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of elaborate decorative art. Simple themes or realistic narratives are out of place in it. As each stanza is adaptable to a separate picture, the form is particularly fitted to leisurely, romantic, ornate story-telling. A good way to manage it is to use the couplet in the middle as a position. of emphasis in the development of the stanza thought, which should sweep to a full close in the stately Alexandrine at the end.

Since Spenser's time the stanza has been in favor with many poets, both major and minor. Modified forms of it were used by several early seventeenth century poets, and in the eighteenth century its extensive revival marked one of the earlier stages of the romantic movement. In the nineteenth century it was used with superb effect by Shelley, Keats, and Byron. The following illustrations show different

themes for which it has been used:

A shrilling trompet sounded from on hye,
And unto battail bad themselves addresse:

Their shining shieldes about their wrestes they tye,
And burning blades about their heads do blesse,
The instruments of wrath and heavinesse:
With greedy force each other doth assayle,

And strike so fiercely, that they do impresse

Deepe dinted furrowes in the battred mayle;

The yron walles to ward their blowes are weak and fraile.

(Faery Queene, I, 5, 6.)

Now strike your sails ye jolly Mariners,

For we be come unto a quiet rode,

Where we must land some of our passengers,

And light this wearie vessell of her lode.
Here she awhile may make her safe abode,
Till she repaired have her tackles spent,
And wants supplide. And then againe abroad
On the long voyage whereto she is bent:

Well may she speede and fairly finish her intent.
(Ibid, I. 12. 42.)

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, where 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, IV.)

The One remains, the many change and pass;

Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-colored glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.-Die,
If thou wouldst be that which thou dost seek!
Follow where all is fled!-Rome's azure sky,
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak,

The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.
(Shelley: Adonais.)"

"For stanzas of more than nine lines used in the Middle English period, see R. M. Alden: op. cit., and Schipper: Englische Metrik.

CHAPTER X

TETRAMETER COUPLET

The tetrameter couplet, although the oldest of the verse forms still in use, has not been such a favorite with modern poets as blank verse, or the heroic couplet. It has, however, a most respectable lineage, and in the hands of masters of versifying has shown itself capable of much interesting variety. It occurs extensively in middle English poetry, notably in the narrative work of Gower, and to some extent in Chaucer. It was the vehicle for many of the miracle plays, the moralities, and parts of Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar. The Elizabethans found it much less interesting than other narrative forms. In the seventeenth century it was used in short pieces by Jonson, Milton, Andrew Marvell, and others; and Butler, by employing it for his Hudibras, made it very popular for satire. He was followed by Swift and Prior in the next century, and later Parnell used it for reflective verse. In the romantic revival it was again extensively employed in narrative-by Burns and Wordsworth in a few pieces, by Coleridge in his Christabel, but particularly by Scott and Byron in their verse tales. Later, William Morris used the form for parts of his Earthly Paradise.

Each of the poets mentioned have used this couplet with a certain individuality. In spite of this, however, it is not capable of so wide variation as the heroic form. The changing characteristics of the pentameter couplet have been due chiefly to the manner of phrasing popular at different periods; but with the tetrameter couplet, variation has been, more than anything else, a matter of rhythm.

The rhythmical pattern of the tetrameter couplets written by Gower, Chaucer, and nearly all the poets of the last

three centuries, has been very strictly duple. The convention as to the number of syllables to a line has been carefully observed so that such tetrameters are called octosyllabic couplets. The couplets of older English verse were quite irregular in rhythmical pattern, admitting feet of one, two, three or even four syllables. This, from its apparently haphazard effect, has been called tumbling verse, its only restriction being four approximately equal time parts to each line.

Tumbling verse was brought to its greatest perfection by Spenser's experiments with it in the sections of his Shepherd's Calendar for February, May, and September. Here is a passage that introduces most of the types of lines that Spenser admits in this meter.1

Sorrow ne neede be hastened on,

For he will come, without calling, anone;
While times enduren of tranquillitie,

Usen we freely one felicitie;

5 For when approchen the stormie stowres,

We mought with our shoulders bear off the sharp showers;
And, sooth to sayne, nought seemeth sike strife,

That shepheards so witen eche others life,

And layen her faults the worlde beforne,

10 The while their foes done eache of hem scorne.

Let none mislike of that may not be mended;
So conteck soone by concord mought be ended.
(Shepherd's Calendar-May.)

Just how this may be best read is questionable, but nearly everyone familiar with the poem will agree that the lines were probably all intended for tetrameters. Lines 3, 4, 11, and 12 can easily be read as pentameters, but certainly fit the context better if divided into four feet thus:

1 There has been much question as to what Spenser was aiming at here. I suggest as an explanation that he was imitating the experimenter Skelton, many of whose attempts are in a cruder form of this tumbling rhythm.

While times en- | duren of tran- | quilli- | tie,
Let none mis- like of that may not be | mended.

or, perhaps,

Let none mis- like of that | may not be | mended.

Couplets of such irregular rhythm and with such ambiguous lines as those just quoted, have not been tried-with the exception of William Morris's experiment since Spenser's day. The octosyllabic couplet, however, has been much used, and has gone through almost as many changes as the pentameter couplets, though the differences in type are subtler.

One of the finest examples in English is Milton's use. Let us analyze a passage.

Come, pensive Nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast, and demure,
All in a robe of darkest grain,
Flowing with majestic train,
5 And sable stole of cyprus lawn

Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come; but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,

And looks commercing with the skies,
10 Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There, held in holy passion, still,
Forget thyself to marble, till
With a sad leaden downward cast

Thou fix them on the earth as fast. 1

15 And join with thee calm Peace and Quiet,

Spare Fast, that oft with gods doth diet,

And hear the muses in a ring

Aye round about Jove's altar sing.

In the first place, there is a constant change in the flow of the iambic movement by repeated variation at the beginning

The Folk-Mote by the River in Poems by the Way, 1896.

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