The Principles of English Versification Part 10

(Note here the subst.i.tutions for special imitative effect.)

Sh.e.l.ley's To a Skylark is in trochaic metre of 3-stress and 6-stress lines.

Dactylic lines are not common except in the imitations of the cla.s.sical hexameter. Hood's familiar Bridge of Sighs in 2-stress lines, and Tennyson's still more familiar Charge of the Light Brigade (which is, however, only partly dactylic) are good ill.u.s.trations.

Iambic lines are by very far the most frequent in English verse. No special examples need therefore be given except of the less usual 6-stress and 7-stress lines. On blank verse see pages 133 ff.

The 6-stress line is called the alexandrine (probably from the name of an Old French poem in this metre). It is still the standard line in cla.s.sical French verse; but the French alexandrine differs from the English, princ.i.p.ally in having four stresses instead of six. In English it is usually awkward when used for long stretches, and tends to split into 3 + 3. Lowell called it "the droning old alexandrine." It was employed for several long poems in Middle English; and certain of the Elizabethans tried it: Surrey, Sidney, and Drayton--Drayton's Polyolbion (1613) contains about 15,000 alexandrines. It has not commended itself to modern poets, with one exception, for sustained work. Browning wrote his Fifine at the Fair (1872) in this measure; and while he succeeded in relieving it of some of its monotony, he only demonstrated again its unfitness, in English, for continuous use. A peculiar musical effect is obtained from it, however, by Mr. Siegfried Sa.s.soon in his Picture-Show:

And still they come and go: and this is all I know-- That from the gloom I watch an endless picture-show, Where wild or listless faces flicker on their way, With glad or grievous hearts I'll never understand Because Time spins so fast, and they've no time to stay Beyond the moment's gesture of a lifted hand.

On the other hand, as the last line of the Spenserian and similar stanzas the alexandrine has proved very melodious and effective, largely by contrast with the shorter lines. A few isolated examples will ill.u.s.trate some of its powers, but of course the whole stanza should be read together.

And streames of purple bloud new die the verdant fields.

SPENSER, Faerie Queen, I, 2, 17.

Which from a sacred fountain welled forth alway.

Ibid., I, 1, 34.

Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep.

With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.

MILTON, On the Morning of Christ's Nativity.

Dart follows dart; lance, lance; loud bellowings speak his woes.

BYRON, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, I, lxxvi.

Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

Ibid., III, ii.

As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.

KEATS, Eve of St. Agnes, xxvii.

Countless and swift as leaves on autumn's tempest shed.

Sh.e.l.lEY, Revolt of Islam, I, iv.

Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.

Sh.e.l.lEY, Adonais, xxi.

With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.

Ibid., xl.

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Sh.e.l.lEY, To a Skylark.

The slender stream Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

TENNYSON, Lotos Eaters.

Alexandrines were occasionally in the eighteenth century (and more frequently in the late seventeenth) inserted among heroic couplets for variety and special effect, as in Pope's

The huge round stone, resulting with a bound, Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground.

Odyssey, XI, 737-738.

But Pope himself condemned the 'needless alexandrine'

That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.

Essay on Criticism, 357.

One of the oldest lines of modern English verse is the so-called septenary (septenarius), having had a nearly continuous tradition from the twelfth-century Poema Morale down (in its divided form) to the present. It began as a single line of seven stresses or fourteen syllables, and continued to be used as such through the Elizabethan period, and sporadically even later.[44] But on account of its customary pause after the fourth foot, it very early broke into two short lines of four and three stresses each, and thus the septenary couplet became the ballad stanza. For example,

And even the lowly valleys joy to glitter in their sight When the unmeasur'd firmament bursts to disclose her light.

CHAPMAN, Iliad, VIII.

is essentially the same metre, though printed differently, as

The western wave was all aflame, The day was wellnigh done!

Almost upon the western wave Rested the broad, bright sun.

COLERIDGE, Ancient Mariner, Part III.

The more notable long poems in septenaries are Warner's Albion's England (1586), Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1565, 1567), and Chapman's translation of the Iliad (1598-1611).

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ [44] Wordsworth and Mrs. Browning have written rimed septenaries. +--------------------------------------------------------------+

2. THE STANZA

_Couplet._ The line unit is used sometimes singly and continuously, as in blank verse, and sometimes in groups usually held together by rime.

These groups are called stanzas or strophes. The simplest stanza is, therefore, the couplet rimed _aa_.[45] Couplets are either unequal or equal in length.

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ [45] The usual and most convenient way of indicating stanzaic structure is with small italic letters for the rimes and either superior or inferior numbers for the number of stresses in each line. Thus Landor's Rose Aylmer: Ah, what avails the sceptred race! Ah, what the form divine! What every virtue, every grace! Rose Aylmer, all were thine. is described as _a^{4}b^{3}a^{4}b^{3}_. The repet.i.tion of a whole line is indicated by a capital letter. When all the lines are of the same length, one exponent figure suffices, as _abba^{4}_ for the In Memoriam stanza. +--------------------------------------------------------------+

The only much-used unequal couplet is the combination, now old-fashioned, of an alexandrine and a septenary, and called, from the number of syllables, Poulter's Measure, because, says Gascoigne (1575), "it gives xii. for one dozen and xiii. for another." Wyatt and Surrey and Sidney wrote in it; the older drama employed it occasionally; Arthur Brooke's Romeus and Juliet (1562) on which Shakespeare's play was based, is in this measure. The following example is by Nicholas Grimald (1519-62).

What sweet relief the showers to thirsty plants we see, What dear delight the blooms to bees, my true love is to me!

As fresh and l.u.s.ty Ver foul Winter doth exceed-- As morning bright, with scarlet sky, doth pa.s.s the evening's weed-- As mellow pears above the crabs esteemed be-- So doth my love surmount them all, whom yet I hap to see!

It survives chiefly in the S.M. (short measure) of the hymn books and such stanzas as that used by Macaulay in his Horatius:

From Egypt's bondage come, Where death and darkness reign, We seek our new and better home, Where we our rest shall gain.

When the goodman mends his armor, And trims his helmet's plume; When the goodwife's shuttle merrily Goes flashing through the loom; With weeping and with laughter Still is the story told, How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave old days of old.

Other unequal couplets are found in Herrick's A Thanskgiving to G.o.d for his House (_a^{4}a^{2}_) and Browning's Love among the Ruins (_a^{6}a^{2}_).

The equal couplet is used both continuously and, more rarely except with long lines, as a single stanza. Sometimes two or three couplets are combined into a larger stanza. The usual forms of the couplet used continuously are the 4-stress or short couplet ("octosyllabic") and the 5-stress or heroic couplet ("decasyllabic").