English Verse Part 28

When chapman billies leave the street, And drouthy neibors, neibors meet; As market days are wearing late, And folk begin to tak the gate, While we sit bousing at the nappy, An' getting fou and unco happy, We think na on the lang Scots miles, The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles, That lie between us and our hame, Where sits our sulky, sullen dame, Gathering her brows like gathering storm, Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

(BURNS: _Tam O'Shanter_, ll. 1-12. 1790.)

They chain'd us each to a column stone, And we were three--yet, each alone; We could not move a single pace, We could not see each other's face, But with that pale and livid light That made us strangers in our sight: And thus together--yet apart, Fetter'd in hand, but joined in heart, 'Twas still some solace, in the dearth Of the pure elements of earth, To hearken to each other's speech, And each turn comforter to each, With some new hope, or legend old, Or song heroically bold.

(BYRON: _The Prisoner of Chillon_, iii. 1816.)

A mortal song we sing, by dower Encouraged of celestial power; Power which the viewless Spirit shed By whom we first were visited; Whose voice we heard, whose hand and wings Swept like a breeze the conscious strings, When, left in solitude, erewhile We stood before this ruined Pile, And, quitting unsubstantial dreams, Sang in this Presence kindred themes.

(WORDSWORTH: _White Doe of Rylstone_, canto vii. ll. 282-291. 1815.)

Ill fared it then with Roderick Dhu, That on the field his targe he threw, Whose brazen studs and tough bull-hide Had death so often dash'd aside; For, train'd abroad his arms to wield, Fitz-James's blade was sword and shield....

Three times in closing strife they stood, And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood; No stinted draught, no scanty tide, The gushing flood the tartans dyed.

Fierce Roderick felt the fatal drain, And shower'd his blows like wintry rain; And, as firm rock, or castle-roof, Against the winter shower is proof, The foe, invulnerable still, Foil'd his wild rage by steady skill; Till, at advantage ta'en, his brand Forced Roderick's weapon from his hand, And backward borne upon the lea, Brought the proud Chieftain to his knee.

(SCOTT: _The Lady of the Lake_, canto v. st. xv. 1810.)

How this their joy fulfilled might move The world around I know not well; But yet this idle dream doth tell That no more silent was the place, That new joy lit up every face, That joyous lovers kissed and clung, E'en as these twain, that songs were sung From mouth to mouth in rose-bowers, Where hand in hand and crowned with flowers, Folk praised the Lover and Beloved That such long years, such pain had proved; But soft, they say, their joyance was When midst them soon the twain did pa.s.s, Hand locked in hand, heart kissing heart, No more this side of death to part-- No more, no more--full soft I say Their greetings were that happy day, As though in pensive semblance clad; For fear their faces over-glad This certain thing should seem to hide, That love can ne'er be satisfied.

(WILLIAM MORRIS: _The Earthly Paradise_; _The Land East of the Sun_.

1870.)

FOOTNOTES:

[16] For Sievers's a.n.a.lysis of Anglo-Saxon verse into these types, see his articles in Paul and Braune's _Beitrage_, vols. x. and xii.; and the brief statement in the Appendix to Bright's _Anglo-Saxon Reader_, from which the examples just quoted are taken.

[17] The term "tumbling verse," used for obvious reasons, appears at least as early as 1585, when King James, in his _Reulis and Cautelis_ for Scotch Poetry, said: "For flyting, or Invectives, use this kynde of verse following, callit Rouncefallis, or Tumbling verse:

'In the hinder end of harvest upon Alhallow ene, Quhen our gude nichtbors rydis (nou gif I reid richt) Some bucklit on a benwod, and some on a bene, Ay trott and into troupes fra the twylicht.'"

And again: "Ye man observe that thir Tumbling verse flowis not on that fa.s.soun, as utheris dois. For all utheris keipis the reule quhilk I gave before, To wit, the first fute short the secound lang, and sa furth.

Quhair as thir hes twa short, and ane lang throuch all the lyne, quhen they keip ordour: albeit the maist part of thame be out of ordour, and keipis na kynde nor reule of Flowing, and for that cause are callit Tumbling verse."

(Arber Reprint, pp. 68, 63, 64.)

See further on the persistent use of this rough measure in English, side by side with the more regular syllable-counting verse, Schipper's observations and examples in the _Grundriss der Englische Metrik_, pp.

109 ff. As a modern example Schipper cites one of Thackeray's ballads:

"This Mary was pore and in misery once, And she came to Mrs. Roney it's more than twelve monce. She adn't got no bed, nor no dinner nor no tea, And kind Mrs. Roney gave Mary all three."

[18] This poem of Robert Manning's was a translation of a Norman French work, Waddington's _Manuel des Pechiez_. The following is the original of the pa.s.sage here reproduced:

"Si vus unques par folye Entremeissez de nigremancie, Ou feites al deable sacrifise, Ou enchantement par fol aprise; Ou, a gent de tiel mester Ren donastes pur lur jugler, Ou pur demander la verite De chose qe vous fut a dire,-- Fet avez apertement Enc.u.n.tre ceo commandement; Ceo est grant mescreaunceie, Duter de ceo, ne devez mie."

(Furnivall ed. of Manning, p. 12. ll. 1078-1089.)

