Chapter 12

Of leaves of roses,white and red,Shall be the covering of the bed;The curtains, vallens, tester all,Shall be the flower imperial;And for the fringe it all alongWith azure hare-bells shall be hung.Of lilies shall the pillows be,With down stuft of the butterfly.

Of fancy, so full of gusto as to border on imagination, Sir John Suckling, in hisBallad on a Wedding, has given some of the most playful and charming specimens in the language. They glance like twinkles of the eye, or cherries bedewed:

Her feet beneath her petticoat,Like little mice stole in and out,As if they fear’d the light:But oh! she dances such a way!No sun upon an Easter dayIs half so fine a sight.

It is very daring, and has a sort of playful grandeur, to compare a lady’s dancing with the sun. But as the sun has it all to himself in the heavens, so she, in the blaze of her beauty, on earth. This is imagination fairly displacing fancy. The following has enchanted everybody:

Her lips were red,and one was thinCompared with that was next her chin,Some bee had stung it newly.

Every reader has stolen a kiss at that lip, gay or grave.

With regard to the principle of Variety in Uniformity by which verse ought to be modulated, and oneness of impression diversely produced, it has been contended by some, that Poetry need not be written in verse at all; that prose is as good a medium, provided poetry be conveyed through it; and that to think otherwise is to confound letter with spirit, or form with essence. But the opinion is a prosaical mistake. Fitness and unfitness forsong, or metrical excitement, just make all the difference between a poetical and prosaical subject; and the reason why verse is necessary to the form of poetry, is, that the perfection of poetical spirit demands it;—that the circle of its enthusiasm, beauty and power, is incomplete without it. I do not mean to say that a poet can never show himself a poet in prose; but that, being one, his desire and necessity will be to write in verse; and that, if he were unable to do so, he would not, and could not, deserve his title. Verse to the true poet is no clog. It is idly called a trammel and a difficulty. It is a help. It springs from the same enthusiasm as the rest of his impulses, and is necessary to their satisfaction and effect. Verse is no more a clog than the condition of rushing upward is a clog to fire, or than the roundness and order of the globe we live on is a clog to the freedom and variety that abound within its sphere. Verse is no dominator over the poet, except inasmuch as the bond is reciprocal, and the poet dominates over the verse. They are lovers, playfully challenging each other’s rule, and delighted equally to rule and to obey. Verse is the final proof to the poet that his mastery over his art is complete. It is the shutting up of his powers in ‘measurefulcontent’;the answer of form to his spirit; of strength and ease to his guidance. It is the willing action, the proud and fiery happiness, of the winged steed on whose back he has vaulted,

To witch the world with wondrous horsemanship.

Verse, in short, is that finishing, and rounding, and ‘tuneful planetting’ of the poet’s creations, which is produced of necessity by the smooth tendencies of their energy or inward working, and the harmonious dance into which they are attracted round the orb of the beautiful. Poetry, in its complete sympathy with beauty, must, of necessity, leave no sense of the beautiful, and no power over its forms, unmanifested; and verse flows as inevitably from this condition of its integrity, as other laws of proportion do from any other kind of embodiment of beauty (say that of the human figure), however free and various the movements may be that play within their limits. What great poet ever wrote his poems in prose? or where is a good prose poem, of any length, to be found? The poetry of the Bible is understood to be in verse, in the original. Mr. Hazlitt has said a good word for those prose enlargements of some fine old song, which are known by the name of Ossian; and in passages they deserve what he said; but he judiciously abstained from saying anything about the form. Is Gesner’sDeath of Abela poem? or Hervey’sMeditations? ThePilgrim’s Progresshas been called one; and, undoubtedly, Bunyan had a genius which tended to make him a poet, and one of no mean order: and yet it was of as ungenerous and low a sort as was compatible with so lofty an affinity; and this is the reason why itstopped where it did. He had a craving after the beautiful, but not enough of it in himself to echo to its music. On the other hand, the possession of the beautiful will not be sufficient without force to utter it. The author ofTelemachushad a soul full of beauty and tenderness. He was not a man who, if he had had a wife and children, would have run away from them, as Bunyan’s hero did, to get a place by himself in heaven. He was ‘a little lower than the angels’, like our own Bishop Jewells and Berkeleys; and yet he was no poet. He was too delicately, not to say feebly, absorbed in his devotions, to join in the energies of the seraphic choir.

Every poet, then, is a versifier; every fine poet an excellent one; and he is the best whose verse exhibits the greatest amount of strength, sweetness, straightforwardness, unsuperfluousness,variety, andoneness;—oneness, that is to say, consistency, in the general impression, metrical and moral; and variety, or every pertinent diversity of tone and rhythm, in the process.Strengthis the muscle of verse, and shows itself in the number and force of the marked syllables; as,

Sonòrous mètal blòwing màrtial sòunds.Paradise Lost.

Behèmoth, bìggest born of eàrth, ùphèav’dHis vàstness.Id.

Blòw wìnds and cràck your chèeks! ràge! blòw!You càtărăcts and hurricànoes, spòut,Till you have drènch’d our stèeples, dròwn’d the còcks!You sùlphurous and thoùght-èxecuting fìres,Vaùnt coùriers of òak-clèaving thùnderbòlts,Sìnge my whìte hèad! and thòu, àll-shàking thùnder,Strìke flàt the thìck rotùndity o’ the wòrld!Lear.

Unexpected locations of the accent double thisforce, and render it characteristic of passion and abruptness. And here comes into play the reader’s corresponding fineness of ear, and his retardations and accelerations in accordance with those of the poet:

Then in the keyhole turnsThe ìntrĭcăte wards, and every bolt and barUnfastens.—On ă sŭddĕn òpen flyWĭth ĭmpètuous recoil and jarring soundThe infernal doors, and on their hinges grateHarsh thunder.Paradise Lost, Book II.

Abòmĭnăblĕ—unùttĕrăblĕ—and worseThan fables yet have feigned.Id.

Wàllŏwĭng ŭnwìĕldy—ĕnòrmous in their gait.Id.

Of unusual passionate accent, there is an exquisite specimen in theFaerie Queene, where Una is lamenting her desertion by the Red-Cross Knight:

But he, my lion, and my noble lord,How does he find in cruel heart to hateHer that him lov’d, and ever most ador’dAs the gòd of my lìfe?[30]Why hath he me abhorr’d?

The abuse of strength is harshness and heaviness; the reverse of it is weakness. There is a noble sentiment—it appears both in Daniel’s and Sir John Beaumont’s works, but is most probably thelatter’s,—which is a perfect outrage of strength in the sound of the words:

Only the firmest and theconstant’stheartsGod sets to act thestout’stand hardest parts.

Stout’standconstant’stfor ‘stoutest’ and ‘most constant’! It is as bad as the intentional crabbedness of the line inHudibras:

He that hangs orbeats out’sbrains,The devil’s in him ifhefeigns.

Beats out’s brains, for ‘beats out his brains’. Of heaviness, Davenant’sGondibertis a formidable specimen, almost throughout:

With sìlence (òrder’s help, and màrk of càre)They chìde thàt nòise which hèedless yòuth affèct;Stìll coùrse for ùse, for heàlth thèy clèanness wèar,And sàve in wèll-fìx’d àrms, all nìceness chèck’d.Thèy thoùght, thòse that, unàrm’d, expòs’d fràil lìfe,But nàked nàture vàliantly betrày’d;Whò wàs, thoùgh nàked, sàfe, till prìde màde strìfe,But màde defènce must ùse, nòw dànger’s màde.

And so he goes digging and lumbering on, like a heavy preacher thumping the pulpit in italics, and spoiling many ingenious reflections.

Weakness in versification is want of accent and emphasis. It generally accompanies prosaicalness, and is the consequence of weak thoughts, and of the affectation of a certain well-bred enthusiasm. The writings of the late Mr. Hayley were remarkable for it; and it abounds among the lyrical imitators of Cowley, and the whole of what is called our French school of poetry, when it aspired above its wit and ‘sense’. It sometimes breaks down in a horrible, hopeless manner, as if giving way at the first step. The following ludicrous passage inCongreve, intended to be particularly fine, contains an instance:

And lo! Silence himself is here;Methinks I see the midnight god appear.In all his downy pomp array’d,Behold the reverend shade.An ancient sigh he sits upon!!!Whose memory of sound is long since gone,And purposely annihilated for his throne!!!Ode on the singing of Mrs. Arabella Hunt.

See also the would-be enthusiasm of Addison about music:

For ever consecrate thedayTo music andCecilia;Music, the greatest good that mortals know,And all of heaven we have below,Music can nobleHINTSimpart!!!

It is observable that the unpoetic masters of ridicule are apt to make the most ridiculous mistakes, when they come to affect a strain higher than the one they are accustomed to. But no wonder. Their habits neutralize the enthusiasm it requires.

Sweetness, though not identical with smoothness, any more than feeling is with sound, always includes it; and smoothness is a thing so little to be regarded for its own sake, and indeed so worthless in poetry but for some taste of sweetness, that I have not thought necessary to mention it by itself; though such an all-in-all in versification was it regarded not a hundred years back, that Thomas Warton himself, an idolater of Spenser, ventured to wish the following line in theFaerie Queene,

And was admirèd much of fools,wòmen, and boys—

altered to

And was admirèd much of women, fools, and boys—

thus destroying the fine scornful emphasis on thefirst syllable of ‘women’! (an ungallant intimation, by the way, against the fair sex, very startling in this no less woman-loving than great poet). Any poetaster can be smooth. Smoothness abounds in all small poets, as sweetness does in the greater. Sweetness is the smoothness of grace and delicacy,—of the sympathy with the pleasing and lovely. Spenser is full of it,—Shakespeare—Beaumont and Fletcher—Coleridge. Of Spenser’s and Coleridge’s versification it is the prevailing characteristic. Its main secrets are a smooth progression between variety and sameness, and a voluptuous sense of the continuous,—‘linked sweetness long drawn out’. Observe the first and last lines of the stanza in theFaerie Queene, describing a shepherd brushing away the gnats;—the open and the closee’sin the one,

As gèntle shèpherd in swēēt ēventide—

and the repetition of the wordoft, and the fall from the vowela, into the twou’sin the other,—

She brushethoft, andoftdoth màr their mūrmŭrings.

So in his description of two substances in the handling, both equally smooth:

Each smoother seems than each, and each than each seems smoother.

An abundance of examples from his poetry will be found in the volume before us. His beauty revolves on itself with conscious loveliness. And Coleridge is worthy to be named with him, as the reader will see also, and has seen already. Let him take a sample meanwhile from the poem called theDay Dream! Observe both the variety and samenessof the vowels, and the repetition of the soft consonants:

My eyes make pictures when they’re shut:—I see a fountain, large and fair,A willow and a ruin’d hut,Andtheeandmeand Mary there.O Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow;Bend o’er us, like a bower, my beautiful green willow.

ByStraightforwardnessis meant the flow of words, in their natural order, free alike from mere prose, and from those inversions to which bad poets recur in order to escape the charge of prose, but chiefly to accommodate their rhymes. In Shadwell’s play ofPsyche, Venus gives the sisters of the heroine an answer, of which the following is theentiresubstance, literally, in so many words. The author had nothing better for her to say:

I receive your prayers with kindness, and will give success to your hopes. I have seen, with anger, mankind adore your sister’s beauty and deplore her scorn: which they shall do no more. For I’ll so resent their idolatry, as shall content your wishes to the full.

Now in default of all imagination, fancy, and expression, how was the writer to turn these words into poetry or rhyme? Simply by diverting them from their natural order, and twisting the halves of the sentences each before the other.

With kindness I your prayers receive,And to your hopes success will give.I have, with anger, seen mankind adoreYour sister’s beauty and her scorn deplore;Which they shall do no more.For their idolatry I’ll so resent,As shall your wishes to the full content!!

This is just as if a man were to allow that there was no poetry in the words, ‘How do you findyourself?’ ‘Very well, I thank you’; but to hold them inspired, if altered into

Yourself how do you find?Very well, you I thank.

It is true, the best writers in Shadwell’s age were addicted to these inversions, partly for their own reasons, as far as rhyme was concerned, and partly because they held it to be writing in the classical and Virgilian manner. What has since been called Artificial Poetry was then flourishing, in contradistinction to Natural; or Poetry seen chiefly through art and books, and not in its first sources. But when the artificial poet partook of the natural, or, in other words, was a true poet after his kind, his best was always written in his most natural and straightforward manner. Hear Shadwell’s antagonist Dryden. Not a particle of inversion, beyond what is used for the sake of emphasis in common discourse, and this only in one line (the last but three), is to be found in his immortal character of the Duke of Buckingham:

A man so various, that he seemed to beNot one, but all mankind’s epitome:Stiff in opinions,always in the wrong,Was everything by starts, and nothing long;But in the course of one revolving moonWas chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon:Then all for women, rhyming, dancing, drinking,Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.Blest madman!who could every hour employWith something new to wish or to enjoy!Railing and praising were his usual themes;And both, to show his judgement, in extremes:So over violent, or over civil,That every man with him was god or devil.In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;Nothing went unrewarded, but desert.Beggar’d by fools, whom still he found too late,He had his jest, and they had his estate.

Inversion itself was often turned into a grace in these poets, and may be in others, by the power of being superior to it; using it only with a classical air, and as a help lying next to them, instead of a salvation which they are obliged to seek. In jesting passages also it sometimes gave the rhyme a turn agreeably wilful, or an appearance of choosing what lay in its way; as if a man should pick up a stone to throw at another’s head, where a less confident foot would have stumbled over it. Such is Dryden’s use of the wordmight—the mere sign of a tense—in his pretended ridicule of the monkish practice of rising to sing psalms in the night.

And much they griev’d to see so nigh their hallThe bird that warn’d St. Peter of his fall;That he should raise his mitred crest on high,And clap his wings and call his familyTo sacred rites; and vex th’ ethereal powersWith midnight matins at uncivil hours;Nay more, his quiet neighbours should molestJust in the sweetness of their morning rest.

(What a line full of ‘another doze’ is that!)

Beast of a bird!supinely, when hemightLie snug and sleep, to rise before the light!What if his dull forefathers used that cry?Could he not let a bad example die?

I the more gladly quote instances like those of Dryden, to illustrate the points in question, because they are specimens of the very highest kind of writing in the heroic couplet upon subjects not heroical. As to prosaicalness in general, it is sometimes indulged in by young writers on the plea of its being natural; but this is a mereconfusion of triviality with propriety, and is usually the result of indolence.

Unsuperfluousnessis rather a matter of style in general, than of the sound and order of words: and yet versification is so much strengthened by it, and so much weakened by its opposite, that it could not but come within the category of its requisites. When superfluousness of words is not occasioned by overflowing animal spirits, as in Beaumont and Fletcher, or by the very genius of luxury, as in Spenser (in which cases it is enrichment as well as overflow), there is no worse sign for a poet altogether, except pure barrenness. Every word that could be taken away from a poem, unreferable to either of the above reasons for it, is a damage; and many such are death; for there is nothing that posterity seems so determined to resent as this want of respect for its time and trouble. The world is too rich in books to endure it. Even true poets have died of this Writer’s Evil. Trifling ones have survived, with scarcely any pretensions but the terseness of their trifles. What hope can remain for wordy mediocrity? Let the discerning reader take up any poem, pen in hand, for the purpose of discovering how many words he can strike out of it that give him no requisite ideas, no relevant ones that he cares for, and no reasons for the rhyme beyond its necessity, and he will see what blot and havoc he will make in many an admired production of its day,—what marks of its inevitable fate. Bulky authors in particular, however safe they may think themselves, would do well to consider what parts of their cargo they might dispense with in their proposed voyage down the gulfs of time; for many a gallant vessel, thoughtindestructible in its age, has perished;—many a load of words, expected to be in eternal demand, gone to join the wrecks of self-love, or rotted in the warehouses of change and vicissitude. I have said the more on this point, because in an age when the true inspiration has undoubtedly been reawakened by Coleridge and his fellows, and we have so many new poets coming forward, it may be as well to give a general warning against that tendency to an accumulation and ostentation ofthoughts, which is meant to be a refutation in full of the pretensions of all poetry less cogitabund, whatever may be the requirements of its class. Young writers should bear in mind, that even some of the very best materials for poetry are not poetry built; and that the smallest marble shrine, of exquisite workmanship, outvalues all that architect ever chipped away. Whatever can be so dispensed with is rubbish.

Varietyin versification consists in whatsoever can be done for the prevention of monotony, by diversity of stops and cadences, distribution of emphasis, and retardation and acceleration of time; for the whole real secret of versification is a musical secret, and is not attainable to any vital effect, save by the ear of genius. All the mere knowledge of feet and numbers, of accent and quantity, will no more impart it, than a knowledge of the ‘Guide to Music’ will make a Beethoven or a Paisiello. It is a matter of sensibility and imagination; of the beautiful in poetical passion, accompanied by musical; of the imperative necessity for a pause here, and a cadence there, and a quicker or slower utterance in this or that place, created by analogies of sound with sense, by thefluctuations of feeling, by the demands of the gods and graces that visit the poet’s harp, as the winds visit that of Aeolus. The same time and quantity which are occasioned by the spiritual part of this secret, thus become its formal ones,—not feet and syllables, long and short, iambics or trochees; which are the reduction of it to itslessthan dry bones. You might get, for instance, not only ten and eleven, but thirteen or fourteen syllables into a rhyming, as well as blank, heroical verse, if time and the feeling permitted; and in irregular measure this is often done; just as musicians put twenty notes in a bar instead of two, quavers instead of minims, according as the feeling they are expressing impels them to fill up the time with short and hurried notes, or with long; or as the choristers in a cathedral retard or precipitate the words of the chant, according as the quantity of its notes, and the colon which divides the verse of the psalm, conspire to demand it. Had the moderns borne this principle in mind when they settled the prevailing systems of verse, instead of learning them, as they appear to have done, from the first drawling and one-syllabled notation of the church hymns, we should have retained all the advantages of the more numerous versification of the ancients, without being compelled to fancy that there was no alternative for us between our syllabical uniformity and the hexameters or other special forms unsuited to our tongues. But to leave this question alone, we will present the reader with a few sufficing specimens of the difference between monotony and variety in versification, first from Pope, Dryden, and Milton, and next from Gay and Coleridge. The following is the boasted melody of the neverthelessexquisite poet of theRape of the Lock,—exquisite in his wit and fancy, though not in his numbers. The reader will observe that it is literallysee-saw, like the rising and falling of a plank, with a light person at one end who is jerked up in the briefer time, and a heavier one who is set down more leisurely at the other. It is in the otherwise charming description of the heroine of that poem:

On her white breast—a sparkling cross she wore,Which Jews might kiss—and infidels adore;Her lively looks—a sprightly mind disclose,Quick as her eyes—and as unfix’d as those;Favours to none—to all she smiles extends,Oft she rejects—but never once offends;Bright as the sun—her eyes the gazers strike,And like the sun—they shine on all alike;Yet graceful ease—and sweetness void of pride,Might hide her faults—if belles had faults to hide;If to her share—some female errors fall,Look on her face—and you’ll forget them all.

