English Verse Part 12

Truth may seem, but cannot be; Beauty brag, but 'tis not she; Truth and beauty buried be.

(SHAKSPERE: _The Phnix and the Turtle._ 1601.)

O praise the Lord, his wonders tell, Whose mercy s.h.i.+nes in Israel, At length redeem'd from sin and h.e.l.l.

(GEORGE SANDYS: _Paraphrase upon Luke i._ ab. 1630.)

Love, making all things else his foes, Like a fierce torrent overflows Whatever doth his course oppose.

(SIR JNO. DENHAM: _Against Love._ ab. 1640.)

Children, keep up that harmless play: Your kindred angels plainly say By G.o.d's authority ye may.

(LANDOR: _Children Playing in a Churchyard._ 1858.)

Whoe'er she be, That not impossible She That shall command my heart and me;

Where'er she lie, Lock'd up from mortal eye In shady leaves of destiny:...

--Meet you her, my Wishes, Bespeak her to my blisses, And be ye call'd, my absent kisses.

(CRASHAW: _Wishes for the Supposed Mistress._ 1646.)

I said, "I toil beneath the curse, But, knowing not the universe, I fear to slide from bad to worse.

"And that, in seeking to undo One riddle, and to find the true, I knit a hundred others new."

(TENNYSON: _The Two Voices._ 1833.)

Like the swell of some sweet tune, Morning rises into noon, May glides onward into June.

(LONGFELLOW: _Maidenhood._ 1842.)

Whenas in silks my Julia goes, Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows That liquefaction of her clothes.

(HERRICK: _To Julia._ 1648)

The fear was on the cattle, for the gale was on the sea, An' the pens broke up on the lower deck an' let the creatures free-- An' the lights went out on the lower deck, an' no one down but me.

(KIPLING: _Mulholland's Contract._)

_Terza rima_ (_aba_, _bcb_, etc.).

A spending hand that alway poureth out Had need to have a bringer in as fast; And on the stone that still doth turn about

There groweth no moss. These proverbs yet do last: Reason hath set them in so sure a place, That length of years their force can never waste.

When I remember this, and eke the case Wherein thou stand'st, I thought forthwith to write, Bryan, to thee. Who knows how great a grace,...

(SIR THOMAS WYATT: _How to use the court and himself therein, written to Sir Francis Bryan._ ab. 1542.)

The _terza rima_ is, strictly speaking, a scheme of continuous verse rather than a stanza, each tercet being united by the rime-scheme to the preceding. Its use in English has always been slight, and always due to conscious imitation of the Italian. No successful attempt has been made to use it for a long poem, as Dante did in the _Divina Commedia_.

Wyatt's specimen is the earliest in English; he chose the form for his three satires imitating those of Alamanni.

Once, O sweet once, I saw with dread oppressed Her whom I dread; so that with prostrate lying Her length the earth Love's chiefe clothing dressed.

I saw that riches fall, and fell a crying:-- Let not dead earth enjoy so deare a cover, But decke therewith my soule for your sake dying; Lay all your feare upon your fearfull lover: s.h.i.+ne, eyes, on me, that both our lives be guarded: So I your sight, you shall your selves recover.

(SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: _Thyrsis and Dorus_, in the _Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia_. ab. 1580.)

Why do the Gentiles tumult, and the nations Muse a vain thing, the kings of earth upstand With power, and princes in their congregations

Lay deep their plots together through each land Against the Lord and his Messiah dear?

"Let us break off," say they, "by strength of hand

Their bonds, and cast from us, no more to wear, Their twisted cords." He who in Heaven doth dwell Shall laugh.

(MILTON: _Psalm II._ 1653.)

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken mult.i.tudes! O thou Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odors plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and Preserver; hear, oh hear!

(Sh.e.l.lEY: _Ode to the West Wind._ 1819.)

In this case the tercets are united in groups of three to form a strophe of fourteen lines together with a final couplet riming with the middle line of the preceding tercet.

The true has no value beyond the sham: As well the counter as coin, I submit, When your table's a hat, and your prize a dram.

Stake your counter as boldly every whit, Venture as warily, use the same skill, Do your best, whether winning or losing it,

If you choose to play!--is my principle.

Let a man contend to the uttermost For his life's set prize, be it what it will!

(BROWNING: _The Statue and the Bust._ 1855.)

The effort to translate Dante in the original metre is especially interesting, and marked by great difficulties; to furnish the necessary rimes, without introducing expletive words that mar the simplicity of the original, being a serious problem. The following are interesting specimens of translations where this problem is grappled with; the first is a well-known fragment, the second a portion of a still unpublished translation of the _Inferno_, reproduced here by the courtesy of the author.

Then she to me: "The greatest of all woes Is to remind us of our happy days In misery, and that thy teacher knows.

But if to learn our pa.s.sion's first root preys Upon thy spirit with such sympathy, I will do even as he who weeps and says.

We read one day for pastime, seated nigh, Of Lancelot, how love enchained him too.

We were alone, quite unsuspiciously.

But oft our eyes met, and our cheeks in hue All o'er discolored by that reading were; But one point only wholly us o'erthrew; When we read the long-sighed-for smile of her, To be thus kissed by such devoted lover, He who from me can be divided ne'er Kissed my mouth, trembling in the act all over.

Accursed was the book and he who wrote!

That day no further leaf did we uncover."

(BYRON: _Francesca of Rimini_, from Dante's _Inferno_, Canto V. 1820.)

"Wherefore for thee I think and deem it well Thou follow me, and I will bring about Thy pa.s.sage thither where the eternal dwell.

There shalt thou hearken the despairing shout, Shalt see the ancient spirits with woe opprest, Who craving for the second death cry out.

Then shalt thou those behold who are at rest Amid the flame, because their hopes aspire To come, when it may be, among the blest.