare shall eternize, And in the heavens write your glorious name,-- Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue, Our love shall live, and later life renew.

(SPENSER: _Amoretti_, lxxv. 1595.)

The sonnets in Spenser's collected poems number 177, of which fifty-six are in the common English (Surrey) form, the remainder--like the present specimen--riming _ababbcbccdcdee_. This order of rimes reminds us of that in the Spenserian stanza, and must have been devised by Spenser at about the same time. It has never been adopted by other poets.

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate; Wis.h.i.+ng me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possest, Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee--and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

(SHAKSPERE: _Sonnet_ xxix. 1609.)

That time of year thou may'st in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang: In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest: In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expire, Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by: --This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

(SHAKSPERE: _Sonnet_ lxxiii. 1609.)

These two specimens, perhaps the favorites of as many readers as any which could be chosen, must serve to represent the sonnets of Shakspere.

The whole number of these is 154, and all are in the English form.

Slight irregularities in the rime-scheme will be found in about fifteen.

Number 99 has fifteen lines and 126 (sometimes called the Epilogue to the first part of the series) has only twelve. Number 20 is wholly based on feminine rimes.[38]

Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round!

Parents first season us; then schoolmasters Deliver us to laws; they send us bound To rules of reason, holy messengers, Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow d.o.g.g.i.ng sin, Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes, Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in, Bibles laid open, millions of surprises, Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness, The sound of glory ringing in our ears; Without, our shame; within, our consciences; Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears.

Yet all these fences and their whole array One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away.

(GEORGE HERBERT: _Sin_. 1631.)

In vain to me the smiling mornings s.h.i.+ne, And reddening Phbus lifts his golden fire; The birds in vain their amorous descant join, Or cheerful fields resume their green attire.

These ears, alas! for other notes repine, A different object do these eyes require; My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine, And in my breast the imperfect joys expire.

Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer, And new-born pleasure brings to happier men; The fields to all their wonted tribute bear; To warm their little loves the birds complain; I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear, And weep the more because I weep in vain.

(GRAY: _On the Death of Richard West_. 1742.)

On the place of this sonnet in the eighteenth century, see p. 277, above.

Oh it is pleasant, with a heart at ease, Just after sunset, or by moonlight skies, To make the s.h.i.+fting clouds be what you please, Or let the easily-persuaded eyes Own each quaint likeness issuing from the mould Of a friend's fancy; or, with head bent low And cheek aslant, see rivers flow of gold 'Twixt crimson bank; and then, a traveler, go From mount to mount through Cloudland, gorgeous land!

Or listening to the tide, with closed sight, Be that blind bard who, on the Chian strand By those deep sounds possessed with inward light, Beheld the Iliad and the Odyssee Rise to the swelling of the voiceful sea.

(COLERIDGE: _Fancy in Nubibus_. 1819.)

The sonnets of Coleridge, as has already been noted, were written under the influence of those of Bowles, and are not of the Italian type. He defined the sonnet as "a short poem in which some lonely feeling is developed," thus emphasizing, like Wordsworth, the idea of unity rather than of progressive structure.

Darkly, as by some gloomed mirror gla.s.sed, Herein at times the brooding eye beholds The great scarred visage of the pompous Past, But oftener only the embroidered folds And soiled regality of his rent robe, Whose tattered skirts are ruined dynasties And c.u.mber with their trailing pride the globe, And sweep the dusty ages in our eyes; Till the world seems a world of husks and bones Where sightless Seers and Immortals dead, Kings that remember not their awful thrones, Invincible armies long since vanquished, And powerless potentates and foolish sages Lie 'mid the crumbling of the mossy ages.

(WILLIAM WATSON: _History_.)

FOOTNOTES:

[35] It will perhaps be found of interest to reproduce the "Ten Commandments of the Sonnet" given by Mr. Sharp in his Introduction to _Sonnets of this Century_ (p. lxxviii):

"1. The sonnet must consist of fourteen decasyllabic lines.

"2. Its octave, or major system, whether or not this be marked by a pause in the cadence after the eighth line, must (unless cast in the Shakespearian mould) follow a prescribed arrangement in the rhyme-sounds--namely, the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth lines must rhyme on the same sound, and the second, third, sixth, and seventh on another.