Compare with this the description of Iphigenia in one of Dryden’s stories from Boccaccio:

It happen’d—on a summer’s holiday,That to the greenwood shade—he took his way,For Cymon shunn’d the church—and used not much to pray.His quarter-staff—which he could ne’er forsake,Hung half before—and half behind his back;He trudg’d along—not knowing what he sought,And whistled as he went—for want of thought.By chance conducted—or by thirst constrain’d,The deep recesses of a grove he gain’d:—Where—in a plain defended by a wood,Crept through the matted grass—a crystal flood,By which—an alabaster fountain stood;And on the margent of the fount was laid—Attended by her slaves—a sleeping maid;Like Dian and her nymphs—when, tir’d with sport,To rest by cool Eurotas they resort.—The dame herself—the goddess well express’d,Not more distinguished by her purple vest—Than by the charming features of the face—And e’en in slumber—a superior grace:Her comely limbs—compos’d with decent care,Her body shaded—by a light cymar,Her bosom to the view—was only bare;Where two beginning paps were scarcely spied—For yet their places were but signified.—The fanning wind upon her bosom blows—To meet the fanning wind—the bosom rose;The fanning wind—and purling stream—continue her repose.

By chance conducted—or by thirst constrain’d,The deep recesses of a grove he gain’d:—Where—in a plain defended by a wood,Crept through the matted grass—a crystal flood,By which—an alabaster fountain stood;And on the margent of the fount was laid—Attended by her slaves—a sleeping maid;Like Dian and her nymphs—when, tir’d with sport,To rest by cool Eurotas they resort.—The dame herself—the goddess well express’d,Not more distinguished by her purple vest—Than by the charming features of the face—And e’en in slumber—a superior grace:Her comely limbs—compos’d with decent care,Her body shaded—by a light cymar,Her bosom to the view—was only bare;Where two beginning paps were scarcely spied—For yet their places were but signified.—The fanning wind upon her bosom blows—To meet the fanning wind—the bosom rose;The fanning wind—and purling stream—continue her repose.

For a further variety take, from the same author’sTheodore and Honoria, a passage in which the couplets are run one into the other, and all of it modulated, like the former, according to the feeling demanded by the occasion:

Whilst listening to the murmuring leaves he stood—More than a mile immers’d within the wood—At once the wind was laid.|—The whispering soundWas dumb.|—A rising earthquake rock’d the ground.With deeper brown the grove was overspread—A sudden horror seiz’d his giddy head—And his ears tinkled—and his colour fled.Nature was in alarm.—Some danger nighSeem’d threaten’d—though unseen to mortal eye.Unus’d to fear—he summon’d all his soul,And stood collected in himself—and whole:Not long.—

Nature was in alarm.—Some danger nighSeem’d threaten’d—though unseen to mortal eye.Unus’d to fear—he summon’d all his soul,And stood collected in himself—and whole:Not long.—

But for a crowning specimen of variety of pause and accent, apart from emotion, nothing can surpass the account, inParadise Lost, of the Devil’s search for an accomplice:

There was a plàce,Nòw nòt—though Sìn—not Tìme—fìrst wroùght the chànge,Where Tìgris—at the foot of Pàradise,Into a gùlf—shòt under ground—till pàrtRòse up a foùntain by the Trèe of Lìfe.Inwith the river sunk—andwìthitròseSàtan—invòlv’d in rìsing mìst—then soùghtWhère to lie hìd.—Sèa he had search’d—and làndFrom Eden over Pòntus—and the pòolMaeòtis—ùpbeyond the riverOb;Dòwnward as fàr antàrctic;—and in lèngthWèst from Oròntes—to the òcean bàrr’dAt Dàriën—thènce to the lànd whère flòwsGànges and Indus.—Thùs the òrb he ròam’dWith nàrrow sèarch;—and with inspèction dèepConsìder’d èvery crèature—whìch of àllMòst opportùne mìght sèrve his wìles—and foùndThe sèrpent—sùbtlest bèast of all the fièld.

If the reader cast his eye again over this passage, he will not find a verse in it which is not varied and harmonized in the most remarkable manner. Let him notice in particular that curious balancing of the lines in the sixth and tenth verses:

Inwith the river sunk, &c.

and

Upbeyond the riverOb.

It might, indeed, be objected to the versification of Milton, that it exhibits too constant a perfection of this kind. It sometimes forces upon us too great a sense of consciousness on the part of the composer. We miss the first sprightly runnings of verse,—the ease and sweetness of spontaneity. Milton, I think, also too often condenses weight into heaviness.

Thus much concerning the chief of our two most popular measures. The other, called octo-syllabic, or the measure of eight syllables, offered such facilities fornamby-pamby, that it had become a jest as early as the time of Shakespeare, whomakes Touchstone call it the ‘butterwoman’s rate to market’, and the ‘very false gallop of verses’. It has been advocated, in opposition to the heroic measure, upon the ground that ten syllables lead a man into epithets and other superfluities, while eight syllables compress him into a sensible and pithy gentleman. But the heroic measure laughs at it. So far from compressing, it converts one line into two, and sacrifices everything to the quick and importunate return of the rhyme. With Dryden, compare Gay, even in the strength of Gay,—

The wind was high, the window shakes;With sudden start the miser wakes;Along the silent room he stalks,

(A miser never ‘stalks’; but a rhyme was desired for ‘walks’)

Looks back, and trembles as he walks:Each lock and every bolt he tries,In every creek and corner pries;Then opes the chest with treasure stor’d,And stands in rapture o’er his hoard;

(‘Hoard’ and ‘treasure stor’d’ are just made for one another)

But now, with sudden qualms possess’d,He wrings his hands, he beats his breast;By conscience stung, he wildly stares,And thus his guilty soul declares.

And so he denounces his gold, as miser never denounced it; and sighs, because

Virtue resides on earth no more!

Coleridge saw the mistake which had been made with regard to this measure, and restored it to the beautiful freedom of which it was capable, by callingto mind the liberties allowed its old musical professors the minstrels, and dividing it bytimeinstead ofsyllables;—by thebeat of fourinto which you might get as many syllables as you could, instead of allotting eight syllables to the poor time, whatever it might have to say. He varied it further with alternate rhymes and stanzas, with rests and omissions precisely analogous to those in music, and rendered it altogether worthy to utter the manifold thoughts and feelings of himself and his lady Christabel. He even ventures, with an exquisite sense of solemn strangeness and licence (for there is witchcraft going forward), to introduce a couplet of blank verse, itself as mystically and beautifully modulated as anything in the music of Gluck or Weber.

’Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,And the owls have awaken’d the crowing cock;Tu-whit!—Tu-whoo!And hark, again! the crowing cock,How drowsily he crew.Sir Leoline, the baron rich,Hath a toothless mastiff bitch;From her kennel beneath the rockShe maketh answer to the clock,Fòur fŏr thĕ qùartĕrs ănd twèlve fŏr thĕ hoùr,Ever and aye, by shine and shower,Sixteen short howls, not over loud:Some say, she sees my lady’s shroud.Is the nìght chìlly and dàrk?The nìght is chìlly, but nòt dàrk.The thin grey cloud is spread on high,It covers, but not hides, the sky.The moon is behind, and at the full,And yet she looks both small and dull.The night is chilly, the cloud is grey;

Is the nìght chìlly and dàrk?The nìght is chìlly, but nòt dàrk.The thin grey cloud is spread on high,It covers, but not hides, the sky.The moon is behind, and at the full,And yet she looks both small and dull.The night is chilly, the cloud is grey;

(These are not superfluities, but mysterious returns of importunate feeling)

’Tis a month before the month of May,And the spring comes slowly up this way.The lovely lady, Christabel,Whom her father loves so well,What makes her in the wood so late,A furlong from the castle-gate?She had dreams all yesternightOf her own betrothèd knight;And shè ĭn thĕ midnight wood will prayFor the wèal ŏf hĕr lover that’s far away.She stole along, she nothing spoke,The sighs she heav’d were soft and low,And nought was green upon the oak,But moss and rarest mistletoe;She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,And in silence prayeth she.The lady sprang up suddenly,The lovely lady, Christabel!It moan’d as near as near can be,But what it is, she cannot tell.On the other side it seems to beOf thĕ hùge, broàd-breàsted, òld oàk trèe.The night is chill, the forest bare;Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?

She had dreams all yesternightOf her own betrothèd knight;And shè ĭn thĕ midnight wood will prayFor the wèal ŏf hĕr lover that’s far away.

She stole along, she nothing spoke,The sighs she heav’d were soft and low,And nought was green upon the oak,But moss and rarest mistletoe;She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,And in silence prayeth she.

The lady sprang up suddenly,The lovely lady, Christabel!It moan’d as near as near can be,But what it is, she cannot tell.On the other side it seems to beOf thĕ hùge, broàd-breàsted, òld oàk trèe.

The night is chill, the forest bare;Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?

(This ‘bleak moaning’ is a witch’s)

There is not wind enough in the airTo move away the ringlet curlFrom the lovely lady’s cheek—There is not wind enough to twirlThe òne rèd lèaf, the làst ŏf ĭts clan,That dàncĕs ăs òftĕn ăs dànce it càn,Hàngĭng sŏ lìght and hàngĭng sŏ hìgh,On thĕ tòpmost twìg thăt loŏks ùp ăt thĕ sky.Hush, beating heart of Christabel!Jesu Maria, shield her well!She folded her arms beneath her cloak,And stole to the other side of the oak.What sees she there?There she sees a damsel bright,Drest in a robe of silken white,That shadowy in the moonlight shone:The neck that made that white robe wan,Her stately neck and arms were bare:Her blue-vein’d feet unsandall’d were;And wildly glitter’d, here and there,The gems entangled in her hair.I guess ’twasfrightfulthere to seeA lady so richly clad as she—Beautiful exceedingly.

Hush, beating heart of Christabel!Jesu Maria, shield her well!She folded her arms beneath her cloak,And stole to the other side of the oak.What sees she there?

There she sees a damsel bright,Drest in a robe of silken white,That shadowy in the moonlight shone:The neck that made that white robe wan,Her stately neck and arms were bare:Her blue-vein’d feet unsandall’d were;And wildly glitter’d, here and there,The gems entangled in her hair.I guess ’twasfrightfulthere to seeA lady so richly clad as she—Beautiful exceedingly.

The principle of Variety in Uniformity is here worked out in a style ‘beyond the reach of art’. Everything is diversified according to the demand of the moment, of the sounds, the sights, the emotions; the very uniformity of the outline is gently varied; and yet we feel thatthe whole is one and of the same character, the single and sweet unconsciousness of the heroine making all the rest seem more conscious, and ghastly, and expectant. It is thus thatversification itself becomes part of the sentiment of a poem, and vindicates the pains that have been taken to show its importance. I know of no very fine versification unaccompanied with fine poetry; no poetry of a mean order accompanied with verse of the highest.

As to Rhyme, which might be thought too insignificant to mention, it is not at all so. The universal consent of modern Europe, and of the East in all ages, has made it one of the musical beauties of verse for all poetry but epic and dramatic, and even for the former with Southern Europe,—a sustainment for the enthusiasm, and a demand to enjoy. The mastery of it consists in never writing it for its own sake, or at least never appearing to do so; in knowing how to vary it,to give it novelty, to render it more or less strong, to divide it (when not in couplets) at the proper intervals, to repeat it many times where luxury or animal spirits demand it (see an instance in Titania’s speech to the Fairies), to impress an affecting or startling remark with it, and to make it, in comic poetry, a new and surprising addition to the jest.

Large was his bounty and his soul sincere,Heav’n did a recompense as largely send;He gave to misery all he had,a tear;He gain’d from heav’n (’twas all he wish’d)a friend.Gray’sElegy.

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