English Verse Part 18

On Minot's lyrics see ten Brink's _History of English Literature_, Kennedy translation, vol. i. p. 323.

_ababbaba_

Since love is such that as ye wot Cannot always be wisely used, I say, therefore, then blame me not, Though I therein have been abused.

For as with cause I am accused, Guilty I grant such was my lot; And though it cannot be excused, Yet let such folly be forgot.

(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _That the power of love excuseth the folly of loving_, ab. 1550.)

_ababbcbc_

In a chirche er i con knel is ender day in on morwenynge, Me lyked e servise wonder wel, For i e lengore con i lynge.

I sei? a clerk a book for bringe, at prikked was in mony a plas; Faste he sou?te what he schulde synge, And al was _Deo gracias_!

(From the Vernon and Simeon MSS.; in _Anglia_, vii. 287.)

This Julius to the Capitolie wente Upon a day, as he was wont to goon, And in the Capitolie anon him hente This false Brutus, and his othere foon, And stikede him with boydekins anoon With many a wounde, and thus they lete him lye; But never gronte he at no strook but oon, Or elles at two, but if his storie lye.

(CHAUCER: _The Monk's Tale_, ll. 713-720. ab. 1375.)

This stanza is sometimes called the "_Monk's Tale_ stanza," from its use by Chaucer in that single tale of the Canterbury group. Although it has been little used by later poets, it may have given Spenser a suggestion for his characteristic stanza (see below, p. 102).

Farewell! if ever fondest prayer For other's weal availed on high, Mine will not all be lost in air, But waft thy name beyond the sky.

'Twere vain to speak, to weep, to sigh: Oh! more than tears of blood can tell, When rung from guilt's expiring eye, Are in that word--Farewell!--Farewell!

(BYRON: _Farewell, if ever fondest prayer._ 1808.)

_ababccdd_

Will no one tell me what she sings?

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day?

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again!

(WORDSWORTH: _The Solitary Reaper._ 1803.)

_abababcc_ (_ottava rima_)

She sat, and sewed, that hath done me the wrong Whereof I plain, and have done many a day; And, whilst she heard my plaint in piteous song, She wished my heart the sampler, that it lay.

The blind master, whom I have served so long, Grudging to hear that he did hear her say, Made her own weapon do her finger bleed, To feel if p.r.i.c.king were so good in deed.

(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _Of his love that p.r.i.c.ked her finger with a needle_, in Tottel's _Songs and Sonnets_. pub. 1557.)

This _ottava rima_ is a familiar Italian stanza made cla.s.sic by Ariosto and Ta.s.so, and introduced into England by Wyatt, together with the sonnet and other Italian forms. Professor Corson says, "Such a rhyme-scheme, especially in the Italian, with its great similarity of endings, is too 'monotonously iterative'; and the rhyming couplet at the close seems, as James Russell Lowell expresses it, 'to put on the brakes with a jar.'" (_Primer of English Verse_, pp. 89 f.)

O! who can lead, then, a more happie life Than he that with cleane minde, and heart sincere, No greedy riches knowes nor bloudie strife, No deadly fight of warlick fleete doth feare; Ne runs in perill of foes cruell knife, That in the sacred temples he may reare A trophee of his glittering spoyles and treasure, Or may abound in riches above measure.

(SPENSER: _Virgil's Gnat_, ll. 121-128. 1591.)

For as with equal rage, and equal might, Two adverse winds combat, with billows proud, And neither yield (seas, skies maintain like fight, Wave against wave oppos'd, and cloud to cloud); So war both sides with obstinate despite, With like revenge; and neither party bow'd: Fronting each other with confounding blows, No wound one sword unto the other owes.

(DANIEL: _History of the Civil War_, bk. vi. ab. 1600.)

Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, While the still morn went out with sandals gray; He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills, And now was dropt into the western bay: At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue: To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

(MILTON: _Lycidas_; Epilogue. 1638.)

This is a single stave of the _ottava rima_, at the close of the varying metrical forms of _Lycidas_. Professor Corson says: "The Elegy having come to an end, the _ottava rima_ is employed, with an admirable artistic effect, to mark off the Epilogue in which Milton ... speaks in his own person."

They looked a manly, generous generation; Beards, shoulders, eyebrows, broad, and square, and thick, Their accents firm and loud in conversation, Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp, and quick, Showed them prepared, on proper provocation, To give the lie, pull noses, stab and kick; And for that very reason, it is said, They were so very courteous and well-bred.

(JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE: _The Monks and the Giants._ 1817.)

With every morn their love grew tenderer, With every eve deeper and tenderer still; He might not in house, field, or garden stir, But her full shape would all his seeing fill; And his continual voice was pleasanter To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill; Her lute-string gave an echo of his name, She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.

(KEATS: _Isabella._ 1820.)

As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow, And wished that others held the same opinion; They took it up when my days grew more mellow, And other minds acknowledged my dominion: Now my sere fancy "falls into the yellow Leaf," and Imagination droops her pinion, And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.

(BYRON: _Don Juan_, canto iv. st. 3. 1821.)

Of the _ottava rima_, as used by Frere and Byron, Austin Dobson says: "It had already been used by Harrington, Drayton, Fairfax, and (as we have seen) in later times by Gay; it had even been used by Frere's contemporary, William Tennant; but to Frere belongs the honor of giving it the special characteristics which Byron afterward popularised in _Beppo_ and _Don Juan_. Structurally the _ottava rima_ of Frere singularly resembles that of Byron, who admitted that _Whistlecraft_ was his 'immediate model.' ... Byron, taking up the stanza with equal skill and greater genius, filled it with the vigor of his personality, and made it a measure of his own, which it has ever since been hazardous for inferior poets to attempt." (Ward's _English Poets_, vol. iv. p. 240.) Byron may indeed be said--in the words of the present specimen--to have turned what was commonly a romantic stanza "to burlesque."

_aabaabbab_

O hie honour, sweit hevinlie flour degest, Gem verteous, maist precious, gudliest.

For hie renoun thow art guerdoun conding, Of worschip kend the glorious end and rest, But quhome in richt na worthie wicht may lest.

Thy greit puissance may maist avance all thing, And poverall to mekill availl sone bring.

I the require sen thow but peir art best, That efter this in thy hie blis we ring.

(GAWAIN DOUGLAS: _The Palace of Honour._ ab. 1500.)

_ababcccdd_

My love is like unto th' eternal fire, And I as those which therein do remain; Whose grievous pains is but their great desire To see the sight which they may not attain: So in h.e.l.l's heat myself I feel to be, That am restrained by great extremity, The sight of her which is so dear to me.

O! puissant love! and power of great avail!

By whom h.e.l.l may be felt e'er death a.s.sail!

(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _Of the extreme torment endured by the unhappy lover._ ab. 1550.)

_ababbcbcc_ ("_Spenserian stanza_")

By this the Northerne wagoner had set His sevenfold teme behind the stedfast starre That was in Ocean waves yet never wet, But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre To all that in the wide deepe wandring arre; And chearefull Chaunticlere with his note shrill Had warned once, that Phbus fiery carre In hast was climbing up the Easterne hill, Full envious that night so long his roome did fill.