"3. Its sestet, or minor system, may be arranged with more freedom, but a rhymed couplet at the close is only allowable when the form is the English or Shakespearian.

"4. No terminal should also occur in any other portion of any other line in the same system; and the rhyme-sounds (1) of the octave should be harmoniously at variance, and (2) the rhyme-sounds of the sestet should be entirely distinct in intonation from those of the octave....

"5. It must have no slovenliness of diction, no weak or indeterminate terminations, no vagueness of conception, and no obscurity.

"6. It must be absolutely complete in itself--_i.e._, it must be the evolution of one thought, or one emotion, or one poetically apprehended fact.

"7. It should have the characteristic of apparent inevitableness, and in expression be ample, yet reticent....

"8. The continuity of the thought, idea, or emotion must be unbroken throughout.

"9. Continuous sonority must be maintained from the first phrase to the last.

"10. The end must be more impressive than the commencement."

These rules of course represent the ideal of the strictest Italian form, and are by no means derived from the prevailing practice of English poets.

[36] On the structure and history of the sonnet, see Schipper, as cited above; C. Tomlinson: _The Sonnet, its Origin, Structure, and Place in Poetry_ (1874); K. Lentzner: _Ueber das Sonett und seine Gestaltung in der englischen Dichtung bis Milton_ (1886); Leigh Hunt and S. A. Lee: _The Book of the Sonnet_ (with introductory essay, 1867); W. Sharp: _Sonnets of This Century_ (with essay, 1886); S. Waddington: _English Sonnets by Poets of the Past_, and _English Sonnets by Living Poets_; Hall Caine: _Sonnets of Three Centuries_ (1882); H. Corson: _Primer of English Verse_, chap. x.

[37] In 1575, when Gascoigne wrote his _Notes of Instruction_, he found it necessary to say: "Some thinke that all Poemes (being short) may be called Sonets, as in deede it is a diminutive worde derived of _Sonare_, but yet I can beste allowe to call those Sonnets whiche are of fouretene lynes, every line conteyning tenne syllables. The firste twelve do ryme in staves of foure lines by crosse meetre, and the last two ryming togither do conclude the whole." (Arber's Reprint, pp. 38, 39.) It is, of course, the English sonnet which Gascoigne thus describes.

[38] Shakspere also introduced sonnets into some of his earlier plays: _Love's Labor's Lost_, _All's Well that Ends Well_, _Romeo and Juliet_, and _Henry V._ See Fleay's _Chronicle of the English Drama_, vol. ii. p.

224, and Sch.e.l.ling's _Elizabethan Lyrics_, p. x.x.x.

V. THE ODE

The term Ode is used of English poetry with considerable vagueness. The Century Dictionary defines the word thus: "A lyric poem expressive of exalted or enthusiastic emotion, especially one of complex or irregular metrical form; originally and strictly, such a composition intended to be sung." Compare with this the definition of Mr. Gosse, in his collection of _English Odes_: "Any strain of enthusiastic and exalted lyrical verse, directed to a fixed purpose, and dealing progressively with one dignified theme."

Viewed from the purely metrical standpoint, English odes are commonly either (_a_) regular Pindaric odes, imitative of the structure of the Greek ode, or (_b_) irregular, so-called "Pindaric" or "Cowleyan" odes.

A third group may be made of forms based on the imitation of the choral odes of the Greek drama. There is also a cla.s.s of odes called "Horatian," made up of simple lyrical stanzas; the name "ode" is applied here only because of the content of the poem or because of resemblance to the so-called odes (properly _carmina_ or songs) of Horace, and since these Horatian odes show no metrical peculiarities they will not be represented here.[39]

The characteristic effect of the ode is produced by the varying lengths of lines employed, and the varying distances at which the rimes answer one another. This variety, in the hands of a master of verse, is capable of splendid effectiveness, but it gives dangerous license to the unskilled writer.

A.--REGULAR PINDARIC

III.^{1} _The Strophe, or Turn_