English Verse Part 49

(_In Quant.i.ty: Hexameters and Pentameters_.)

Compare the amusing lines of Walter Savage Landor:

"Askest thou if in my youth I have mounted, as others have mounted, Galloping Hexameter, Pentameter cantering after, English by dam and by sire; bit, bridle, and saddlery, English; English the girths and the shoes; all English from snaffle to crupper; Everything English about, excepting the tune of the jockey?....

Seldom my goosequill, of goose from Germany, fatted in England, (Frolicsome though I have been) have I tried on Hexameter, knowing Latin and Greek are alone its languages. We have a measure Fas.h.i.+oned by Milton's own hand, a fuller, a deeper, a louder.

.... Peace be with all! but afar be ambition to follow the Roman, Led by the German uncombed and jigging in dactyl and spondee, Lumbering shapeless jackboots which nothing can polish or supple.

Much as old metres delight me, 'tis only where first they were nurtured, In their own clime, their own speech: than pamper them here, I would rather Tie up my Pegasus tight to the scanty-fed rack of a sonnet."

(_English Hexameters_, in _The Last Fruit off an Old Tree_.)

In like manner Mr. Swinburne says: "I must say how inexplicable it seems to me that Mr. Arnold, of all men, should be a patron of English hexameters. His own I have tried in vain to reduce by scansion into any metrical feet at all; they look like nothing on earth, and sound like anapests broken up and driven wrong.... And at best what ugly b.a.s.t.a.r.ds of verse are these self-styled hexameters! how human tongues or hands could utter or could write them except by way of burlesque improvisation I could never imagine, and never shall." (_Essays and Studies_, p. 163.) From this condemnation Mr. Swinburne excepts only the hexameters of Dr.

Hawtrey, "but that is simply a graceful interlude of pastime."

See also the essay called "Remarks on English Hexameters," in the _Horae h.e.l.lenicae_ of Professor John Stuart Blackie.

Hovering over the water he came, upon glittering pinions, Living, a wonder, outgrown from the tight-laced fold of his sandals; Bounding from billow to billow, and sweeping the crests like a sea-gull; Leaping the gulfs of the surge, as he laughed in the joy of his leaping.

Fair and majestic he sprang to the rock; and the maiden in wonder Gazed for a while, and then hid in the dark-rolling wave of her tresses, Fearful, the light of her eyes; while the boy (for her sorrow had awed him) Blushed at her blushes, and vanished, like mist on the cliffs at the sunrise.

Fearful at length she looked forth: he was gone: she, wild with amazement, Wailed for her mother aloud: but the wail of the wind only answered.

(CHARLES KINGSLEY: _Andromeda_. 1858.)

Kingsley believed in the possibility of representing the quant.i.tative verse of cla.s.sical poetry in English, and at the same time holding to genuinely English rhythm.[46] Thus he tried to introduce more real spondees into his hexameters than Longfellow and others had done.

Compare such a line as Longfellow's--

"Man is unjust, but G.o.d is just; and finally justice"--

with Kingsley's--

"Then as a pine upon Ida when south-west winds blow landward."

In the former the dissyllabic feet are in no sense spondees; in the latter there is an effort to fill them with genuinely long syllables.

Lover whose vehement kisses on lips irresponsive are squandered, Lover that wooest in vain Earth's imperturbable heart; Athlete mightily frustrate, who pittest thy thews against legions, Locked with fantastical hosts, bodiless arms of the sky; Sea that breakest for ever, that breakest and never art broken, Like unto thine, from of old, springeth the spirit of man,-- Nature's wooer and fighter, whose years are a suit and a wrestling, All their hours, from his birth, hot with desire and with fray.

(WILLIAM WATSON: _Hymn to the Sea_, ii.)

Here the alternate lines represent the "pentameter" of the Latin elegiac verse, where the light syllables were omitted at the cesura and the end of the line.

When they came to the fair-flowing river and to the places Where stood pools in plenty prepared, and water abundant Gushed up, a cure for things manifold uncleanly, the mules were Unyoked from the waggons, driven off to the bindweed pastures By the rus.h.i.+ng swirling river, and the women set about it Unloading the waggons, carrying clothes down to the water, One with other striving, stepping hastily into the wash-troughs.

When was.h.i.+ng and rinsing were done, they brought the linen down On to the sea-sh.o.r.e, and set it all out thereupon in rows Where the pebbles thrown up by the waves most thickly abounded.

(WILLIAM JOHNSON STONE: Translation of _Odyssey_, vi. 85 ff., in _The Use of Cla.s.sical Measures in English_. 1899.)

Mr. Stone, like the Elizabethan cla.s.sical versifiers, seeks to write purely quant.i.tative verse in English, and, so far from aiming at the same time to preserve the rhythm of the usual English hexameter, he regards the clash between accent and quant.i.ty as a beauty rather than a defect. The verses he intends to be read "with the natural accent unimpaired," the reader listening for the regular quant.i.ties at the same time.

