Part 12 (2/2)
My Mary!
Crashaw's Wishes to his Supposed Mistress rimes _a^{2}a^{3}a^{4}_.
Tennyson's 'O Swallow, Swallow' in The Princess is in unrimed triplets.
On the terza rima see below, page 164.
_Four-Line Stanza: Quatrain_
The most important quatrains are the ballad stanza, riming _a^{4}b^{3}c^{4}b^{3}_ or _a^{4}b^{3}a^{4}b^{3}_ (the Common Measure of the hymnals), with the related Long Measure riming _abab^{4}_ or _abcb^{4}_; the In Memoriam stanza _abba^{4}_; and the elegiac quatrain _abab^{5}_. These are often combined into 8-and 12-line stanzas, as _abab bcbc^{5}_ (called the Monk's Tale stanza), _abab cdcd_, etc., sometimes with alternating long and short lines. And these, as well as longer stanzas, are frequently varied by the use of repet.i.tions and refrains.[52]
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[52] For complete lists and examples of all the various
stanzaic forms, the larger works of Alden and Schipper
should be consulted.
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The ballad stanza, with its frequent variations of internal rime and additional verses is excellently ill.u.s.trated by Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. Similar is Tennyson's Sir Galahad, a 12-line stanza of three quatrains, _a^{4}b^{3}a^{4}b^{3}cdc^{4}d^{3}efgf^{4}_. Another common variation is that of Hood's The Dream of Eugene Aram, Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol, and Rossetti's Blessed Damozel, _a^{4}b^{3}c^{4}b^{3}d^{4}b^{3}_. The musical roughness of the old ballads should be contrasted with the regularized modern imitations, such as Longfellow's Wreck of the Hesperus. Better imitations are Rossetti's Stratton Water and The King's Tragedy, Robert Buchanan's Judas Iscariot, and W.B. Yeats's Father Gilligan. Sometimes a shorter quatrain is printed as a long couplet and combined into larger stanzas, as in Mr. Alfred Noyes's The Highwayman (which has an additional variation in the inserted fourth and fifth lines):
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding-- Riding--riding-- The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.
The variations in Tennyson's The Revenge should be carefully studied.
The ballad stanza is closely similar to the _abab^{4}_ and _abcb^{4}_ quatrains, and (as in the Sir Galahad mentioned just above) the two are sometimes united. All three were much used by Wordsworth and many minor poets for lyrics as well as narratives; the result is often an undignified tinkle that takes the popular ear and ”makes the judicious grieve.” The stanzaic unit is so easily carried in one's mind and so rapidly repeats itself, that there is little opportunity for the necessary pleasing surprises. But that the measure is capable of a simple expressive music is evident from such examples as Wordsworth's 'Lucy' poems. These stanzas, both alone and doubled (as in To Mary in Heaven), were favorites with Burns.
A striking musical effect was obtained by Swinburne in Dolores by shortening the last line of a double quatrain:
Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour; The heavy white limbs, and the cruel Red mouth like a venomous flower; When these are gone by with their glories, What shall rest of thee then, what remain, O mystic and sombre Dolores, Our Lady of Pain.
Similar interesting variations are Coleridge's Love, _aba^{4}b^{3}_ and Wordsworth's The Solitary Reaper.
The In Memoriam stanza (_abba^{4})_ is named after Tennyson's poem (though that was by no means its first use), because Tennyson gave it a peculiar melody, and, partly for this reason and partly from the length and subject of the poem, almost preempted it for elegiac purposes.[53]
Characteristic stanzas metrically are these:
Calm and deep peace in this wide air, These leaves that redden to the fall; And in my heart, if calm at all, If any calm, a calm despair.
And all we met was fair and good, And all was good that Time could bring, And all the secret of the Spring Moved in the chambers of the blood.
Now fades the last long streak of snow, Now burgeons every maze of quick About the flowering squares, and thick By ashen roots the violets blow.
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[53] On its origin and the twenty-five poems in it by
seventeen different poets, from Ben Jonson to Clough and
Rossetti, before the publication of In Memoriam, see E. P.
Morton in Modern Language Notes, 24 (1909), pp. 67 ff.
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One of the peculiarities of the stanza is the increased emphasis which the rime of the third verse receives from its proximity to that of the second; and this is noticeable both when there is a logical pause after the third verse and when there is none:
'Thou makest thine appeal to me: I bring to life, I bring to death: The spirit does but mean the breath: I know no more.' And he, shall he....
I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.
Run-on stanzas are very frequent; especially remarkable is the periodic movement of the four stanzas of Lx.x.xVI, leading up to the last line--
A hundred spirits whisper 'Peace.'
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