II. FIVE-STRESS VERSE

The five-stress or decasyllabic verse (iambic pentameter) is so much more widely used in modern English poetry than any other verse-form, that its history is of special interest. It is curious that a form so completely adopted as the favorite of English verse should be borrowed rather than native; but, the syllable-counting principle once being admitted, there is nothing in five-stress verse inconsistent with native English tendencies. A very great part of such verse has really only four full accents, and this we have seen to be the number of accents in the native English verse. On this point, see further remarks in connection with the specimen from Spenser, p. 180 below.

This verse appears in two great divisions, rimed (the decasyllabic couplet) and unrimed (blank verse). The rimed form was the earlier, the unrimed being merely a modification of it under the influence of other unrimed metres.

A.--THE DECASYLLABIC COUPLET

Lutel wot hit anymon, hou love hym have ybounde, at for us oe rode ron, ant boht us wi is wounde.

e love of hym us have ymaked sounde, ant ycast e grimly gost to grounde.

Ever & oo, nyht & day, he have us in is ohte, He nul nout leose at he so deore bohte.

His deope wounde blede fast, of hem we ohte munne!

He ha ous out of h.e.l.le ycast, ybroht us out of sunne; ffor love of us his wonges waxe unne, His herte blod he ?af for al mon kunne.

Ever & oo, etc.

(Song from Harleian MS. 2253. In BoDDEKER'S _Altenglische Dichtungen_, p. 231.)

This early religious lyric is of interest as containing the first known use of the five-stress couplet in English. Here it is only in a few lines that the couplet occurs, and so sporadic an occurrence should perhaps be regarded as due to nothing more than chance. See Schipper, vol. i. p. 439, and ten Brink's _Chaucer's Sprache und Verskunst_, p.

173 f. Ten Brink calls attention to another fairly regular five-stress verse, found on p. 253 of Wright's _Political Songs_:

"For miht is riht, the loud is laweless."[19]

And, as for me, though that my wit be lyte, On bokes for to rede I me delyte, And in myn herte have hem in reverence; And to hem yeve swich l.u.s.t and swich credence, That ther is wel unethe game noon That from my bokes make me too goon, But hit be other up-on the haly-day, Or elles in the joly tyme of May; Whan that I here the smale foules singe, And that the floures ginne for to springe, Farwel my studie, as lasting that sesoun!

Now have I therto this condicioun That, of alle the floures in the mede, Than love I most these floures whyte and rede, Swiche as men callen daysies in our toun.

To them have I so greet affeccioun.

(CHAUCER: _Legend of Good Women_, Prologue, ll. 29-44. Text A. ab.

1385.)

A good man was ther of religioun, And was a povre Persoun of a toun; But riche he was of holy thoght and werk.

He was also a lerned man, a clerk, That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche; His parisshens devoutly wolde he teche.

Benigne he was, and wonder diligent, And in adversitee ful pacient;...

He wayted after no pompe and reverence, Ne maked him a spyced conscience, But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, He taughte, and first he folwed it himselve.

(CHAUCER: Prologue to _Canterbury Tales_, ll. 477-484, 525-528. ab.

1385.)

With Chaucer we have the first deliberate use of the five-stress couplet, in continuous verse, known to English poetry. His earliest use of the pentameter line was in the _Compleynt to Pitee_ (perhaps written about 1371), in the "rime royal" stanza; his earliest use of the pentameter couplet was in the _Legend of Good Women_, usually dated 1385. From that time the measure became almost his only instrument, and we find altogether in his poetry some 16,000 lines in the couplet, besides some 14,000 more in rime royal. Too much praise cannot be given Chaucer's use of the couplet. Although it was an experiment in English verse, it has perhaps hardly been used since his time with greater skill. He used a variety of cesuras (see ten Brink's monograph for the enumeration of them), a very large number of feminine endings (such as the still p.r.o.nounced final-_e_ and similar syllables easily provided), free inversions in the first foot and elsewhere, and many run-on lines (in a typical 100 lines some 16 run-on lines and 7 run-on couplets appearing). The total effect is one of combined freedom and mastery, of fluent conversational style yet within the limits of guarded artistic form. "Much more regularly than the French and Provencals, and yet without pedantic stiffness, he made his verse advance with a sort of iambic gait, and he was therefore able to give up and exchange for a freer arrangement the immovable cesura, which these poets had always made to coincide with a foot-ending." (Ten Brink, in _English Literature_, Kennedy trans., vol. ii. p. 48.) On Chaucer's verse, see, besides the monograph of ten Brink already cited, Lounsbury's _Studies in Chaucer_, vol. iii. pp. 297 ff., and Schipper, vol. i. pp. 442 ff.

The common a.s.sumption is, that Chaucer borrowed the pentameter couplet directly from French poetry. On the history of this in France, see Stengel, in Grober's _Grundriss der Romanischen Philologie_.[20] The decasyllabic verse was fairly common in France in the fourteenth century (being called "_vers commun_" according to Stengel); but in the form of the couplet it was not. Professor Skeat says: "To say that it [Chaucer's couplet] was derived from the French ten-syllable verse is not a complete solution of the mystery; for nearly all such verse is commonly either in stanzas, or else a great number of successive lines are rimed together; and these, I believe, are rather scarce. After some search I have, however, fortunately lighted upon a very interesting specimen, among the poems of Guillaume de Machault, a French writer whom Chaucer is known to have imitated, and who died in 1377. In the edition of Machault's poems edited by Tarbe, Reims and Paris, 1849, p. 89, there is a poem of exactly this character, of no great length, but fortunately dated; for its t.i.tle is 'Complainte ecrite apres la bataille de Poitiers et avant le siege de Reims par les Anglais'

(1356-1358). The first four lines run thus: