Comparatively rare as unrhymed staves are in any form, in quick metre they are hardly found at all; certainly not to the extent they deserve. In the following little piece, every line, except the commencing, has one march foot and one quick with the odd syllable; written continuously this would make a quick succession throughout : In the convent of Drontheim, Alone in her chamber Knelt Astred the abbess, Now lost in the distance.-LONGFELLOW. The following is about the most harmonious and altogether most satisfactory combination of mixed feet anywhere met with: O mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies, Whose Titan angels Gabriel, Abdiel, Rings to the roar of an angel onset.-TENNYSON. The quickness in the above, it may be seen, is confined to the foot before the last, and to the first, second, and fourth lines respectively. The conclusion of a verse by a quick foot, succeeded by a slow one constituting the fall cadence, is a most pleasing form when not overdone; it might often perhaps serve as a finish to a stave otherwise of march metre, thus: Or again: None else was with them in that hour Save God and that little child. With curious faces carved upon their front The hover, also most undeservedly neglected in general, may be remarked on as forming the last foot in the longer lines of the stave by Tennyson above quoted; but at the end of a verse its action is far other from what it is in the word 'upon' just cited, where its enlivening effect pronounced naturally nearly equals that of a quick foot. X. THE STAVE RHYMED. FROM their very great number and diversity rhymed staves cannot be so briefly dismissed as the unrhymed, their multiplicity having, in fact, given more trouble of arrangement than any other part of the present task. The plan that has been finally pursued is to group them after their most prominent peculiarities, and it is confidently hoped a way through the maze has at length been definitely traced. The subject from its extent takes several chapters to dispose of fully, beginning with the shortest and most definite forms. Here, as elsewhere, it has been found necessary to name as we go. What terms there are in existence, such as song, ode, lay, ballad, dirge, ditty, and even sonnet, do not primarily specify metrical varieties, but classes of composition. One of these, the sonnet, has indeed come to receive restricted application to the form in which the species is ordinarily moulded, and so the class term become limited to one particular variety, but it is somewhat of an exception. A metrical definition in set terms of any form may of course be given, so many lines of such a length in such a metre arranged so and so, and rhymed so and so, but the need of having recourse to such a roundabout description only makes the want of a proper name doubly apparent. (1.) The first class of stave may be described as any of the continuous forms previously given, subdivided without further alteration. If rhymed in couplets, the stave will then be generally of two, three, or four couplets; if of alternate rhyming, as far more commonly, it is then of single or double quatrain length, as may be. This class may for the most part be passed over without further comment, as already sufficiently illustrated; it includes the majority of songs, ballads, and minor odes, &c., for which reason be it denominated the staple form. Of lines of different length alternated, the only combinations of any frequency are those of four and three feet in all metres already exemplified. The following is an instance of five and three-foot thus arranged, somewhat rare comparatively :— I heard the trailing garments of the Night I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light I felt her presence, by its spell of might, The calm majestic presence of the Night, As of the one I love.-LONGFELLOW. Or the counter-form of the same, beginning with the short line, as in the piece of Sir W. Jones: What constitutes a state ? Not high-raised battlement and laboured mound. Where the difference between the length of the alternating lines is greater than this, the shorter has much of the character of a refrain : And my own heart is as the lute I now am waking; Wound to too fine and high a pitch, They both are breaking. And of the song what memory An echo, like a passing thought Silence, forgetfulness, and rest, Lute, are for thee, And such my lot; neglect, the grave, These are for me.-LETITIA LANDON. In this with a greater inequality still more so: Perjured, false, treacherous Love.-LONGFELLOW. (2.) Verses are sometimes arranged in triplets, thus :— A still small voice spake unto me, Thou art so full of misery Were it not better not to be? Then to the still small voice I said, What is so wonderfully made.-TENNYSON. Or thus, the middle line of one triplet rhyming with the middle of the next : It was my fate to reach a brook at last Which, by sweet-scented bushes fenced around, Inclined to rest and hear the wild bird's song, I stretched myself upon the brook's soft bound, And there I fell asleep and slumbered long.-G. BORROW. Occasionally the inner verses of a quatrain rhyme together, and the outer together: You ask me why, though ill at ease, And languish for the purple seas. It is the land that freemen till, That sober-suited freedom chose, The land where, girt with friends and foes, A man may speak the thing he will.-TENNYSON. This arrangement, perhaps best styled outabout, is seldom found by itself, oftener as part of a longer stanza. (3.) A very large number of staves have the general formation of couplet, triplet, or quatrain, alternated with lines of the same or different lengths, generally rhyming together. There is a word, roundel, which it is proposed to adopt outof-hand for this group in all phases. Rondo and roundelay will still be left if required to supply its place, in the old halfforgotten meaning of a song that began with the burden with which it ended. "Tis most certain By their flirting, Women oft have envy shown; Pleased to ruin Others wooing, Never happy in their own.-GAY. |