English Verse Part 19

(SPENSER: _The Faerie Queene_, bk. i. canto 2, st. 1. 1590.)

And more to lulle him in his slumber soft, A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe, And ever-drizling raine upon the loft, Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne Of swarming Bees, did cast him in a swowne.

No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes, As still are wont t'annoy the walled towne, Might there be heard; but carelesse Quiet lyes Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes.

(SPENSER: _ib._ bk. i. canto 1, st. 41.)

This stanza, which Spenser invented for his own use and to which his name is always given, was apparently formed by adding an alexandrine to the _ababbcbc_ stanza of Chaucer. In it Spenser wrote the greater part of his poetry, and its use marks the Spenserian influence wherever found, especially among the poets of the eighteenth century,--Thomson, Shenstone, Beattie, and the like.

James Russell Lowell, in his Essay on Spenser, comments as follows: "He found the _ottava rima_ ... not roomy enough, so first ran it over into another line, and then ran that added line over into an alexandrine, in which the melody of one stanza seems forever longing and feeling forward after that which is to follow.... Wave follows wave with equable gainings and recessions, the one sliding back in fluent music to be mingled with and carried forward by the next. In all this there is soothingness, indeed, but no slumberous monotony; for Spenser was no mere metrist, but a great composer. By the variety of his pauses--now at the close of the first or second foot, now of the third, and again of the fourth--he gives spirit and energy to a measure whose tendency it certainly is to become languorous." (_Works_, vol. iv. pp. 328, 329.)

See also the chapters on the Spenserian stanza in Corson's _Primer of English Verse_, where its use for pictorial effects is interestingly discussed.

A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was, Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye, And of gay castles in the clouds that pa.s.s, Forever flushing round a summer sky: There eke the soft delights, that witchingly Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast, And the calm pleasures always hovered nigh; But whate'er smacked of noyaunce, or unrest, Was far far off expelled from this delicious nest.

(THOMSON: _The Castle of Indolence_, canto i. 1748.)

Her cap, far whiter than the driven snow, Emblem right meet of decency does yield: Her ap.r.o.n dyed in grain, as blue, I trowe, As is the hare-bell that adorns the field: And in her hand, for sceptre, she does wield Tway birchen sprays, with anxious fear entwined, With dark distrust and sad repentance filled, And stedfast hate, and sharp affliction joined, And fury uncontrolled and chastis.e.m.e.nt unkind.

(SHENSTONE: _The Schoolmistress._ 1742.)

Thomson's _Castle of Indolence_, although not published till 1748, seems to have been written and circulated before Shenstone's _Schoolmistress_.

Thomson caught the spirit of Spenser and his stanza better than any other imitator until the days of Keats. On the revival of the stanza at this period, see Beers's _English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century_, chap. iii., on "the Spenserians." Earliest of the group, according to Mr. Gosse, was Akenside's _Virtuoso_ (1737. See _Eighteenth Century Literature_, p. 311).

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!

For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent, Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!

And oh, may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile!

Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved Isle.

(BURNS: _The Cotter's Sat.u.r.day Night._ 1785.)

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand: I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.

(BYRON: _Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, canto iv, st. i. 1818.)

A cas.e.m.e.nt high and triple-arch'd there was, All garlanded with carven imag'ries Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-gra.s.s, And diamonded with panes of quaint device, Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes, As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings; And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.

(KEATS: _Eve of St. Agnes._ 1820.)

Professor Corson remarks: "Probably no English poet who has used the Spenserian stanza, first a.s.similated so fully the spirit of Spenser, ...

as did Keats; and to this fact may be partly attributed his effective use of it as an organ for his imagination in its 'lingering, loving, particularizing mood.'" (_Primer of English Verse_, p. 124.)

The splendors of the firmament of time May be eclips'd, but are extinguish'd not; Like stars to their appointed height they climb, And death is a low mist which cannot blot The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, And love and life contend in it for what Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.

(Sh.e.l.lEY: _Adonais_, st. 44. 1821.)

With reference to his use of this stanza Sh.e.l.ley remarked, in the Preface to _The Revolt of Islam_: "I have adopted the stanza of Spenser (a measure inexpressibly beautiful), not because I consider it a finer model of poetical harmony than the blank verse of Shakespeare and Milton, but because in the latter there is no shelter for mediocrity: you must either succeed or fail.... But I was enticed also by the brilliancy and magnificence of sound which a mind that has been nourished upon musical thoughts can produce by a just and harmonious arrangement of the pauses of this measure." Professor Corson (_Primer of English Verse_, p. 112) quotes Mr. Todhunter as saying: "Compare the impetuous rapidity and pale intensity of Sh.e.l.ley's verse with the lulling harmony, the lingering cadence, the voluptuous color of Spenser's, or with the grandiose majesty of Byron's.... In _Adonais_, indeed, a poem on which he bestowed much labor, he handles the stanza in a masterly manner, and endows it with an individual music beautiful and new."

"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land, "This mounting wave will roll us sh.o.r.eward soon."

In the afternoon they came unto a land In which it seemed always afternoon.

All round the coast the languid air did swoon, Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.

Full-faced above the valley stood the moon; And like a downward smoke, the slender stream Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

(TENNYSON: _The Lotos-Eaters._ 1833.)

_abababccc_

A fisher boy, that never knew his peer In dainty songs, the gentle Thomalin, With folded arms, deep sighs, and heavy cheer, Where hundred nymphs, and hundred muses in, Sunk down by Chamus' brinks; with him his dear Dear Thyrsil lay; oft times would he begin To cure his grief, and better way advise; But still his words, when his sad friend he spies, Forsook his silent tongue, to speak in watry eyes.

(PHINEAS FLETCHER: _Piscatory Eclogues._ ab. 1630.)

Fletcher was an imitator of Spenser, and here devises a stanza differing little from his master's. The final alexandrine is used with the same effect. For other instances of final alexandrines, doubtless used under the general influence of the Spenserian stanza, see the following specimens.

_aabaabcc_

Ring out, ye crystal spheres!

Once bless our human ears, If ye have power to touch our senses so; And let your silver chime Move in melodious time; And let the ba.s.s of heaven's deep organ blow; And with your ninefold harmony, Make up full consort to the angelic symphony.

(MILTON: _On the Morning of Christ's Nativity._ 1629.)

_ababbcbcdd_

What? aella dead? and Bertha dying too?

So fall the fairest flowrets of the plain.

Who can unfold the works that heaven can do, Or who untwist the roll of fate in twain?

aella, thy glory was thy only gain; For that, thy pleasure and thy joy was lost.

Thy countrymen shall rear thee on the plain A pile of stones, as any grave can boast.

Further, a just reward to thee to be, In heaven thou sing of G.o.d, on earth we'll sing of thee.

(CHATTERTON: _aella,_ st. 147. 1768.)

This is the ten-line "Chatterton stanza," a variant of the Spenserian stanza, devised by Chatterton, which he claimed ante-dated Spenser by one or two centuries. His claim for it was of course purely fict.i.tious.

_aabbbcc_

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, n.o.bler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown sh.e.l.l by life's unresting sea!

(OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES: _The Chambered Nautilus._ 1858.)

See also the notable use of the alexandrine in Sh.e.l.ley's _Skylark_, p.

34, above.

_ababababbcbc_