The views of Mr. Stone on the nature of English accent and quant.i.ty are perhaps unique among modern writers on the subject. "The ordinary unemphatic English accent is exactly a raising of pitch, and nothing more," as in Greek. "The accent of emphasis is something quite different in character from the ordinary accent."

To those who insist that to them the second syllable of _carpenter_ is distinctly short, Mr. Stone replies: "You are a.s.sociating yourselves by such an admission with the vulgar actors of Plautus rather than the educated readers of Virgil;"--a truly terrible charge! Mr. Stone gives an interesting critical history of earlier efforts to introduce cla.s.sical measures into English. His monograph is reprinted, but without the specimen translation, as the second part of the 1901 edition of Robert Bridges's _Milton's Prosody_.

For further discussion of the relations of cla.s.sical and English prosody, and of accent and quant.i.ty in English, see Schipper, vol.

i. pp. 21-27; A. J. Ellis: article in the _Transactions of the Philological Society_, 1875-1876; T. D. Goodell: article on "Quant.i.ty in English Verse," in the _Proceedings of the American Philological Society_, 1885; Edmund Gurney: _The Power of Sound_, pp. 429-439; J. M. Robertson: Appendix to _New Essays towards a Critical Method_, 1897; and the discussion in Part Three of the present volume.

FOOTNOTES:

[42] Puttenham's treatise on English poetry, which followed Webbe's (1589), and was the most thorough treatment of the subject written in the Elizabethan period, also discussed the "reformed versifying," but with less respect. The chapter is ent.i.tled: "How if all maner of sodaine innovations were not very scandalous, specially in the lawes of any langage or arte, the use of the Greeke and Latine feete might be brought into our vulgar Poesie, and with good grace inough." (Arber Reprint of _The Arte of English Poesie_, p. 126.) Puttenham seems to see the relations of quant.i.ty and accent somewhat more clearly than most of his contemporaries, and while he gives rules for adapting English words to quant.i.tative prosody, he is disposed to think that "peradventure with us Englishmen it be somewhat too late to admit a new invention of feete and times that our forefathers never used nor never observed till this day"

(p. 132).

[43] Campion's _Observations_ are reprinted in Mr. Bullen's edition of his poems, and also in Rhys's _Literary Pamphlets_, vol. i. His attack on the customary English rimed verse was answered by the poet laureate, Samuel Daniel, who published in the same year (1602) his _Defence of Ryme against a Pamphlet ent.i.tuled Observations in the Art of English Poesie_. "Wherein is demonstratively prooved that Ryme is the fittest harmonie of words that comports with our Language." Daniel struck at the root of all the principles of the cla.s.sical versifiers,--the supreme authority of the cla.s.sics. "We are the children of nature as well as they," he exclaims with reference to the ancients. "It is not the observing of Trochaiques nor their Iambiques, that will make our writings ought the wiser." And he expounds the English accentual verse-system with clearness and vigor. This essay of Daniel's may be said to mark the end, if it did not bring about the end, of the Elizabethan experiments in cla.s.sical metres. For other contemporary criticism of the effort, see under the following section, on the Hexameter.

[44] On the history of the English hexameter, see the admirable account in Mayor's _Chapters on English Metre_, 2d ed., chap. xv.

[45] Southey's effort was attacked by the Rev. S. Tillbrook, Fellow of Peterhouse, in a pamphlet ent.i.tled "Historical and Critical Remarks upon the Modern Hexameters, and upon Mr. Southey's _Vision of Judgment_." To this Southey replied in the second edition of his poem, saying to Mr.

Tillbrook: "You try the measure by Greek and Latin prosody: you might as well try me by the Laws of Solon, or the Twelve Tables. I have distinctly stated that the English hexameter is not constructed upon those canons." He further appealed to the success of the hexameter in Germany, and concluded: "I am glad that I have made the experiment, and quite satisfied with the result. The critics who write and talk are with you: so I dare say are the whole posse of schoolmasters. The women, the young poets, and the _docile bairns_ are with me." (_Op. cit._, Preface to the Present Edition, pp. xix, xxi.)

[46] For Kingsley's exposition of his theories, see the _Letters and Memories_, edited by his wife, vol. i. pp. 338-344. He declined to yield to "trocheism one atom. My ear always demands the equivalent of the 'lost short syllable.'" And again: "Every argument you bring convinces me more and more that the theory of our prosody depending on accent is false, and that it really is very nearly identical with the Greek.... I am glad to hear (being a lazy man) that I have more license than I wish for; but I do think that, with proper care, you may have as many spondees, without hurting the rhythm, in English as you have in Greek, and my ear is tortured by a trochee instead.... I must try for Homer's average of a spondee a line."

VII. IMITATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL FRENCH LYRICAL FORMS

A number of artificial lyrical forms, originating in the ingenuity of the mediaeval Provencal poets, were adopted by the Middle English imitators of the Romance lyrists, and were revived with no little vigor in the Victorian period. Chief among the influential models for these forms, in early times, were the poems of Machault (1284-1377), Deschamps (1328-1415), Froissart (1337-1410), and Villon (1431-1485). Again in the seventeenth century such forms as the rondeau were revived in France by Voiture (1598-1648), but with little effect in England. Finally, in the nineteenth century, the forms were reintroduced by M. Theodore de Banville, and later into England by Mr. Lang, Mr. Austin Dobson, Mr.

Gosse, and others. For the history of these fas.h.i.+ons in outline, see the admirable introduction to Mr. Gleeson White's _Ballades and Rondeaus_ (1893); also Mr. Andrew Lang's _Lays and Lyrics of Old France_ (1872); Mr. Austin Dobson's "Note on some Foreign Forms of Verse," in the collection of _Latter Day Lyrics_ (1878); and an article by Mr. Edmund Gosse in the _Cornhill Magazine_, July, 1877.

Says Mr. Dobson: "It may be conceded that the majority of the forms now in question are not at present suited for ... the treatment of grave or elevated themes. What is modestly advanced for some of them ... is that they may add a new charm of buoyancy,--a lyric freshness,--to amatory and familiar verse, already too much condemned to faded measures and out-worn cadences. Further, ... that they are admirable vehicles for the expression of trifles or _jeux d'esprit_. They have also a humbler and obscurer use. If, to quote the once-hackneyed, but now too-much-forgotten maxim of Pope--

'Those move easiest that have learned to dance,'

what better discipline, among others, could possibly be devised for 'those about to versify' than a course of Rondeaux, Triolets, and Ballades?" Mr. Dobson refers to the article by Mr. Gosse already cited, and "to the _Odes Funambulesques_, the _Pet.i.t Traite de Poesie Francaise_, and other works of M. Theodore de Banville. To M. de Banville in particular and to the second French Romantic School in general, the happy modernization in France of the old measures of Marot, Villon, and Charles of Orleans is mainly to be ascribed." (_Latter Day Lyrics_, ed. W. D. Adams, pp. 334 ff.)[47]

Says Mr. Gleeson White: "The taste for these _tours de force_ in the art of verse-making is no doubt an acquired one; yet to quote the first attempt to produce a lyric with a repeated burden would take one back to the earliest civilization.... Whether the first refrains were used for decorative effect only, or to give the singer time to recollect or improvise the next verse, it matters little, since the once mere adjunct was made in later French use an integral and vital part of the verse.

The charm of these strictly written verses is undoubtedly increased by some knowledge of their technical rules.... To approach ideal perfection, nothing less than implicit obedience to all the rules is the first element of success; but the task is by no means finished there.

Every quality that poetry demands, whether clearness of thought, elegance of expression, harmonious sound, or faultless rhythm, is needed as much in these shapes as in unfettered verse.... It may be said, without fear of exaggeration, that all the qualities required to form a perfect lyric in poetry are equally needful here, _plus_ a great many special ones the forms themselves demand. To the students of any art there is always a peculiar charm when the highest difficulties are surmounted with such ease that the consummate art is hidden to all who know not the magic pa.s.sword to unveil it." (_Ballades and Rondeaus_, Introduction, pp. xli, xlii.) "No one is compelled to use these complex forms, but if chosen, their laws must be obeyed to the letter if success is to be obtained. The chief pleasure they yield consists in the apparent spontaneity, which is the result of genius, if genius be indeed the art of taking infinite pains; or, if that definition is rejected, they must yet exhibit the art which conceals art, whether by intense care in every minute detail, or a happy faculty for naturally wearing these fetters." (_Ib._, pp. l, li.)

A.--THE BALLADE

The ballade commonly consists of three stanzas, with an envoy. In modern usage the stanzas usually contain either eight or ten lines, and the envoy half as many as the stanza; but in earlier usage both stanza and envoy varied, and the latter might be omitted altogether. The rimes in all the stanzas must be identical in the corresponding lines, but the riming words must be different. The most characteristic element is the refrain,--the keynote of the poem,--which forms the last line of each stanza, including the envoy. The favorite rime-scheme for the eight-line stanza is _ababbcbc_, with the envoy _bcbc_. Mr. White says of the envoy that it "is not only a dedication, but should be the peroration of the subject, and richer in its wording and more stately in its imagery than the preceding verses, to convey the climax of the whole matter, and avoid the suspicion that it is a mere postscript."

Flee fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse, Suffyce unto thy good, though hit be smal; For hord hath hate, and climbing tikelnesse, Prees hath envye, and wele blent overal; Savour no more than thee bihove shal; Werk wel thy-self, that other folk canst rede; And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.

Tempest thee noght al croked to redresse, In trust of hir that turneth as a bal: Gret reste slant in litel besinesse; And eek be war to sp.o.r.ne ageyn an al; Stryve noght, as doth the crokke with the wal.

Daunte thy-self, that dauntest otheres dede; And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.

That thee is sent, receyve in buxumnesse; The wrastling for this worlde axeth a fal.

Her nis non hoom, her nis but wildernesse: Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal!

Know thy contree, look up, thank G.o.d of al; Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede: And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede.