3. Rime Royal, or Chaucerian Heptastich, a stanza of seven lines riming a babbcc. This was a favourite metre with Chaucer; e.g. The Clerk's Tale, The Man of Law's Tale, Troilus. James I. of Scotland has it in The King's Quair, hence Royal; and Shakespeare in Lucrece. The following is from Lucrece. "The little birds that tune their morning's joy True sorrow then is feelingly sufficed When with like semblance it is sympathised." 4. Ottava Rima, a stanza of eight lines riming abababcc: the metre of Byron's Don Juan. "And first one universal shriek there rushed Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash Of echoing thunder; and then all was hushed, A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry Of some strong swimmer in his agony." 5. The Spenserian Stanza, of eight pentameters followed by one hexameter, or Alexandrine. The rime sequence is ababbcbcc. Spenser used it in The Faerie Queene: it is his invention, "one of the crowning achievements of poetical inspiration in form." This stanza has been adopted by Thomson, The Castle of Indolence; Shenstone, The Schoolmistress; Beattie, The Minstrel; Burns, The Cotter's Saturday Night; Campbell, Gertrude of Wyoming; Shelley, The Revolt of Islam, Adonais; Keats, The Eve of St Agnes; Byron, Childe Harold; Tennyson, The Lotos-Eaters. The example is from The Faerie Queene. "Both roof and floor and walls were all of gold, And hid in darkness that none could behold The hue thereof; for view of cheerful day Did never in that house itself display, But a faint shadow of uncertain light : Such as a lamp, whose life does fade away, Or as the moon, clothed with a cloudy night, Does show to him that walks in fear and sad affright.” THE SONNET. The sonnet is a poem of fourteen iambic pentameters. It arose in Italy, and the Italian, or Petrarchan, form has only four or five rimes-two in the first eight lines, the octave; two or three in the last six, the sestet. Wyatt and Surrey introduced the Italian sonnet into English. The paucity of rimes in English for any one word led to a modification of the rime arrangement. Shakespeare's sonnets consist of three quatrains riming alternately and rounded off by a couplet: seven rimes in all. Milton reverted to the Italian form; with variations of the rime order in the sestet. Shakespeare's rime arrangement is a babcdcdefefgg; as in the following "From you have I been absent in the spring, Of different flowers in odour and in hue Could make me any summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew; Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose ; With Shakespeare's riming, contrast Milton's in his Sonnet to the Nightingale. "O Nightingale that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh; For my relief, yet hadst no reason why. Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate, Milton Here the rime sequence is abbaabba cdcdcd. has other forms in the sestet: for example, cde dce; cde cde; cddcdc. Other poets following the Italian form make limited modifications; as Byron in his Sonnet on Chillon, abba acca dedede. Besides the sonneteers already named, we may note Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Drummond, Jonson, Gray, Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge, Hartley Coleridge, Keats, Mrs E. B. Browning, Rossetti, M. Arnold, Tennyson. For other examples of sonnets, see chap. xv. IAMBIC TETRAMETER, OR OCTOSYLLABIC. This, in couplets, is frequently employed for lighter narrative. Scott has it in his romantic poems, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Marmion, etc. To avoid monotony Scott introduces trimeters and varies the rime sequence. The following extract from The Lady of the Lake shows his couplet form and one type of variation. "The Minstrel came once more to view Upon her eyry nods the erne, The deer has sought the brake; So darkly glooms yon thunder cloud Other poems in octosyllabics are Chaucer's House of Fame; Gower's Confessio Amantis; Butler's Hudibras; Burns's Tam o' Shanter; Byron's Giaour, and Bride of Abydos; Moore's Lalla Rookh; Wordsworth's White Doe of Rylstone. OCTOSYLLABIC QUATRAIN. This quatrain rimes abba; as in Tennyson's In Memoriam. "I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, BALLAD METRE. This metre was originally a seven-foot iambic couplet, sometimes called fourteeners from the number of syllables. Chapman uses this long couplet for parts of his translation of Homer. "As when about the silver moon, when air is free from wind, Of all steep hills and pinnacles thrust up themselves for shows, The distinct break after the fourth foot caused the couplet to become a four-line stanza, of alternate tetrameter and trimeter lines. The first and third lines often rime as well as the second and fourth. The traditional ballads will supply examples. This metre has been widely used; as by Cowper in John Gilpin. "John Gilpin was a citizen Of credit and renown, A trainband captain eke was he Of famous London town." The following from Goldsmith shows the first line and the third riming. "Good people all, of every sort, Give ear unto my song; And if you find it wondrous short, It cannot hold you long." The Common Metre of the metrical psalms and hymns is of the same form. TROCHAICS. Only two of the English trochaics require attention. 1. The seven-syllable trochaic. This consists of four trochees, but the unaccented syllable of the last trochee is dropped; as in Jonson's Hymn to Diana. 2. "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep." The fifteen-syllable trochaic couplet; as in Tennyson's Locksley Hall. "Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn : Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn." Here also the unaccented syllable of the final trochee is dropped. When it is retained, we have a sixteen-syllable line as this line from Poe's Raven. "Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in a bleak December." ANAPAESTIC. It is sufficient to note the four-foot line. Iambuses are frequently substituted. In the example, from Cowper's Poplar Field, the second line has four anapaests; but the first line is iambus, anapaest, iambus, anapaest. "The poplars are felled; farewell to the shade Lochiel's Warning by Campbell and Retaliation by Goldsmith are in anapaests. DACTYLIC. Hood's Bridge of Sighs exemplifies one dactylic metre. "Mad from life's history, Glad to death's mystery, Another kind appears in Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade. |